By Louis DiPietro
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Sharp intuition, confidence, and adaptability are a potent recipe for professional success. A dash of luck doesn’t hurt either. Together, this recipe has fueled Mingyi Shao, MPS ’24, through the often common twists and turns of the academic and professional journey. 

Today, Shao is a software development engineer at Amazon – a job she secured earlier this summer after completing Cornell University’s Master of Professional Studies in Information Science program. 

“I chose the MPS program because I liked its flexible curriculum,” Shao said from her new home in Seattle. “It touched a lot of different areas in tech. That appealed to me, being someone who didn’t have the opportunity to explore tech in undergrad.” 

Even before her senior year as a physics major, Shao knew she’d be pursuing tech in graduate school. Computer science was an initial consideration, until she discovered information science, which explores the human side of computing. Information science, she felt, was an accessible bridge into tech for someone coming from the natural sciences.  

Despite her initial concern that she’d be a black sheep – the physics major with some technical background surrounded by tech-savvy MPS peers – Shao was put at ease once she arrived at the Cornell campus in Ithaca. 

“All of my peers had come from different backgrounds,” she said. There were students from diverse fields and with diverse interests – entrepreneurs, data scientists, legal scholars, designers, and more – all bringing unique experiences and aiming to expand their expertise in the program.

A Close-Knit Community

“Our MPS class was a close-knit community. On top of classes and projects, we had MPS social events every couple of months, so I got to meet a lot of the other students, and that was a big part of the program for me, too: it gave me the opportunity to just talk to people from different backgrounds.”

Mingyi Shao, MPS ’24

“Our MPS class was a close-knit community. On top of classes and projects, we had MPS social events every couple of months, so I got to meet a lot of the other students,” she said. “And that was a big part of the program for me, too: it gave me the opportunity to just talk to people from different backgrounds.”

Shao opted to complete the MPS program in three semesters and designed her curriculum around two of the four optional tracks for MPS students: Data Science and Interactive Technologies. She took the MPS project practicum twice in two separate semesters. For her first project, she and her teammates worked with a global sustainability company to design algorithms to assist with company research. For her second project, Shao and her student team worked alongside Microsoft to build a simple game in C#, Microsoft’s object-oriented programming language. 

“The MPS project is a nice bridge between academia and industry,” she said. “We’re still working in groups and with our peers, but we are creating technologies for our clients and communicating with them. That gave us a taste of what industry experience would be like.”

Shao began looking for jobs in the Spring 2024 semester, her second MPS semester, but her search was not like the incessant, coffee-fueled grind of other MPS alumni. Her steady approach was intentional, she said. 

“I did my undergraduate pretty much throughout COVID time, so when I was doing the MPS, I thought, ‘Maybe I should enjoy my time on campus and being a student one last time,’” she said. “I just took the classes I was interested in and pretty much distributed them evenly across three semesters.”

She also joined the choir, tried tree climbing in the fall, snowboarding and sledding in the winter, and savored walks around the Cornell campus. 

She conducted a handful of virtual coffee chats with people in industry, and, together with Rebecca Salk, career services advisor for MPS students in information science, Shao brushed up her resume and LinkedIn page. When she graduated from the MPS in December 2024, Shao hadn’t yet secured a job. Then one morning, she came across a software development role at Amazon.

Shao had hesitations about whether she was suited for the job. But she realized that much of her academic and professional journey had involved taking risks and venturing into uncharted territory with a fair level of uncertainty. Yet each time, Shao succeeded – she had built skills, grew as a professional, and gained confidence. 

She applied.

To prepare, she worked with Salk, the go-to staffer for MPS students looking to ace interviews, revamp resumes, and polish portfolios. After a series of interviews, Shao landed the job and joined Amazon, where she now focuses on software maintenance and testing, and collaborates with the product team to develop new features.

To current and prospective MPS students, Shao suggests talking to as many people as they can during their time in the MPS program – professors, career advisors like Salk, peers, recruiters, and alumni. 

“As an international student navigating a new cultural and linguistic environment, I was still learning the rhythm of conversations and building confidence in expressing my thoughts. That hesitation to speak was sometimes misinterpreted as shyness,” she said. “But throughout this program, I grew alongside my peers and became more comfortable sharing my ideas, and many conversations broadened my career perspective.” 

Don’t hesitate to ask for help, she added.

“People think, ‘If I ask for help, I might be seen as incompetent.’ Asking for help is a skill,” she said. “When I first started in the industry, that was the first thing people said to me: Don’t hesitate to ask for help.”

Shao also knows that unexpected challenges can come up along the way.

“There are a lot of factors that are beyond our control. Don’t let that stop you from enjoying the program and your time at Cornell,” she said. “Just be patient and believe in yourself, then take every opportunity you can get.” 

Connect with Mingyi on LinkedIn

Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.