Pace setters: Graduate profiles
Judy Spunt wants to make sure people get the right idea about her.
Spunt, among the first graduates of UBC's revamped Master of Business and Administration program, is now working for Andersen Consulting. But she's quick to point out that there's much more to her life than work.
To show that even an engineer with a new MBA and a demanding work schedule is able to maintain a life outside the office, Spunt runs down a list of her interests and accomplishments.
After graduating with an engineering degree in metallurgy and material science from the University of Toronto, Spunt travelled to Japan where she taught English before gaining a scholarship for an international engineering research program in Kyoto.
During her two years in Japan, Spunt undertook engineering research, studied Japanese language and culture, won an international Scrabble tournament and learned to play Taiko drums, used by dragon boat paddlers to maintain rhythm.
Showing management potential even then, Spunt picked up drumming skills so she could leave the paddling to others while helping set the pace. Even so, she became an avid paddler and, on returning to Toronto, established the Just-In-Time dragon boat team that, five years later, is still competing.
Spunt came to UBC in 1995 to do her MBA after determining the revamped 15-month program best suited her needs.
"UBC was my first choice," she says. "The Vancouver location, the university's strong Asian connections, and the breadth of exchange opportunities, were all important factors in my decison. Additionally, the smaller class size in the redesigned MBA was appealing. It fostered close relationships both within the class and with the faculty."
Spunt, who specialized in management information systems (MIS), says the program's core -- in which faculty with varied expertise teach together to give students a broader perspective on business cases -- provided students with an awareness of the cross-functional nature of management issues found in a real-world setting.
The knowledge gained will allow Spunt to tackle the sort of problems she encountered while working as an engineering consultant in Toronto, she says, particularly the challenge of bridging the communication gap between the technical and functional units in a company.
She spent her internship working with Andersen, designing a Web-based customer support application for an Internet service and content provider, and was hired as a permanent employee following completion of the internship period. The company then gave her a leave of absence to complete the academic portion of her MBA.
She took advantage of the program's exchange option to spend her final semester studying in Hong Kong and then travelled in Vietnam, China and Thailand.
She's now back at Andersen where she plans to continue working on Internet-related projects.