Elizabeth Benjamin
Marketing & Management Track
(English '08, The University of Texas at Austin)
"At the end of my junior year at The University of Texas at Austin,” says English major Liz Benjamin (M.S. in Commerce ’09), “I started taking business classes—and I really liked them a lot.” But Benjamin had a conflict. “I’ve always wanted to do nonprofit, humanitarian work, specifically in social justice,” she says. “So I didn’t really know how those two would work together.”
Then, the summer after she graduated from UT, Benjamin had a realization. “I was in Zambia, working with AIDS orphans,” she says. “It was one of the best experiences of my life, acting as a counselor to 12 young girls.” What’s more, she says, “I really noticed how the organization I was with ran so effectively, from a business perspective.” It was at that point, she says, that she realized she could combine her interest in business with her desire to work with nonprofits.
Now enrolled in McIntire’s M.S. in Commerce Program, Benjamin says she’s learning the skills she’ll need to work effectively in the nonprofit arena—and perhaps, one day, to start her own nonprofit organization. “We’re in a marketing class right now that’s really interesting,” she says. “It’s more focused on corporate organizations, but fundamentally we’re learning how a company propels itself forward. But the same principles that apply to big corporations apply to nonprofits. They have to get the word out, they have to raise funds, and they have to sustain themselves, just like a business.” Benjamin also says she can see how other classes she’s taking, like organizational behavior, would be applicable in any work environment.
Benjamin says that the M.S. in Commerce Program’s integrated curriculum makes all the difference when it comes to really understanding business basics. “I was apprehensive about accounting and finance and things like that, but the integrated curriculum and the way we use real-world cases to illustrate things have really made those subjects come alive for me,” she explains. Moreover, she says, “I feel like all of these things aren’t just good to know for the future—they’re things I need to know.”
Benjamin says the program’s Career Services office has also been tremendously supportive of her non-traditional career interests. “The Career Services staff has really helped me find direction in terms of identifying my goals and helping me find organizations I should contact in the future,” she says.
Ultimately, Benjamin says, the program has helped her enormously. “When I graduated, I really wasn’t sure what direction to take, and the job I probably would have ended up with wouldn’t have been anything I was passionate about doing. I would encourage anyone to apply to the M.S. in Commerce Program.”