Business alumni find success with partnership graduate programs

While McDaniel College offers a robust slate of graduate programs, students can also enroll at partner institutions to propel their undergraduate career into the graduate realm. Two recent graduates — Jani Pierre ’23 and Brennan Rouse ’23 — took the opportunity to pursue accelerated master’s degrees using the foundations they developed at McDaniel.

Side-by-side photos of two McDaniel graduates wearing graduation regalia. Jani Pierre is on the left in a green sweatshirt and Brennan Rouse is on the right in full regalia. — Jani Pierre '23 and Brennan Rouse '23 pursued master's degrees at institutions that have partnered with McDaniel to provide benefits like preferred admission to their business master's degree programs.

McDaniel offers a variety of master’s degree programs, ranging from Data Analytics to Counseling, and current students can pursue five-year bachelor’s-to-master’s pathways to earn their master’s in a little as one year while remaining at the college they know and trust.

But for students interested in pursuing a master’s degree in a subject not offered on the Hill, partnership programs offer a route to graduate studies with unique advantages. McDaniel students benefit from preferred admission to business degree tracks at Johns Hopkins University’s Carey Business School and Duquesne University’s Palumbo-Donahue School of Business.

“These partnership programs are great. They both meet different needs for different types of students, so they can find what works best for them,” says Julie Routzahn, professor of Economics and Business Administration. “There are significant advantages with the flexibility that they offer. And beginning with a liberal arts education at McDaniel is fabulous because it gives you some breadth.”

McDaniel alums Jani Pierre ’23 and Brennan Rouse ’23 paired their McDaniel education with a joint degree and discovered that their undergraduate careers on the Hill had prepared them for the challenges of accelerated graduate programs.

Preparing for an M.B.A. with the Program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship

In spring 2024, Jani Pierre ’23 graduated with a Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) with a focus in Sustainable Business Practices from Duquesne. McDaniel students of any major as well as alumni of the past five years are eligible for preferred admission, a Graduate Management Admission Test or Graduate Record Examination waiver, and guaranteed scholarships to select master’s programs at Duquesne.

Pierre was working in her father’s restaurant in the Bahamas after graduating high school when her aunt in Maryland asked her, “What’s next?” When Pierre wasn’t sure, her aunt invited her to travel north and start her college search. Out of the 10 colleges Jani applied to, McDaniel College topped the list — and the location was good, too.

Partly inspired by her own father’s entrepreneurship, Jani majored in Business Administration on the Hill. “My dad is very hardworking, and I spent a lot of time helping him run the business. So, I think my drive came from my dad,” she says.

“My favorite class was Consumer Behavior with Professor Burdett. That class opened my mind to marketing, and now the psychology of consumer behavior is my favorite aspect of it.”

Janie Pierre '23

Professor Nigel Burdett helped her choose two minors to pair with her major: Entrepreneurship and Marketing. “My favorite class was Consumer Behavior with Professor Burdett,” she says. “That class opened my mind to marketing, and now the psychology of consumer behavior is my favorite aspect of it.”

A whiz at time management, her time at McDaniel was well-rounded, balancing her major and two minors with involvement in a wide variety of student organizations and honor societies, including the Trumpeters, Omicron Delta Kappa, and Pi Gamma Mu.

Pierre held leadership roles in the Program in Innovation & Entrepreneurship Club, the American Marketing Association, and Students of Caribbean Ancestry. She was a member of Green Terror Programs, Student Government Association, Black Student Union, McDaniel Hairitage, McDaniel Gospel Choir, and Voices of Praise.

A Black woman in a white dress stands in front of a fountain and holds out a graduation mortar board that reads "2024" with an image of two high heels on a stack of books. — Through the partnership program, Jani Pierre '23 earned her MBA from Duquesne in 2024, just one year after graduating from McDaniel.

“I loved being able to have those experiences at McDaniel, so that when I went to Duquesne, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything because I already felt fulfilled,” she says.

A pivotal moment in Pierre’s McDaniel career was competing in the 2021 Innovation and Entrepreneurship Challenge with Mariam Mohammed ’23. Together, they pitched Crowned Beauty, a business concept to expand access to beauty products for people of color in Westminster, Maryland — an idea that earned them second place.

The lead-up to the challenge involved feedback on their pitches from fellow competitors and the program advisors. “One of my struggles was presenting and doing pitches, so it was really helpful in that it introduced me to this new world and broke me out of my shell,” she says.

