The UBC B+MM Dual Degree allows strategically focused achievers like Angela Sunario to combine a Bachelor’s Degree with a Master of Management and fast track their passion into a profession.
Meet Angela
Angela Sunario has long been passionate about science. Now, she’s using her experience in the 4.5-year-long B+MM Dual Degree Program to launch a promising career in management consulting in the healthcare sector.
Always striving to be ahead of the game, Angela has already undertaken work experience that prepared her to operate in the business world – all while pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Immunology.
“In my second year I interned at Deloitte Consulting in my home city of Jakarta, and more recently I took a co-op at STEMCELL Technologies,” she says. These offered valuable career networking opportunities as well as learnings that compliment both her B.Sc, and her MM studies in accounting, finance, marketing and strategic management.
Science and business are very different fields that require two different mindsets, explains Angela. “In science, you’re focusing on facts and evidence and a specific research methodology. In business, you’re looking at the whole ecosystem of an economy.”
By exploring the two disciplines simultaneously, she is able to take valuable lessons from one and translate them to the other.
"By doing my B.Sc. at the same time as an MM, I’m learning right now, how to apply my science knowledge to the area of management consulting I’m interested in."
Her experience
Throughout this journey, Angela has found personalized professional development support from UBC Sauder’s Hari B. Varshney Business Career Centre (BCC), and career coach, Erica Commons.
“Erica inspires me in the sense that she never gives me answers to my questions specifically, but she always encourages me to think about things in a different way in order to come up with the answer myself,” she says.
“Working with the BCC both as a student, and in my capacity of President of the B+MM Student Association has been a valuable learning lesson for me.”
Angela has found UBC Sauder’s culture of collaboration runs right through her classes as well.
“My professors are all very approachable,” she says. “They’ve made me feel as much a part of this community as my Science faculty, even though comparatively I’ve spent more time over there.”
In her classes, the atmosphere is lively, full of debate and discussion, in part thanks to the diversity of the students in her cohort.
“I’m taking business classes with people from sciences and arts, people who want to be everything from psychologists to scientists – having all of them share their unique take on a business problem is fascinating,” she says.
Building a career
Last year, Angela co-founded the B+MM Student Association and is currently serving her second term as president.
“I’m inspired by what we’re able to accomplish, like launching the Passion to Profession Talks, where student speakers share their paths towards career success,” she says. “Everything we’ve achieved so far has been very much a group effort.”
In the New Year, Angela will begin an internship at a global pharmaceutical company in Germany, where she’ll be working with their in-house business consulting group.
“It’s a perfect fit for the combination of my science background and business education,” she says.
“By doing my B.Sc. at the same time as an MM, I’m learning right now, how to apply my science knowledge to the area of management consulting I’m interested in.”