How did I get here?

You may be wondering how I ever ended up choosing the Heller MBA as opposed to the many other public/social service degrees out there. Now that I'm halfway through my second semester, I should probably share this information with you!

As a senior undergraduate, I applied and was accepted to graduate programs in Higher Education Administration and Student Affairs. My friends and mentors told me to take some time off from school and get some experience because I would be burned out after four years of intense academic work. Though I was reluctant to do this, I ended up taking their advice.

After graduating, I worked as an AmeriCorps*VISTA member in the Center for Experiential Learning at Allegheny College, my alma mater. I buckled down and got situated in my new role on Allegheny’s campus, working with students to plan service events, running a tutoring program in local elementary schools and functioning as part of the college’s student affairs staff. About a month into my year of service, I realized that I was indeed quite burned out from my undergraduate experience. I was incredibly grateful to not be trudging through a graduate program at that point in my life.

The middle of my year of service came and went, and I was in no position to apply for admission to graduate school again for the upcoming fall semester. I was feeling unsure of my original desire to obtain a degree in higher education and wanted more time to find my focus. In light of this development, I stayed on with AmeriCorps*VISTA for another year, progressing to the position of a VISTA Leader. I wanted to gain more experience in the administrative and management aspects of VISTA than I had in my first year of service.

I knew at this point that I loved the work I was doing, but I wasn’t sure that higher education administration was a field I wanted to study in depth at the graduate level. I knew that I loved the students, their idealism to create change, and the community that I had built in small-town Meadville. I knew that I wanted to study ways in which to bring all of those things together more effectively and to use the resources that a community has to create change. I also knew that I had enjoyed my undergraduate major in Economics and somehow wanted to incorporate those skills into my next field of study.

I narrowed my interests to the fields of community development, nonprofit management or business. After further examination of several degree programs in each of these areas, I decided that a business degree would allow me to gain the management and technical skills that I was interested in, as well as experience in leadership and organizational behavior. I looked specifically for programs that had coursework or a concentration in community development or socially responsible business. I also examined the list of schools that match the AmeriCorps education award.

This list is precisely how I found Brandeis’ Heller School. When I looked at the website for this program and saw that Heller’s motto is “Managing for a Social Mission”, I was hooked! This seemed like the perfect fit for my interests and ambitions. I would be surrounded by people with diverse work and educational experiences, yet who all shared a common interest in social justice and mission-oriented work. My initial impressions were quite accurate, and here I am today - happily pursuing an MBA at Heller, meeting incredibly inspiring people and learning many of the skills that will help me to do the work that I want upon graduating.