For more and more professions, a bachelor’s degree is just the beginning.
“To get better jobs and to better position yourself in industry today, it’s almost like master’s degrees are required,” says Provost Russell Pinizzotto.
The number of master’s degrees awarded has doubled in the US over the past three decades, according to the Council of Graduate Schools, which also projects that between 2010 and 2020, 2.6 million jobs will require an advanced degree—900,000 of those calling for a master’s degree.
Wentworth’s first graduate program, the Master of Architecture, began in fall 2009. It was followed by master’s programs in construction management in 2010 and facility management this fall.
“Wentworth has always moved along with the times to offer the education required for students to have really good careers, and not just have really good jobs,” says Pinizzotto. “And if you look around, it’s clear that people with master’s degrees are definitely ahead of the game when it comes to career development and advancement.”
Here’s a look at how students and alumni from Wentworth’s new programs are using their education to move forward.
When Stephanie Rogowski, BSA ’09, MARC ’10, is working on fast-moving projects and juggling opportunities as an architectural designer at New Haven’s Pickard Chilton, she’s reminded of what she loved so much about the master’s in architecture program at Wentworth.
“You go to Wentworth and the students are just driven as a whole,” says Rogowski. “I have a unique situation where my place of employment has that same atmosphere and that same energy.”
At Wentworth, that atmosphere was the result of intimate class sizes, studio spaces, and working professors.
“I think they have a work ethic that a lot of schools just don’t have,” says Rogowski. “The studio space was really enticing to see—students working around the clock and all of them with smiles on their faces.”
Chuckling, Rogowski recalls a quintessential experience: In the final weeks before thesis projects were due, students would take turns cooking for the rest of the group.
“People were maximizing their efficiency and their eating schedules!” Rogowski says. “When you get a bunch of people together who all enjoy what they do, you succeed, you jump on the bandwagon, and you’re in it. It’s a support network.”
After two Wentworth degrees and almost fifteen years of work in the field, Peter Walsh, MSCM ’14, headed back to his alma mater to make the next step.
“I’ve been advancing on the field side for most of my career,” says Walsh. “The masters program in construction management gives me more of the business side.”
According to Walsh, returning to Wentworth was an easy choice.
“The Wentworth name trades very well,” says Walsh. “Plus, I had a great experience here at the undergrad level, and I really appreciated the opportunity to get a master’s degree in something that I was interested in.”
So far, Walsh has been enjoying the construction law class, which helps him navigate the finer points of construction contracts. The course on forward construction thinking has also offered Walsh insight into new business ideas like lean production—an efficient manufacturing model made famous by Japanese car-makers in the late 1980’s. And Walsh says that the program allows him to put these ideas into action the very next day.
“I’m applying these lessons concurrently,” he says. “I don’t have to wait for the piece of paper to start implementing them.”
Facilities management, says Mike Moran, MSFM ’14, is still misunderstood by the general public.
“I think a lot of people don’t even realize the amount of legwork that goes into supporting a business’s operations and helping organizations evolve from the ground up,” says Moran, a Boston-based facility manager at global real estate giant CBRE Corporate Commercial Real Estate Services.
Moran used to be one of them. But seven years ago, this son of a retired police officer and a nurse practitioner took a job reporting to the director of facilities at a Colorado ski resort in Steamboat Springs, and ended up discovering a career.
“A facility has to complement what the business is trying to do,” says Moran. “You’re really contributing first-hand to the success of the business and employee satisfaction.”
Today, Moran classifies himself as at the mid-management level in his career, and he’s eager to find a way to climb to a position that matches his ambition for facility management and commercial real estate. That’s where Wentworth’s new master’s degree in facility management fits in.
“Now that I’ve embarked on a career and know what I want to do, I thought the facilities program was the best step for me,” says Moran. “At CBRE, I’m learning a lot of the best in practice methods for facilities management and facility engineering. Wentworth’s program is a nice complement to that.”
—Kimberly Thorpe and Dan Morrell
