Why I Picked Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business (New Hampshire)
—E. Selemon Asfaw, 2014 graduate and investment banking associate
Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business has a team orientation. With only 275 classmates, you have to show up and participate and learn how to build relationships with people. I found plenty of opportunities to lead projects without much direction. You get maybe 30 percent of the information you need and then must figure out the rest to execute the project.
Tuck’s MBA program prepared me well for my current position at Goldman Sachs, where I find myself in the same kind of team-oriented environment, managing analysts, guiding presentations and interacting with CFOs and VPs at client companies. As was often the case at Tuck, I am responsible for the final deliverable for my team.
See the full [2016 Best Graduate Schools rankings.]
Why I Picked Texas A&M University’s Dwight Look College of Engineering
–Cully Jones, 2012 graduate and environmental engineer
My master’s degree from Dwight Look College of Engineering gave me great preparation for my current job with Chevron, where I focus on regulatory compliance. The school encourages you to take classes with people from other A&M colleges and disciplines, like agriculture and geosciences. You also get to work on projects with cross-functional teams.
For example, by helping out with a College of Agriculture rainfall simulation project, I learned to appreciate my teammates’ different skill sets and objectives and the need to hear everyone’s viewpoint.
A&M also emphasizes technical document writing — a critical skill in a global company spread across many time zones that relies heavily on email communication. Finally, A&M made my education affordable, covering my tuition and fees.
Why I Picked University of Maryland–Baltimore School of Nursing
— Ayyub Hanif, 2012 graduate and program manager of care coordination
After several years as a transplant nurse, I began my master’s in health services leadership and management at University of Maryland–Baltimore‘s School of Nursing. The program teaches management for the health care setting. This is critical as everything is high stakes in a hospital, from preventing infections to ensuring patients are not served life-threatening foods. We spoke with actual hospital leaders about their management strategies and challenges.
Shortly after completing my master’s, I began working in my current position at the University of Maryland Medical Center, focusing on reducing patient readmissions. As someone who hopes to be a hospital executive, I really benefited from the specialized training not generally available in MBA programs.
Get [three graduate school savings tips for full-time employees.]
Why I Picked University of Washington Medical School
— Lisa Mullen, 2011 graduate and family doctor
The University of Washington participates in the WWAMI medical education program that prepares students particularly for rural medical care in communities throughout Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.
I was able to do six-week rotations in four different states and quickly realized how much I loved rural primary care medicine. You get to know patients and their families really well.
Specialists aren’t always nearby, so you find yourself splinting fractures, delivering babies, doing stress tests and providing end-of-life services. I even took shifts in the local emergency room with my preceptors.
The WWAMI program not only provided me with great training for my work in Buffalo, Wyoming, but also took a lot of the stress away by arranging free housing for all my rural rotations.
Explore the [top schools for rural medicine.]
Why I Picked Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
— Luke Fedlam, 2013 graduate and sports and entertainment attorney
After representing pro athletes and leading the wealth management division of a sports management boutique, I decided to enroll at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. A law degree would, I felt, help me protect my clients and their long-term financial security from people who tried to take advantage of them.
OSU allowed me to dive into key subject areas like estate planning and intellectual property, hear prominent attorneys talk about leadership and build practical skills like reading body language, networking and negotiation in the Program on Law and Leadership.
Now, as a sports and entertainment attorney at Kegler Brown Hill + Ritter in Columbus, I can offer my clients the kind of well-rounded support I had hoped to.
Why I Picked Georgia Institute of Technology Graduate School
— Megan Toney, 2014 graduate and biomechanics associate
Applied physiology is a smaller program at Georgia Tech, so students have a lot of freedom to explore. The Ph.D. process is project-based. You learn how to define your project, manage your time and prioritize. For example, I studied gait biomechanics to see how the movements of amputees using prosthetics changed in different environments, like walking on ice, compared to nonamputees.
These project-management skills all prepared me well for my current job with Exponent, a technical and engineering company, where I analyze how injuries were caused in car accidents. And because Georgia Tech requires students to regularly make presentations on their work, I am very comfortable explaining complex issues to clients and colleagues — a big part of my job now.
This story is excerpted from the U.S. News “Best Graduate Schools 2016” guidebook, which features in-depth articles, rankings and data.
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