Taylor Rasmussen

Vanderbilt University, Owen Graduate School of Management

“A curious, creative type with a New York City heart and a Midwestern soul.”

Hometown: Hinsdale, IL

Fun Fact About Yourself: I love playing tabletop games with my friends. Exploring the world through collaboration and imagination is one of my very favorite things to do.

Undergraduate School and Major:
Undergraduate: Georgetown University, BA in Philosophy, Theatre & Performance Studies
Graduate: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, MFA in Professional Acting

Most Recent Employer and Job Title:
Professional Actor, employed by various theatres, production companies, and studios

What has been your favorite part of Nashville so far? Why? I’m a long-time live music fan, so I’ve loved exploring Nashville’s many weird and wonderful venues. So far, I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of my favorite artists play at The End, Mercy Lounge, and the Ryman Auditorium, and I have plans to see another show at EXIT/IN in the spring.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of Vanderbilt Owen’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? It was the opportunity to concentrate in Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) alongside Strategy struck me as unique, and appealed to me immediately. I knew that, no matter where I attended business school, I would graduate with a Strategy concentration; in other words, I knew that I would enter the workforce with a strong understanding of foundational frameworks for analysis, and with tools and techniques to inform sound decision-making. By pairing HOP with Strategy, however, I’m gaining a profound education in both theory and practice. My HOP courses have taught me about motivation theory, change management, business ethics, and leadership – all of which are crucial to the implementation of any strategy that a team might generate. I intend to drive positive change in the future, and I feel that the HOP concentration available to me at Owen will uniquely equip me to do so.

What course, club or activity have you enjoyed the most so far at Vanderbilt Owen? My involvement in the Owen Student Government Association (OSGA) has been inexpressibly meaningful. OSGA, first and foremost, serves the students of Owen. We act as a liaison between Owen as an educational institution and Owen as a community. I’m a student senator on the Internal Affairs committee, which seeks to support students in their academic experience at Owen, and the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) committee, which strives to support, uplift, and celebrate the diverse members of our student body.

I enjoy OSGA because I feel that my committees and I continually make demonstrable and visible impact. I’m currently working on a project with the Internal Affairs committee that focuses directly on improving the experience of Teaching Assistants (TAs) within our various classroom settings, which should, in turn, improve the classroom experience for professors, students, and TAs alike. I’m incredibly proud of the work that we on the DE&I committee have put into Humans of Owen, a series of monthly community-building events centered around storytelling. At each event, three or four members of the Owen community will reflect on a theme, and will share their anecdotes, memories, musings, and aspirations with their peers. It’s a chance for us to connect with each other not just as peers and classmates, but as beautiful, wonderful, complicated, multi-faceted people.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: As honored as I was to join the Actors’ Equity Association, which is the stage actors’ union, I’ve felt a sense professional accomplishment most acutely in the times when I’ve worked in a group setting on plays that I’ve written. My writing peeks between the lines of well-known, well-loved stories – think Shakespeare, for example – and seeks to ask questions about the characters, themes, and ideas within them. One of the most memorable moments of my professional life was the evening a group of extraordinary actors read my play Before Arden, which expands on the notions of identity, queer self-discovery, grief, love, and otherness that are presented in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. I’ll take any chance I get to interrogate and subvert our foregone conclusions, especially when I can do so with intention and from a place of love and respect. (For that reason, I consider any opportunity I’ve had to work on classical theatre a significant professional accomplishment; the reading of Before Arden was something like a culmination of all of these accomplishments.).

Describe your biggest accomplishment as an MBA student so far? I feel that I’ve accomplished much since I began my MBA program earlier this year; choosing just one accomplishment to talk about is difficult! With that in mind, at the moment, I’d say that I’m most excited about the opportunity I’ve had to support Professor Luke Froeb as he edits the sixth edition of his Managerial Economics textbook. My task is to increase accessibility within the textbook itself and within the accompanying online resources, and to ensure that any new and revised materials comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. I’ll also be suggesting updates to any outdated or alienating language, and I’ll assist in editing for general clarity. The work is intensive and challenging, and we’ll be up against numerous deadlines throughout 2022, but I’m thrilled about bringing both contemporary flair and increased accessibility to the academic side of business. I know I’ll feel very, very proud when the sixth edition hits the shelves.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point and what do you hope to do after graduation? I initially chose to become an arts professional because I wanted to both feel a strong sense of personal and professional satisfaction in my work and wanted to make significant social impact. How often have films, TV shows, and plays profoundly shaped the way you engage with the world around you? But even as I found success within my acting career, I continued to find myself brushing up against industry norms and standards, and I began to feel stymied by my frequent lack of decision-making power as an actor.

I started to consider how else I might be able to make an impact and drive far-reaching change. After much reflection, I concluded that pursuing my MBA and working as a consultant at a forward-looking company with global reach was the best way to do so. The corporate space is still new to me, and so after graduation I intend to spend significant time working across various practices and honing both my strategy skills and my implementation skills, if possible. After that, I hope to bring what I learn from the consulting world to an internal strategy department within the media and entertainment sector.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into Vanderbilt Owen’s MBA program? If you’re applying to MBA programs, then you’ve probably heard a version of this advice a dozen times or more – but the piece of advice I’d offer above all else is to be yourself.

Owen is a small, close-knit community of kind, caring people. I’ve never felt anything but encouragement and acceptance from my classmates and the faculty at Owen, and I’ve never had to compromise when it comes to expressing who I am, what I stand for, or what I care about.  If you bring as much authenticity as you can to your application – whatever that means to you – you’ll find more success as you move through the process, and you’ll be happier when you arrive on campus and meet your peers.

DON’T MISS: MEET VANDERBILT OWEN’S MBA CLASS OF 2023