Unexpected returns: Why being open-minded matters

By Amra Saric ’24, a student in the JD-MBA Program 

My arrival at Northwestern in August 2021 to begin the JD-MBA Program was a bet that I had made multiple right decisions at once. First, to leave my former career in architecture. Second, to pivot sharply and pursue a career in law without having worked in the legal profession. And third, to add to my legal training an MBA degree — for which I had only a general idea of how it would serve my specific career goals, which were still emerging at the time. Now, almost at the end of my program, any doubt about the correctness of my decisions has long dissipated.  

Experience is the best teacher 

My path through Kellogg has crystallized my career goals, taught me to think strategically about my career progression and equipped me with concrete knowledge and leadership skills. It has afforded me the invaluable opportunity to learn from world-class faculty and form connections with exceptionally impressive colleagues.  

I knew I wanted to start my career in law. My first quarter at Kellogg convinced me that I should pursue corporate law over litigation. I took many core business classes in which I learned the basics of accounting and finance with professors Georg Rickmann and Erez Levy, explored leadership challenges with professor Loran Nordgren and conceptualized business strategy across industries with professor Jeroen Swinkels.  

I started to see how the knowledge I was gainingabout the dynamics of corporate transactions, the internal organizational challenges, the macroeconomic influences — would shape a nuanced and informed perspective on the business needs of clients with whom I would work as a corporate lawyer. But importantly, after the (relatively) solitary journey through the first year of law school, the many variations on groupwork in Kellogg classes as well as the summer weekly social events known as “TGs” (an abbreviation of the phrase ‘Thank God It’s Friday’) were a welcome revelation.  

As I got to know my peers, I was impressed by their wealth of career experience, life paths and imagination for future possibilities. I thought, these are the people I want to work with as a lawyer. My colleagues have added another valuable layer to my perspective. By learning from people who came from and are going into a wide range of industries, I have broadened my scope of knowledge. This positions me to better understand and help my future clients, and I can always look to my direct connections through the Kellogg network. 

 A well of knowledge and resources

Kellogg has also given me a foundation for important and fulfilling intellectual and professional growth. I have discovered that finance — an area of business — both interests me intellectually and dovetails with my corporate law aspirations. I got a grasp of the basics in Finance I and pushed myself to take Finance II with the fantastic professor Carola Frydman the following quarter. 

I continued on with professor Mike Fishman’s Financial Decisions and professor David Stowell’s Wall Street, Hedge Funds, and Private Equity. In each class, I enjoyed the complex intellectual challenge of distilling myriad factors from macroeconomic to internal into a few descriptive variables, analyzing and moderating assumptions along the way, and making predictions based on that analysis. In Professor Stowell’s class, I learned about the hedge fund and private equity industries from an outstanding roster of weekly speakers — all of whom were impressively successful industry veterans.

It might be unsurprising that I, a JD-MBA student, came to like finance so much. At heart, both law and finance are about analyzing and modulating risk. But while lawyers try to limit risk, finance professionals might be more inclined to test its boundaries. Learning to do both with a great deal of motivation underscored the rightness of my degree program and career choice. 

In my final quarter at Kellogg, in addition to capping off my finance journey with professor Jose Liberti’s M&A, LBO, and Corporate Restructuring class, I am committing time to personal reflection in professor Robert Langewisch’s Personal Leadership Insights class. I have held leadership positions across my two schools and within my program. I wanted to process and absorb the lessons from those experiences before starting my career at a law firm in New York City.  

Education promotes personal growth 

My time at Kellogg has been immensely impactful. It has enabled me to solidify my career plans, think strategically about my future and develop my professional network. But the most important lesson has come from my exploration of the finance department offerings. It is a lesson in the value and rewards of being unafraid to try new and unfamiliar things, in having the confidence and the courage to be uncomfortable in order to grow. Kellogg supports and encourages students to take such risks. Walking away with financial modeling skills is an extra benefit. 

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