Benedict Kohler ’23 Discusses His Role With McKinsey & Company

Kohler, a computer science and mathematics double major and student-athlete on the tennis team at Muhlenberg, was hired as a software engineer for the global management consulting firm.

By: Benedict Kohler ’23, as told to Meghan Kita  Wednesday, July 12, 2023 08:03 AM

A recent college graduate in a button-down shirt stands on a balcony with a city skyline in the backgroundBenedict Kohler ’23, a software engineer for McKinsey & Company

“I chose to study math and computer science at Muhlenberg because of my enjoyment for solving complex problems and hope that I’d be able to apply this knowledge across other domains that I’m passionate about such as tech, finance, business and health care. McKinsey & Company provides a unique opportunity to work with some of the most influential businesses and organizations in the world doing exactly this. I’ve already contributed to the development of a novel tech solution for one of the largest vision care companies worldwide.

[Associate Professor of Computer Science Jorge] Silveyra was a great mentor in helping me further develop my tech skills beyond the standard curriculum through competitive programming and research such as my [culminating undergraduate experience, or] CUE project on scaling blockchain systems. He also provided valuable advice on navigating tech interviews and job offers, which played a large role in obtaining my first internship as well as choosing McKinsey as my first job out of college. 

[Associate Professor of Mathematics William] Gryc provided me with a fantastic interdisciplinary opportunity for my independent math CUE where I was able to combine my programming skills with auction theory knowledge (from an earlier course taken with him) to derive and evaluate certain bidding strategies for standard auctions. Furthermore, Dr. Gryc always pushed me to do my best work in his classes — equipping me with deep critical reasoning skills. He also gave me some important guidance in determining which career path would be best suited to me.”