Business degree leads to professional advancement
[img_inline align=”” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/carruthers_julie_web.jpg” caption=”Business graduate Julie Carruthers.”]After eight gruelling years, Julie Carruthers will don that coveted cap and gown.
“I remember the day I registered as a part-time student at McMaster,” she reminisces. “I was taking a variety of courses because I didn't know what direction I wanted to go in. After all of this though, I never would have guessed I would graduate with a Bachelor of Commerce degree!”
Carruthers, a certified medical laboratory technologist, works on campus as a research coordinator at the McMaster Transfusion Research Program. She decided to forgo the obvious educational path of science and pursue business studies at the DeGroote School of Business. Keen to develop a position in management within her current research group, Carruthers wasted no time in approaching her supervisor to discuss pursuing undergraduate studise. “Recognizing that my interest in commerce could benefit the group, my supervisor supported me from the get-go,” says Carruthers. “As our research group expanded, we realized that we needed a business manager. And in the last couple years, she's allowed me to take on more of a business role.”
Carruthers is able to apply her course knowledge to her job and has since taken on more responsibilities at work, including managing accounts, recruitment, and creating and maintaining budgets. “The most valuable things I've taken from my experiences at DeGroote overall are the management training and the operational overview of how businesses work and business operations are run,” she says. “I've been so lucky in that my education has been infiltrating my career over the years, which has allowed me to seamlessly transition into these new roles at work.”
But the transition from work to school has not always gone so smoothly. The biggest challenge Carruthers has faced is balance, trying to juggle a full-time career with a part-time course load. “There would be mornings where I would start my day at 6 a.m. knowing that I wouldn't stop running until midnight,” remembers Carruthers. But the continuous support and encouragement she received from her family, supervisor, DeGroote faculty members and staff certainly made all the difference.
“If I didn't have the tremendous support of everyone in my life, I don't think I would have been able to get my degree,” says Carruthers. “Balancing these two separate lives requires flexibility and endurance – when you're halfway through, you start to question yourself and think of quitting. But I stuck it out because I was committed to finishing and had people behind me cheering me on.”
