The 'C' in MCE Stands for 'Classroom' for These Auburn Students

Auburn students at MCE
Joseph Terry/Transport Topics

It’s still a common question on college campuses when meeting a new student: “What’s your major?”

At Auburn University, when students answer, “Supply Chain Management,” they seldom get quizzical looks. 

“Everyone knows it’s the hot topic,” said Jared Gordon, a junior who is majoring in that program at Auburn’s Raymond J. Harbert College of Business.

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Gordon was one of 10 students who made a two-day field trip from Alabama to Orlando, Fla., to check out ATA’s Management Conference & Exhibition. About 350 students are in Auburn’s supply chain management program, and Prof. Brian Gibson says it graduates about 150 students per year. Their program is ranked among the top 10 in the country by two different ranking services. 

An important element to the program is the requirement of a summer internship. Senior Abby Hubbs spent last summer at Schneider. “It was a lot more broad than I imagined,” she said. “I learned there’s a lot more to it than moving trucks.”

Dustin Koehl, a LEAD ATA graduate who is vice president of sales and marketing at Total Transportation of Mississippi, helped facilitate the visit by the Auburn students, who were easy to spot in the exhibit hall, sporting shirts with Auburn’s navy blue and burnt orange school colors. 

The top takeaway from their MCE visit? “It’s the number of different kinds of opportunities that trucking has to offer,” said senior Kevin Jewell.