Chris Vogler

Contact

neq2nh@virginia.edu

Position, company, location, and industry

System Integrator & Engineering, SAIC, Chantilly, VA
Industry: National intelligence

How has the M.S. in MIT Program helped you create value in your current role or organization?

In my current position and role, I have been asked to create quantitative and qualitative metrics, establish databasing and associative analytics, as well as establish baseline and anomaly event-based-reporting. I have been relying on enterprise architecture fundamentals presented in the class throughout my project.

What strategies have worked best for balancing coursework with your full-time job and personal life?

I would say it’s been important for me to balance personal time for individual readings or assignments with demands of the team projects. Fortunately, the team and individual time needs have been easy to balance with me doing individual work in the mornings and team meetings or work in the evenings one to two times during the workweek, with make-up time on weekends, as needed. I find the bookend approach for my workday is working pretty well.

How have your classmates’ experiences and backgrounds enhanced your learning?

The sheer diversity of backgrounds and experiences has vastly added to my classroom experience and team learning. But also knowing that we have such great commonality regardless of industry and position boosts team and class comradery. Given that we aren’t together full time every week, the fact that we’ve been able to still come together has been a learning experience in and of itself.

Which course or module has had the greatest immediate impact on your thinking or work?

Having only taken the first module [Enterprise Architecture], it may be better to highlight the aspects of the module that I was able to immediately put into practice in my current role as system engineer and integrator. Because we’re developing performance metrics for product evaluation, data creation/collection and analysis have been central to this work. Knowledge of database design, data lakes, and statistical representations for ease of consumption and decision-making has been central to my ability to contribute to our organization’s success.

What made you choose a program like this at this point in your career?

I found that I was on a clear managerial track that put me in positions where I was managing personnel who contributed to large IT system capacity, security, and up-time. I was, in effect, managing a large IT enterprise consisting of large-scale infrastructure, hybrid-cloud engineering approaches, redundant and resilient comm pathways, and cybersecurity devices and employment. Having this level of managerial responsibility included the need to understand and respect the various teams that I was helping to manage. I decided MSMIT would give me the right amount of knowledge and experience to do so more effectively.

What has surprised you most about the learning experience so far?

My most pleasant surprise is how much we are able to learn from our peers and team members. I had imagined the limited amount of time in-person and the constraints of virtual meetings would inhibit the amount of mutual contributions and learning possible. However, I’ve been very pleased to find that I’m learning as much from my classmates as I am from the instruction and study materials.