Mackenzie Powlette makes no bones about how she came to study marketing in Nashville. “I chose Vanderbilt,” she says, “because, in my opinion, it is the strongest MMark program in the country. Nashville is an amazing city, and the admissions team showed me they care about their students.”

Once she began the program, she found there was a bonus. In addition to gaining a deeper, highly marketable level of marketing knowledge, Mackenzie found resources for more effectively marketing herself to employers.

“I loved working with Megan from the Career Management Center,” she says. “The Owen team was super helpful in guiding me through my job hunt, giving me connections to network with and guiding me through the application process.”

Meanwhile, Mackenzie credits her participation in the school’s distinctive Leadership Development Program with helping her learn more about her personality type and how she can learn to work with other personality types to build strong teams. “Learning what my strengths are definitely helped in the job hunt,” she says.

As Mackenzie notes, opportunities to work with students in other programs and with varied backgrounds, including MBA students, helped her develop stronger teamwork and networking skills. Beyond marketing, her coursework sharpened her statistical and analytical skills, and group work and presentations helped her strengthen her managerial skills.

Mackenzie also considered it a plus that women made up the majority of the students in her Master of Marketing class. “I have felt very supported by all of the women at Owen,” she says, “and it has been great to make friends outside of class!”

Fun Fact: Mackenzie was a competitive gymnast for 10 years.

I chose Vanderbilt because, in my opinion, it is the strongest MMark program in the country.