Making the Most of Her Spartan Experience

Last Updated May 28, 2020

Your journey is your journey. At first glance, Monica Johnson’s personal, educational and professional journeys may appear to follow “non-traditional” paths. For Monica, that has only reinforced her belief “that regardless of the circumstances you may start with in life, you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it.”

Adopted at an early age, Monica “didn’t have that early childhood education that most people have, so I started a little bit behind the curve. My adopted mom made sure to instill in me the value of education.”

When it came time for college, “I didn’t have a traditional undergrad experience,” she continues. “I worked full time. I started out in a community college doing my gen ed classes, and then I transferred to a four-year college and did a lot of night school and online school.”

When she made the decision to continue her education and pursue her graduate degree, Monica “did a lot of research…before picking my graduate degree program. And everywhere that I looked, MSU was always at the top of the list for programs.”

MSU’s hybrid Master of Science in Supply Chain Management checked all the boxes for Monica: a consistently top-ranked program, the on-campus experience she craved and the online flexibility she needed.

“It really fit in well with what I was looking for,” she says. “The ability to go to the university and feel like you’re part of the university, but also have it fit in with my very busy work schedule.”

Broad Knowledge-base, Deeper Understanding

Monica’s “busy work schedule” as a strategic sourcing analyst with a government contractor means she wears many hats, working in “supplier development, supplier relationships, long-term agreements with them and I help the tactical buyers in cost negotiations.”

It’s a role that requires “a lot of problem-solving and mitigation and helping us achieve our company-wide goals…attention to details, being able to collaborate, understanding the needs of my companies but also strengths and weaknesses of suppliers that may potentially be getting business from us,” Monica explains.

“You need to be able to multi-task, you need to be able to project plan, because not a lot of things are ‘done’—they don’t start on one day and end on another—so you need to be able to keep track of your open action items, and a little bit of mentorship because the ultimate goal is for the buyers to manage their supplier.”

Monica has already applied new methods and tools from her courses that have proven to be “very, very helpful.” The strategic sourcing course has provided “new ideas about how I can approach different suppliers,” she says. “We worked on an excel spreadsheet that I was able to take back to my job and show them the best value analysis…”

Demonstrating that “value analysis” has added weight for Monica, as she explains, “In the government world, we have to justify all our spending, and if it’s not lowest cost, we have to justify was it because of lead time, was it because of better quality, and having data to back up those decisions… I was able to show that to my manager and we developed something that we could start using as a tool.”

Being able to bring this kind of knowledge back to her organization is an important part of why Monica is pursuing her graduate education at MSU.

“This is an investment in myself, but it’s also an investment to my company,” she says. “They’re helping me make this investment, so I want to be able to bring the value back to my company and share the knowledge that I’ve gained here.”

“All of the classes are broadening my knowledge-base of the supply chain,” she continues. “Because supply chain just isn’t procurement, which is the area of supply chain that I’m at. Having a broad knowledge of all steps of the supply chain is going to help me better serve my company so that I have understanding of every step of the supply chain…”

Connection, Camaraderie and Spartan Pride

Along the program courses and curriculum, much of the “broadening of my knowledgebase” has also come from sharing professional insights with her peers in the program.

“Being able to get together with my peers, discuss the classes, and we’re all working professionals, so being able to discuss theory in supply chain and different things like that, it’s really enriching,” says Monica.  

It’s a “camaraderie” that provides both new perspectives and needed support: “When you’re struggling on an assignment we message back and forth. After finals everybody says congratulations on making it through, or we message about going on vacation, so we’ve cultivated a really close group and we keep in contact daily, so when we go up to MSU it’s like we just pick up where we left off.”

As Monica has discovered, it’s shared Spartan Pride that brings everyone together.

“Being a Spartan to me is about…encouraging people, about family, and that’s one of the things I felt immediately with my professors and with everybody that supports the program—you immediately feel welcomed, you immediately understand Spartan Pride is a real thing,” says Monica. “It’s the culture at MSU, and you get pulled right into it.”

“I never bought any college paraphernalia before,” she says, thinking of her previous college experiences. But now?

Monica wears Green, White and her Spartan heart on her sleeve. “I have multiple Spartan shirts, I have a Spartan jacket now and I got a little decal for my car, so there’s a huge sense of pride about being a Spartan.”

Ready to be a part of SCM at MSU?