Meet Our Inaugural 2+2 Students

Our 2+2 Program is designed to help highly motivated students to jump-start their careers through deferred enrollment into our Full-Time MBA program during their final year of undergraduate or graduate study.

Our inaugural enrollees of the 2+2 Program started this fall, so we want to highlight their journeys thus far. Learn about Georgia MBA ‘23 members, Pierce Vaughn and Ryan McEnaney.

Pierce Vaughn

Pierce became a Dawg this fall through an unlikely but uniquely compelling journey. After graduating in corporate finance from East Tennessee State, he interned for the FBI and leveraged this experience into crypto currency security consulting.

His passion for disruptive tech led him to research and specialize in crypto currency. His work for DC-based consulting firms Entegra Partners and Abaxx gave him the opportunity to consult the US government on crypto currency security and fraud.

Pierce ultimately decided the 2+2 Program was right for him because he values education, self-betterment and hopes to leverage the new skills he acquires through an MBA to facilitate a career pivot.

Combining his crypto experience with his Georgia MBA and its financial technology focus, he’s hoping to blaze new trails in the finance industry. While in the program he is working as a Graduate Assistant for the Terry Finance department.

Ryan McEnaney

Ryan graduated from UGA Terry in 2018 with a degree in management with a supply chain concentration. He knew early on that we wanted to pursue an MBA, but wanted to gain work experience first to maximize the degree.

For the past two years, Ryan worked for paper and packaging leader, WestRock. In his role as supply planner, he’s gained a variety of work experience that he can take back to the classroom. From nationwide inventory management, cost-savings projects at the scale of millions and team leadership, Ryan returned to school with tangible experiences he can apply to business concepts.

When reflecting on his reasons for pursuing an MBA, he points out the broadened scope of opportunities he can pursue with a Georgia MBA and the roster of top-flight companies that recruit at the program. He also loves school and excited to back in class and enjoying his work as a Graduate Assistant for the Management department.

Do Ryan’s experience and career goals sound similar to yours? Explore our operations management concentration.

Comments

The Bike is the Answer: Charlie Mustard and Jittery Joe’s Coffee

Like many other schools during this pandemic, the University of Georgia has been closed since mid-March, and students and staff are working remotely. In lieu of in-person meetings and events, MBA Admissions staff launched a podcast, Dawgs on Top, to bring the program to a larger audience. In Season One: The Rona Files, we covered Georgia football, provided highlights of the first annual Graduate Women’s Business Association Summit, and heard more about the student veterans experience, the March trip to South Africa, and our Non-Profit Board Fellows Program. In Season Two: Town & Gown, we focused on the Athens community and interviewed local business leaders. One of those interviews was with Charlie Mustad, owner and Head Roaster of Jittery Joe’s Coffee. Jittery Joe's Coffee opened in 1994 on Washington St. near the 40 Watt Club and was open 24 hours a day to serve everyone: students, townies, and artists. Since then, it has grown into a roaster on Barber Street and 14 loca...

Meet the MBA: 1st Year Vishakha Tiwari

A native of Northern India, Vishakha Tiwari has worked for KPMG in Bangalore, India, and as a Business Analyst for Accenture. She has worked for various causes such as education, gender equality and with different NGOs. Tiwari is now pursuing her MBA, concentrating in Strategy with additional focus areas in Analytics. Tell us about your hometown and what you were doing before the MBA program. I am from Patna, one of the oldest towns in the northern region of India. Patna is known for its hospitality, exceptionally decadent cuisines and its contributions to the Indian Independence movement. Before the MBA, I was working full-time as a Management Consultant with KPMG in Bangalore, India. I have worked on several client service transformation, revenue diversification, project management and claims analytics projects. I have also worked with Accenture as a Business Analyst between 2016 and 2019. My undergraduate major was Electronics and Electrical Engineering. Outside of work, I w...

Crystal Ivey Pivoted Careers with a Georgia MBA

By Crystal Ivey, MBA '14 I graduated with my bachelor’s in marketing and finance in 2009 at the onset of the recession. Entry-level marketing positions were practically non-existent, so my first job out of school was as a case manager with the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS). But I didn’t give up on my dream of brand management. Fast forward a few years, I decided to try again to break into the business world in brand management – this time using an MBA as my launch pad. This was also very special for me, because, as a first generation college student, an MBA was always one of my goals. I chose the University of Georgia’s MBA program for lots of reasons, but the most important factor for me was to not go into a lot of debt achieving this goal. I wanted a highly ranked program – one that would create opportunities - but not a huge financial burden. I found all that and more at Georgia. The MBA Career Management Center (CMC) connected me with MBA alum...

Georgia MBA Programs

Search This Blog