STEMming into Business: Studying Business at NYU Tandon’s School of Engineering

Studying Business and Technology Management at Tandon has been one of the most unique experiences of my time at NYU. The major doesn’t fit neatly into one category. It’s not a traditional business degree like Stern, and it’s not a pure engineering program either. It lives right in the middle — blending analytical problem-solving with strategic thinking.

The classes are small, discussion-based, and highly interactive. In my Operations Management course, for example, we didn’t just read case studies. Instead, we debated real-world decisions about logistics, production, and efficiency. The classroom always felt alive with different perspectives and problem-solving styles. Yet everyone shared the same curiosity about how technology shapes business.

Because the BTM cohort is small, professors actually get to know you. I often stopped by office hours not just to ask about assignments, but also to talk about my career path. I still remember one professor who sat with me to edit my resume line by line. He helped me reframe my experience and show how my STEM background strengthened my business perspective. That conversation changed how I saw myself — not as someone caught between two worlds, but as someone who could connect them.

Outside of the classroom, many students joined Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs) — long-term, interdisciplinary teams that bring together students from different majors to solve complex problems. Collaborating with engineers, designers, and business analysts taught us how to balance creativity with practicality.

My sophomore summer was when everything started to click. I began interning at a nonprofit organization as an HR intern, helping with faculty engagement events, recruitment, and data organization. It was my first experience working on the people side of operations. Because I had a background in both STEM and business, I naturally viewed the organization as a system. Every decision in one department affected another. That perspective helped me see management as more than administration; it was about understanding how people and systems work together.

That experience led me to explore the human capital field more seriously. During my junior fall, I joined the another organization as the HR administrative intern. I took charge of onboarding, hiring, and documentation for multiple departments. Beyond the technical responsibilities, I found satisfaction in improving communication and workflow. Working closely with the headquarters team helped me see how small structural improvements could make big differences in employee experience and efficiency. As a result, I became even more motivated to pursue human-centered management.

Those experiences helped me find my direction. The BTM program gave me a way to understand organizations as living systems — combining the precision of data with the empathy of leadership.

That’s why so many BTM graduates succeed in diverse roles:
• Product Managers who balance business goals with technical innovation.
• Technology Consultants who translate data into strategy.
• Operations Managers who optimize processes and resources.
• Data Analysts who turn information into insight.
• Project Managers who coordinate across teams.
• Entrepreneurs who merge creativity and technology.
• FinTech professionals who combine finance and computation.

For me, that combination led to human capital management — a field that values both technical fluency and human understanding. Every internship, project, and class reminded me that the best organizations are the ones where people and systems work hand in hand.

Those experiences helped me find my direction. The BTM program gave me a way to understand organizations as living systems — combining the precision of data with the empathy of leadership. That’s why so many BTM graduates succeed in a wide range of roles:
• Product Managers who balance business goals with technical innovation.
• Technology Consultants who translate data into strategy.
• Operations Managers who optimize processes and resources.
• Data Analysts who turn information into insight.
• Project Managers who coordinate across teams.
• Entrepreneurs who merge creativity and technology to launch new ventures.
• FinTech professionals who combine finance and computation.