What are your short and long-term career goals? How will the MBA help you achieve them?

At the end of the Vietnam War, my parents, like most Vietnamese refugees, fled to America to escape communism. Similar to the political climate today, there was hostility towards the influx of immigrants. There are stories about how the Vietnamese started bringing egg rolls to their new neighbors in hopes of building a bridge between cultures. In my family, food has always been a unifying force. In a culture that is emotionally reserved, food is how my family expresses love and how we connect when words aren’t enough. Food greatly influences how I view the world, and its ability to bring understanding and acceptance is why I want to devote myself to that space.

Although I have always had an affinity for food, I never considered opportunities in that sector. After graduating with a business degree, I pursued finance at X. My responsibilities include performing analysis and finding innovative solutions to cut costs. Although I have a significant impact on X’s fiscal health, I became fascinated with finding ways to increase revenue rather than decreasing expenses. When I was chosen for the X Program, we built a new customer platform, and I saw how changing the design and user experience of the website shifted consumer interaction. I became interested in consumer motivation and how that leads to purchase decisions. Earning an MBA would allow me to pivot into marketing and pursue a brand management career.

After business school, I plan to work as an Associate Brand Manager for a CPG company in the sustainable food space because loving food is preserving it. I would love to work for Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods or bigger corporations transitioning to sustainable alternatives like XXX or YYY. The experience I will gain can eventually transfer and benefit smaller businesses. Long-term, I hope to start my own company specializing in marketing for sustainable restaurants. I want to change the way people eat and think about their food, and marketing sustainability as sexy will be my way of impacting the world.

Visiting Stern, I connected with so many diverse applicants willing to share their advice and experiences, which speaks to the people Stern attracts and the sense of community NYU instills. At Women’s Weekend, I met two panelists that pivoted from finance to marketing and gushed about the caliber of Stern’s marketing professors like AAA BBB who is a thought leader within the industry. I’m excited to join clubs at Stern like the “Social Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Food Business” and “Marketing Association” and continue to build on current organizations I work with like X. Living in X, I know Stern’s location presents endless opportunities, and my experience will be heightened by accessibility to the prominent speakers and businesses that come through NYU’s doors. The combination of Stern’s unique emphasis on EQ and community, fearless embracement of change, leadership in marketing research, and the connectedness of being in the most influential city in the world is why Stern is my school of choice.