What Exactly is GIX? Reflections Three Years After Graduation

This post is translated by Claude, so take it with a grain of salt

If you haven't read my first article, you can read it here before proceeding with this one.

Alumni Reunion

Two and a half years after graduating from GIX, I've maintained contact with the school and new students, observing changes in each cohort. I consider myself an honorary alumnus of Happy Hour – juniors say they'll see me wherever there's food, after all, I still need to make up for all the meals I missed during the pandemic lol

A month ago, GIX held its first Alumni Reunion since its founding. After attending, I had some thoughts. I initially wanted to write a brief update, but as I wrote, it turned into a full article. So let me share an update for those interested in this Program to have more reference points.

After attending the Reunion, I gained a new understanding of GIX. Many things that seemed unreasonable and that I had complained about before suddenly made sense from a different perspective.

A New Understanding of GIX

This new perspective is understanding GIX as an MBA variant highly connected to the tech industry.

Why do I say this? Many people choose MBA programs after working for a while, wanting to switch careers or become managers. More often, it's about building networks and paving the way for future career development.

GIX shares these characteristics, suitable for career transitions and even entrepreneurship, especially in tech startups. The curriculum is broad but not deep, and the program isn't long – it's designed to quickly supplement, adjust, and explore for people with some work experience, rather than trying to teach complex concepts thoroughly.

Projects forcefully make you go through all processes from Design to Development, simulating a complete Product cycle to practice this framework. During school, these seemed annoying and redundant. But after working, I realized this is exactly what daily work looks like, and sometimes when steps are skipped, it feels like something's missing.

Creating Network Connections

Another profound realization from this Reunion was the network GIX creates. Due to GIX's interdisciplinary nature, all alumni have developed in very different directions. There are engineers at major companies, designers in the medical industry, Heads of Product at startups, and even someone doing Maker education in Africa.

Just in these five years since the school's founding, there are so many interesting people with fascinating experiences. I'll definitely attend future Reunions to see everyone's development and learn from others. I can confidently say, seeing this Reunion, GIX has built a diverse, rich, and high-value Community.

What's the catch?

However, there's always a but... While GIX likely has a positive impact on long-term career development, it might not have many short-term benefits, and could even be detrimental, especially for new grads or international students.

GIX isn't a career training center, but rather a career waypoint. It can provide resources but won't hand-hold you to success. The interdisciplinary nature necessarily requires you to divide your attention across different directions.

Two types of people are particularly unsuited for GIX

First, people who want to deeply specialize in a specific field and have no interest in other areas For example, if you want to be a pure technical engineer or pursue a Ph.D. GIX will constantly distract you with other fields, and you won't be able to learn deeply in your chosen area. You'll waste a lot of time. Please consider carefully.

Second, people who just want to use it as a stepping stone to work in the US If you just want a degree and OPT, planning to coast through classes and spend most time leetcoding and job hunting, GIX is definitely not a good choice. GIX doesn't have a strong reputation in any specific field that would directly help with job hunting. Courses require significant effort, and you can't skip assignments or projects. Trying to coast through GIX will make you miserable, make your project teammates miserable, and make the school miserable. Please think twice.

This isn't meant to discourage, but sincere advice not to make things difficult for yourself. I've heard many cases already, whether feeling wronged by GIX or by teammates.

What about New Grads and International Students?

As a new grad or international student, finding a job and getting a visa to stay in the US is probably the core goal for most people. GIX provides more comprehensive skill development, including cross-disciplinary communication, understanding the entire product development process, how to present/demo your ideas and progress.

Compared to single-discipline programs, when job hunting, you might lack some hard skills demonstration, which new grads particularly need. As someone who's been through this, I believe successfully finding a job after graduating from GIX requires considerable independent effort. Hard skills still depend on yourself, not just the school.

Preparing your resume and portfolio outside of class is basic. Course projects are implementation opportunities – if you just do the minimum to pass, the results will be limited. If you can apply what you want to learn, it's a chance to improve both your abilities and resume quality. (Like how I was fortunate to find a job through a Project – our tech stack highly overlapped, giving me an opportunity)

GIX alumni can provide various resources, but you need to actively seek suitable people and ask questions to get the help you want.

Conclusion

If you're still interested in this Program after reading this far, let me share my final thoughts.

Even now in its seventh cohort, GIX is still a new Program with many existing issues in curriculum design, faculty, etc., with much room for improvement. Recently they've been seeking alumni input for program development, showing efforts to grow. Each cohort is slightly different, like now having summer internship opportunities. You can refer to new students' shared experiences.

If you do come... You must be prepared to face many challenges and difficulties, work in fields you're not good at, and communicate and collaborate with people from different backgrounds. Often, the school won't provide what you want, and you'll need to spend more time relying on yourself to achieve your goals.

On the other hand, when you're willing to invest time and effort, actively participate in Projects, try working with different people, and implement content beyond requirements, you'll find that the more you invest, the more returns you get. You might better understand yourself, improve career-necessary skills, and build diverse and lasting connections.

The more you invest, the more you get.