Hard work, dedication, and resilience are hallmarks of my Kelley Direct career with Kelly Coin as one of the best memories. I started my MBA right before the Covid-19 pandemic and can’t believe I’m graduating in a month. I decided to pursue my MBA to expand my knowledge in people and business beyond my R&D background and chose Kelley Direct because it had one of the best ratings, with some of the best faculties and finally it was affordable for me.
During my Kelley Direct program, I switched from a traditional, corporate R&D management job to a consulting role with the referral of a Kelley Alum. The Kelley Direct Online MBA allowed me to learn more about consulting and pivot into this new role, participate in and lead student associations, and start leading D&I initiatives at my work. If this sounds like the kind of experience you want in an online MBA program, visit the Kelley Direct website to find out how you can apply today.
I received the Kelley Coin for winning the Idea Blitz competition in Spring 2021. Our team pitched an idea for an app named “BareHands”, which was a DIY kit for homeowners who like to fix things on their own. The app connected inexperienced homeowners with a group of retired or physically challenged contractors to allow them to lead small home repair and maintenance projects on their own.
The most challenging part of this experience was collaborating with a team of individuals entirely virtually and quickly pivoting if the ideas weren’t going in the right direction. My team and I held each other accountable and divided the tasks to achieve our goal on time.
Prior to the start of the competition, we received a series of lectures by Prof. Will Geoghegan, Regan Stevenson, and Greg Fisher that allowed us to follow a structure and gave us tools that we applied to develop our pitch idea. Ernest O’ Boyle was assigned as our team coach, and he guided us throughout the pitch preparation and shared his valuable insight on sharing the problem and the solution early on to gain the audience attention.
The most important thing I learned from the experience was staying focused on your end goal and reminding yourself that there are different ways to get there, so always be prepared to pivot if you don’t see enough traction within the team. In the virtual environment, it is extremely important to listen to the conversation and be attentive to details and allow people to have their space.