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Like many AUP students, I came to Paris looking for
something – perhaps the chance to make changes to my
current life or possibly create something new. I come from
Allentown, Pennsylvania in the United States. Up until I was
21, I lived the stereotypical American life. I attended
Lehigh University and even had the opportunity to go on an
athletic scholarship to play softball.
I was always known as an “athlete.” No matter what I
accomplished in the classroom or in my extracurricular
activities at Lehigh, my athletic accomplishments
overshadowed everything else. At Lehigh, I studied Marketing
and French and was intent on an international business
career. However, my social network of sports contacts always
kept me close to home and I found myself taking a job in
Allentown, focusing on local markets and never utilizing my
language skills.
After two years, an unfortunate incident turned into a
window of opportunity for me. My company went through
financial difficulty and eliminated all positions related to
sales and marketing. I was laid off from work at 23 years of
age. While initially distressed, I soon realized that I now
had the possibility of going back to graduate school. This
time I knew I had to pick a school that would fit solely my
career goals. I could have applied to graduate schools in
the U.S., primarily as a softball coach assistant which
would help pay for the expenses, but then I would continue
to be the athlete first, student second.
I made the choice to go international. Paris is a hub for
international business with a wealth of global companies and
organizations. I felt the MAGC program at AUP would
complement my business degree from Lehigh and combine the
philosophy of business with its technical and financial
aspects.
Not being a full-time athlete at AUP helped me focus on a
variety of activities. From my experience at AUP, I am most
proud of three things. First, I maintained a 3.9 GPA
throughout my studies, an accomplishment I was never able to
achieve during my undergraduate years due to my primary
commitment to sports. This academic accomplishment was also
due to the opportunity to take my education outside the
classroom and into real world situations. Never having the
chance or time to study abroad as a student-athlete, at AUP
I had the chance to go to Fez, Morocco with the NGO
Practicum. There, I wrote a funding proposal to build a
sports complex for the children of the city by collaborating
with an actual NGO in Fez as well as speaking the residents
of the city. I was able to combine my passion for sport with
a real life scenerio.
Second, during my program I worked at the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris as a
Communications Consultant in the education department. To
work for an international organization as large and
important as the OECD allowed me to gain a wealth of
experience in a professional role. Lastly, with the help of
my classmate Laurel Nock, I was able to establish a
student-run organization at AUP called S.A.D.I. (Student
Action Development Initiatives) which organized charitable
projects abroad that related on a personal level with AUP
students. We were able to donate money to a women’s charity
in India, donate software education materials to the Congo,
collect art supplies for land mine victims in Colombia, and
start a pen pal program with elementary school students in
Morocco.
My experience at AUP did allow me to change my career
direction and create new experiences. I was able to take
control of my career by leaving the stereotypical “athlete”
role at home in the U.S. to start something new. Since
graduating, I have worked as a Marketing Consultant for a
baseball team in Perth, Australia and have recently started
in a position as a Marketing Officer for an international
pharmaceutical company in Verona, Italy. I am also playing
softball in Verona and therefore have been able to combine
the old and new Mary! |
