Susie Baker
Marketing & Management Track
(Religious Studies and Journalism '09, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
What can a Religious Studies major do with an M.S. in Commerce?
“I’d love to do nonprofit management,” says Susie Baker (M.S. in Commerce ’10), a 2009 graduate of UNC Chapel Hill who double-majored in Religious Studies and Public Relations Journalism. “I had an opportunity to spend some time in Vietnam, building homes and teaching English to kids who wanted to work in the hospitality industry, and it was awesome.”
Whether she ultimately chooses to work with those in need in Southeast Asia or right here at home, Baker says McIntire’s M.S. in Commerce Program will provide her with the tools she needs for a successful career. “Although nonprofit management isn’t explicitly a focus here, I’ve learned a lot of things that will be very useful,” says Baker, who’s pursuing a concentration in the Program’s Marketing & Management track.
Not only does the Program’s core curriculum provide critical business skills in such key areas as financial accounting, financial management, and global strategy and systems, she says, but it also teaches students to think in a cohesive and multidimensional way. “One night you’ll be creating and analyzing financial statements; the next night you’ll be working with your group to go through a case and discuss what a manager should do; and another night you might be thinking about systems, and how a business can be more efficient,” Baker says. “It helps you learn how to integrate the skills from one class into another—you feel like you’re ready for anything.”
Baker also says that the Program’s emphasis on in-class discussion has helped open her eyes to new perspectives, thanks to her classmates’ broad range of backgrounds. “One day we all had to share a biography of someone we admired,” Baker says. “A classmate of mine who’s from Haiti brought the biography of Fidel Castro.” Needless to say, the rest of the class had hardly thought of Castro in a positive light. Baker’s takeaway from the experience? “In this global age,” she says, “we’re going to have to learn to think more creatively, and to understand that there are other viewpoints.”
Baker also says the Program’s Career Services team is extremely helpful when it comes to assisting M.S. in Commerce students with the job search process. “A lot of career workshops stop with just teaching you how to build your resume and prepare for an interview,” she says. “You get that here, but there are also endless resources on researching careers, communicating effectively in an interview, negotiating your salary, even learning how to continue to be helpful in a job,” she says.
All in all, Baker says the M.S. in Commerce Program offers students a tremendous portfolio of resources, both tangible and intangible: “You can expect a network of friends and colleagues to be there to challenge you and push you towards what you really want to do, and you can expect to gain the skills to support whatever your undergraduate love was,” she says. “I’m 100 percent sure this Program is going to make me a more successful employee, manager, and communicator. I’m learning the things that will make me more successful.”