Pierre didn’t realize it at the time, but her experience in the Program in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and competing in the Challenge had prepared her for the rigor of her master’s degree program.

“I’m always looking for new learning opportunities,” Pierre says, which is partly what led her to look into the partnership between McDaniel and Duquesne, particularly the M.B.A. in Sustainable Business Practices. She was excited to dive into a program completely focused on sustainability, a new area of study for her in business.

Not only was the subject new, but also the location. Pierre had never been to Pittsburgh before moving there just three days after her Commencement ceremony at McDaniel. She says it was a “leap of faith” to once again pursue her education in a new place — like she did coming from the Bahamas to McDaniel.

“In my graduate program, I learned about sustainability — with the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit — and how to match that with a business,” she says. Each semester, Pierre worked with real companies to consult on their business needs and propose sustainable solutions. She even traveled to Croatia to present to an international client — an adventure that had initially inspired her to apply to the master’s program.

“It's very challenging, but it's worth it. I always tell people that if I could do it again, I would,” Pierre says. Now on the job search, she plans to go into marketing with a role where she’s “always learning and can be creative, because I always have all of these ideas in my head,” she says.

Getting an Early Career Start in Finance at McDaniel

Brennan Rouse ’23 came to McDaniel from New Jersey as a football recruit, but once he arrived on the Hill, he “never played a snap of football,” he says, having decided he wasn’t destined to be a college football player. Despite that, he never wanted to leave. “I came to McDaniel and fell in love,” he says.

Rouse triple majored in Accounting, Business Administration, and Economics, then put his degrees into action right after graduation in Johns Hopkins University’s 4+1 master’s program, earning a Master of Science in Finance with a concentration in Financial Econometrics.

“I was fascinated by finance, but I knew it was an extremely competitive field,” he says. “So, having a master’s degree behind my name was really intriguing to me, and then being able to do it in a year seemed very convenient.”

At first, Rouse was an Accounting major, but the McDaniel Plan made it easy to add on two more majors in Business Administration and Economics. In his courses, he learned the foundations of each discipline, which allowed him to confidently dive into advanced topics in graduate school. As part of the accelerated graduate program, he enrolled in two courses at Johns Hopkins while completing his undergraduate studies.

"I was fascinated by finance, but I knew it was an extremely competitive field. So, having a master’s degree behind my name was really intriguing to me."

Brennan Rouse '23

“Finance is really the intersection of accounting, business administration, and economics,” he says. “I didn't get a finance degree from McDaniel, but I got everything that I needed.”

McDaniel courses like Money and Financial Markets, Personal Finance, and QuickBooks gave him practical skills that he says helped him grow personally as well as professionally. Mentorship from faculty on the Hill also helped propel him toward graduate school and his career.

“Everyone in the Business Administration and Economics Department is fantastic. Professor Kevin McIntyre, Associate Professor Kerry Duvall, and Professor Julie Routzahn are the greatest professors you could ever have,” he says.

A white man in a suit stands and presents in front of a screen at a conference. Another man in a suit stands beside him. — In the CFA Institute Research Challenge, Brennan Rouse '23 competed against students from other regional universities and gained hands-on mentoring and intensive training in financial analysis.

In graduate school, his most transformative experience was the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute Research Challenge, a team-based competition that involved in-depth research on an assigned company and pitching a buy/sell rating for it to a panel of CFAs.

Since graduating with his master’s degree, Rouse has joined ProShares as an investment strategy analyst. He credits his ability to differentiate himself and stand out in the competitive field of finance with his early start in internships while he was at McDaniel.

“Between all of my roles, I had a lot of real-world experience that I was able to speak to in my interview process where I’m working now,” he says.

His real-world experiences had kicked off with Interviewing Day, hosted by the Economics and Business Administration Department, where he landed an internship with top accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen. As his network grew, he also gained work experience at Merrill Lynch and OneDigital.

“One of the really cool things about McDaniel is the strength of its network,” Rouse says. “A lot of people look at the downsides of it being a small school. But when you’re networking, everyone is really excited if you both went to McDaniel. If someone from McDaniel reached out to me, I’d be very happy to help bridge any gaps that I can. And that’s just how all McDaniel alumni are.”

As part of the McDaniel Commitment, all students are offered opportunities to customize their education and pursue a path to success from day one. Graduate school partnerships are just one of the ways McDaniel supports students from a variety of undergraduate majors in continuing their education in subjects like Engineering, Art Therapy, Environmental Biology, and more.