Meet The McCombs’ MBA Class of 2018

Chelsea Jones

The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business

Hometown (City and State): Sugar Land, Texas

Pre-MBA Location: Austin, Texas

Fun fact about yourself:  I changed my last name legally when I was ten years old. I wanted to be an actress, but finding my father’s last name to be insufficiently star-worthy, I gave a PowerPoint presentation to my parents proposing I be allowed to change mine to my mother’s. They were convinced, and between elementary and middle school (strategically timed to ease the transition for my classmates), Chelsea Batt became Chelsea Jones. I never became an actress, but I do like to say I have 20 years of experience in branding.

Undergraduate School and Major: The University of Texas at Austin, Radio-Television-Film (RTF) Major

Employers and Job Titles Since Graduation:

• Topaz Power Management, LP (Austin, TX)
  • Paralegal & Communications Specialist
• Arts+Labor (Austin, TX)
  • Producer & Marketing Specialist
• The Last Edit LLC (Austin, TX)
  • Sole Member | Freelance Editor & Designer

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: More than any one project, I am most proud of the meaningful relationships I formed with executive leadership in my last position. Especially given my limited knowledge of the industry prior to joining the company, the amount of influence I earned at the firm’s highest levels became a testament to my aptitude in leadership and strategy and ultimately fueled my decision to maximize that potential with an MBA. I started that job as an administrative temp transitioning from a creative role in video production, and I left for McCombs a valued advisor to our executives in internal communications, public relations, and information and project management. That evolution, and the associated commitment to building consequential relationships, is my biggest accomplishment and what I look most forward to building on in my post-MBA career.

What advice do you have for applicants in actually applying to a school, writing essays, doing admission interviews, and getting recommenders to write letters on your behalf? In essays and admissions interviews, it is crucial to know and to be yourself. I have a non-traditional background as a film major, and it was tempting to downplay my creative experience and focus on proving my business aptitude. Instead, I decided to trust that the admissions team was not expecting me to be a wildly successful business person already (if I were, I doubt I would be going back to school), but someone with an authentic narrative about who I am, what I’ve learned, and how they’ve come to be considering my application. It is important to reconcile your past experiences and your future goals, especially if you are a career switcher… but not at the expense of being yourself. Anyone can pretend to be a business student poster-child; no one can pretend to be you.

With my recommenders, I had open conversations about my goals and asked them to focus on one or two themes they felt would fill in a gap in my application based on their relationship with me, and I shared my resume and completed essays with them to provide that context. Of course, give recommenders as much time as possible, and try to meet in person if you can. It is helpful to demonstrate your own commitment to the process as you ask them for theirs.

What led you to choose this program for your full-time MBA? As I shared before, McCombs checked my most important boxes—it is located in a city I love, has highly-ranked academic programs in my areas of interest, enjoys strong relationships with target companies, and has cultivated a cultural reputation that aligns with my personal preferences.

Additionally, because I do not already have an extensive background in business, the Texas MBA’s emphasis on experiential programs like the MBA+ projects, Fellows programs, and student organizations was especially attractive to me for resume-building purposes. The University of Texas at Austin is also a member school of The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management (an organization dedicated to increasing the representation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in American business schools and corporate management) and Reaching Out MBA (whose purpose is to empower LGBTQ MBA students). Commitment to diversity and inclusion is of utmost importance to me personally and professionally, and I feel that McCombs is not only proactive in that pursuit, but will enthusiastically support students and alumni who aim to do more.

Tell us about your dream job or dream employer at this point in your life? My truest passions (besides dogs and food) are psychology and communication. Understanding human behavior and language has been central to my success and enjoyment since my name-changing, wannabe-actress days, to my experience as a video producer and communications specialist, to my volunteer work as a peer-educator and advocate for mental health issues, to my extracurricular media consumption. I see marketing as an opportunity to leverage that innate enthusiasm in a growth-generating business function, so my dream job at this point is a brand management role in a consumer-centric industry.

What would you like your business school peers to say about you after you graduate from this program? I would like my peers to say that I am easy to work with, dedicated, reliable, adaptable, and that I add value regardless of the situation. And because business school is such a unique opportunity, I also hope to be memorable, so that the experience ultimately lasts much longer than two years.

What would you ultimately like to achieve before you graduate? My primary goal is to develop and nurture a set of skills and resources that will inform and enhance all of my future career decisions. It would be nice to achieve total clarity about “what I want to be when I grow up” over the next two years and to pursue that path with abandon, but I will be satisfied if I am able to learn as much as I can, maintain perspective, and ensure this experience (and investment) lasts a lifetime.