Jess Randol

University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business

“A ski bum who is learning to become a surf bum.”

Hometown: Denver, CO

Fun Fact About Yourself: I have been forgotten about and left behind twice while at daycare AND summer camp. Once, by the ocean, and once in the woods (I was okay both times, of course).

Undergraduate School and Major: United States Military Academy (West Point), Nuclear Engineering

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: U.S. Army, Recruiting Officer

What has been your first impression of the Marshall MBA students and alumni you’ve met so far. Tell us your best Marshall story so far. So far, I have found the Marshall students and alumni to be very talented and eager to help. Many alumni have already volunteered their time to provide insight on their industry and function during career seminars and have agreed to one-on-one meetings to field questions and help prepare for internship recruiting.

What makes Los Angeles such a great place to earn an MBA? LA is a vibrant city with a multitude of professional opportunities in established industries, and in burgeoning industries. The variety of professional opportunity and lively nature make it the perfect place to fulfil professional and personal aspirations.

Aside from your classmates and location, what was the key part of USC Marshall’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? What drew me to USC Marshall was how devoted that staff and faculty are to student success. The course design, alumni involvement, graduate career services events, and formal mentorship programs between first- and second-year students all serve the interests of the students. This showed me that USC Marshall is somewhere you can maximize your potential.

What course, club or activity excites you the most at USC Marshall? I am most excited for “The Global Context of Business: PRIME.” This course provides us the opportunity to travel to another country and present analysis and recommendations for a problem that a company is facing. I am most excited for this because it offers students the opportunity to exercise the skills we learned in the previous year and to experience another culture.

Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: My biggest professional accomplishment is that I brought all of the Soldiers in my platoon home safely from Afghanistan.

What advice would you give to help potential applicants gain admission into USC Marshall’s MBA program? Start keeping a professional journal now. Many people do great things or learn impactful lessons in their day-to-day activities. Keeping a professional journal helps you capture those lessons, and helps to identify themes across your work experience that can be very informative and useful in writing essays and conducting interviews.

DON’T MISS: MEET USC MARSHALL’S MBA CLASS OF 2025