Stephanie Verheyen had already been accepted to enter medical school in the fall of 2016 when something clicked (or didn’t).

“I realized I had lost my passion for a medical career,” Stephanie says, “and was looking around for other career options that would allow me to make use of my psychology degree. I have always loved art and being creative, so marketing made sense as a combination of my skills and interests.”

Since she had strongly considered Vanderbilt for her undergraduate education, she looked into the new Master of Marketing program. “I already knew I loved it here,” she says. “The biggest factor that made Owen stand out to me among the other graduate schools was the focus on career services. Being a career switcher, it was important for me to have the one-on-one career guidance so I could be prepared for networking and the job search.”

Her experience during her year in the program lived up to her expectations and more. “Not only is an extremely high caliber of academic and work experience the norm,” she says, “but everyone is helpful and willing to share their network and resources with their classmates.”

As a student, Stephanie won two marketing internships — one with a restaurant group and another with an entertainment marketing firm. She joined Owen’s Women in Business Association (the majority of students in the MMark program, she notes, are women), the Vanderbilt Marketing Association and the Global Business Association. And she found that the Career Management Center team “paid so much attention to each of our different interests (Stephanie, unique among her classmates, hopes to pursue a career in experiential marketing) and has made every effort to help us make connections relevant to our chosen field.”

The program, she says, “has completely transformed my future. I am now well prepared for a career in marketing and have developed confidence in myself and my skills.”