Will Braithwaite has always wanted to run his own company. He just wasn’t sure what kind of company he wanted to run. “My entrepreneurial vision,” he says, “has shifted from consulting to advertising to everything in between.”

So instead of offering sailing lessons — the way he has spent most of his summers in recent years — Will enrolled in the Accelerator program as a rising junior at Vanderbilt. “I wanted to expose myself to different aspects of business,” he says, “and to see what clicked and what didn’t.”

He concluded afterwards that the program “is the perfect business trial run.”

“It really is a compressed MBA program — two years in four weeks,” he says. “It’s hectic, insightful, rapid and fun all at the same time.” That much he expected going in.

But Will was equally impressed by some of the aspects of the program he hadn’t expected to be so valuable. “Professor Bob Isherwood’s lectures on creativity showed me a whole other side of business that I didn’t know existed — an artistic side,” Will explains. “It’s not all numbers and financials.”

The budding entrepreneur also learned a lot about working in a team — a hallmark of Accelerator. “I’ve learned how to stand up for ideas, collaborate, appease people and manage personalities,” he says. “I’ve learned to work with others toward a shared goal.”

 *This article represents our previous 4-week programming. We’re excited to offer an accelerated 3-week experience in 2022.

Fun Fact: Will loves acting, singing and playing the guitar. At Vanderbilt, he performs improv comedy with a group called Tongue in Cheek.

"It showed me a whole other side of business that I didn’t know existed — an artistic side."