Conference Helps TPOL Student See Link Between Theory and Practice

While participating in the recent meeting of the Council on Logistics and Management in Philadelphia, graduate student Osita Chidoka could visualize how his classroom experience at GMU will pay off once he begins working in the logistics field. After attending lectures, speaking with company executives and visiting a CVS pharmacy logistics facility, he became anxious to transfer the knowledge he has gained in his Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics (TPOL) courses into practice. “It inspired me to try some of the ideas I’ve learned and see how they would work in my country,” says Chidoka, a Nigerian native in his second semester of the SPP program.

Osita Chidoka

The conference also taught Chidoka some new ideas about how to develop successful logistics operations. The conference stressed the importance of tracking systems, worker safety and technology in the logistics field, he says.

“I was very grateful that I went,” he says. “I learned that you must constantly innovate to keep up to speed with customers’ demands,” says Chidoka, who was selected among a small group of students from across the country to attend the conference.

But Chidoka says the conference was a mere extension of his educational experience at Mason, where “the faculty is wide and varied. The program is giving me an opportunity to learn from people who have been in the field, not just academics,” he says.

After graduation, Chidoka plans to work as a logistics consultant for the Nigerian government. “I hope to enhance the government’s capacity to regulate the transportation and logistics industry,” he explains. “Also, with the knowledge I’ve gained, I hope to go into politics one day.”