Meet the Vanderbilt Owen MBA Class of 2018

Stacey A. Fitzgibbons

Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management

Describe yourself in 15 words or less: Always happy, never satisfied. I enjoy every experience, and I’m always eager to do more.

Hometown: Mount Olive, NJ

Fun Fact About Yourself: I’ve traveled to 24 countries.

Undergraduate School and Major: Northeastern University, Mechanical Engineering

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

• Harvard University, Staff Mechanical Engineer at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard
• Army National Guard, Engineer Officer

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: When I was younger, I was painfully shy and afraid to talk. For years I kept pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, and now, I think nothing of standing in front of 150 soldiers to give orders or working alongside some of the country’s most brilliant minds.

Looking back on your experience, what advice would you give to future business school applicants? To get into business school, I would advise that applicants get ahead of the curve in preparing for post-business school. I arrived at business school assuming that I would mainly focus on academics, and then have two years to prepare for post-business school life, only to realize that MBA students hit the ground running. I could have saved myself a lot of extra work during the first weeks of school if I had polished my resume, started networking, and looked into case methods before arriving. If you demonstrate that you’re already preparing for what you want to do with your MBA after graduation, you’re going to be a great investment for any program.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? Vanderbilt Business offers the benefits of a renowned university with a small class size. A small class is advantageous in that it allows you to receive individual attention when you need help or want to make professional connections. Vanderbilt emphasizes that you make the business school experience your own so that you’re not getting an MBA the Vanderbilt way, but rather, you’re getting a personalized MBA that prepares you for your own unique career path.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? What I’m looking for in a career is to make a large-scale impact and have continuous opportunities to compete, learn, and grow professionally. I’m driven by my desire to solve problems, and I would like to work in a field where hard work earns results and complacency is unsustainable.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? I would like my business school peers to say that we learned from each other during our time together. We all came to business school with a unique background, and I hope my classmates feel that I shared my experiences in a helpful way, and that I listened to what experiences they had to offer as well.