Interests: Graduate School, Technology and Operations Management, Harvard Business School, Analytics
Omar Olivarez, originally from a rural town in the Rio Grande Valley, graduated from The University of Texas in 2018 with a degree in Management Information Systems and a certificate in Computer Science. Omar decided to be a Longhorn because of the prestigious honors program within McCombs. Omar always had plans to have a career in business, and after learning more about Canfield Business Honors, he felt it was the right fit.
Now in the second year of his Ph.D. program, Omar studies within the department of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School. He aims to create research that informs and transforms how people can work alongside advanced technologies.
Omar reminisces about his upperclassman years at UT, where he conducted social psychology research. This experience in his undergraduate years sparked his interest in pursuing a Ph.D. He recalls explicitly that his Management Information Systems class, Big Data and Analytics, was an impetus for his current research and interest in the field.
Omar has some words of wisdom for current Canfield Business Honors Program students, “Sometimes, we have a goal, reach for it, and fall short. In many cases, nothing is stopping us from reaching for those goals again. For example, if you have a company you’d like to intern at but don’t make the intern class, you could apply there again for their full-time positions. And if you don’t make it into their full-time positions upon graduating, you could try applying again after some industry experience. A personal anecdote: after working in technology for a few years, a Google recruiter invited me to interview with them out of the blue. I got the job and had fun working there before my Ph.D. I wouldn’t have imagined that an opportunity that would shake things up and give me a new direction would appear out of thin air. We get many opportunities to take on fun careers throughout our lives”.
In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, the Canfield Business Honors Program will be showcasing some of our Hispanic/Latinx students and alumni from September 15th through October 15.