Joining Tech Next
Opportunity for the next DaVinci. It’s that simple.
With each year’s team, we strive to bring together a multi-dimensional diverse group of WMU students that desire a quest for openness in ideas and experiences, critical thinking, and be willing to engage in experimentation that encourages positive failure equally with success.
Extroversion not required. Each team is split between extroverts, ambiverts, and introverts. Each brings a special “mental process” to the team.
GPA vs. Intelligence. Without going to the wonkish side, we look for intelligence with resilience. There are many types of intelligence and not all correlate with GPA. That said, even without looking at GPA you will find that our teams have included some of the finest academically astute students at WMU. From 2018 to 2021, the team included four students using their team membership to strengthen their Honors College Thesis research.
Impacting The Student
Learning and Thinking
from
Experience and Experiment
Stanford Professor Steve Blank admonishes his entrepreneurial students to “get the **** out of the building”. You learn nothing about potential customers sitting in the building. The same can be said in academics. The Haworth College of Business and Dean Satish Deshpande have taken this to heart with dozens of different faculty efforts that get students pushing beyond our excellent classes and out of the classroom.
This team gives students the opportunity to learn about the potential, successes and failures of technology along with personal experience of WMU alumni from alumni themselves. Students will learn how the alumni got where they are today, learn hands-on how specific management styles and technology integration have worked and failed in today’s leading companies on the West Coast.
Outcomes
Work!
Experience!
Think!
Learn!
Apply!
While many from the outside see only the “fun” side of travel, visiting great companies and alumni, but the reality is, it is 95% work (investment in their future).
Underlying each team is rigorous academics (taught/experienced in and out of classroom) with curriculum based on tomorrow not today or yesterday. Our TechNext-WMU teams are run out of advanced Management Classes and Graduate Computer Information Systems sections of classes taught by Barcley Johnson. The average team member devotes twice the amount of time to these classes than many others.