Student Ambassador Spotlight: Keila Harris, MBA Candidate 2012

Keila Harris
MBA Candidate 2012
Full-time student

• Concentration(s): Marketing and Management
• Industry/Field of Work: Technology/Consumer Electronics
• Undergraduate Degree in: Spanish
• Undergraduate School: Wheaton College
• Career Goal: Human Resources and Social Media
• Organizations Involved With: Marketing, Networking
• LinkedIn Profile: Keila Harris

What prompted you to return to school to achieve your MBA?

I do not like being at the end of operations, simply executing orders and working in a cyclic system. I want to spearhead change. I want to implement the knowledge I have gained in my short time in the working world to help make it better, rather than simply going with the flow and losing my unique perspective.

We all know that people pursue the MBA to increase their business knowledge, but since you have started the program, what has been the most unexpected gain the MBA has given you?

When I began the MBA program, I left behind the academic world of learning new cultures and forms of communication. As a foreign language learner, I was not expecting to walk into my MBA classrooms and learn a whole new form of communication! Knowing how to speak to someone in finance versus accounting, how to approach a conversation with a small business owner versus an inventor, and connecting with the joys and difficulties of middle management in detail is all a part of my newfound MBA dialect.

What is your favorite aspect of the UIC campus and why?

UIC campus is great because there is always a nook or cranny to crawl into with an outlet for intense studying!

How would you define the Liautaud student?

A Liautaud student is extremely flexible to the teaching styles of professors which later translates into the skills to work with all types of people in our professional career. From laid back, to anxious, tediously detailed, and compliant, Liautaud has it all in respect to professors. I see this as a challenge that shapes each and every one of us to be the best team players on a national level.

What advice would you provide to incoming UIC Liautaud MBA students?

Give yourself to your studies. Learn as much as you can and try to apply it in internship opportunities and networking conversations from day 1. For those who are not forced to work during your time as a student, dedicate yourself to learning when you aren’t doing homework. And for those who do work, try your best to meet the people you’re in class with. You just never know who people are and who they know!