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Dave Barnett

Management Consultant, Class of '83

What do you do for a living and what's it like?

In my work as a management consultant, I help senior executives at global companies improve business performance and reduce operating cost. My primary focus is leading international teams in the design and implementation of organization structure change and business process redesign, while leveraging enabling technology. Before moving into management consulting, I worked in the computer software industry, including four years as a knowledge engineer at an artificial intelligence software company spun off from The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Why do you believe an English degree is relevant today?

In our digitally connected world, the scope for specialized mechanical thinking across our society and global workforce continues to expand. So the interdisciplinary skills honed on the English major’s journey—interpretation, analysis, communications—are becoming increasingly scarce … and valuable!

Any indelible Michigan memories?

Challenging all thinking during the course Art of the Film, Vietnam and the Artist.

Reciting, in Middle English, from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in Core I, Great English books.

Performing Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair in the Law Quad as the final project for our Shakespeare’s Rivals course. Following the performance, Professor Jensen hosted us at Dominick’s for a proper and thorough debrief.