Madelyn Yergler on the court/ photo by DePaul Athletics
By Neil Fotre
This is the second spotlight in a three-part series on Kellstadt students who are DePaul Women’s Tennis Players. Read the first one here.
Growing up an hour and a half away from Chicago in South Bend, Indiana, Madelyn “Maddie” Yergler always had her eyes fixed on life in the big city. “I always knew I wanted to go to school in a city with so many companies and opportunities,” she says.
Madelyn Yergler
Today, the 22-year-old scholar and tennis athlete is enrolled in a dual degree seeking program at DePaul University, where she recently began her MS coursework at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in the fall.
Yergler discovered her academic path in a somewhat backwards approach via a 10-week marketing internship at Recruiterboom, a Boston-based, boutique placement firm that has an office in Chicago. “I managed so many different aspects of the company’s marketing strategy, from email to social media. But what I really liked was working with data sheets and analytical projects. The whole experience inspired me to pursue a graduate degree in finance at Kellstadt,” she says.
A demanding, regimented lifestyle is not foreign to this unique Kellstadt student. Yergler gracefully balances her academic obligations with the immense physical and mental demands of competing as a Blue Demon tennis player.
Since she began swinging a racket at the age of 12, Yergler knew that tennis was going to be her sport of choice. This fact was further solidified after a very brief and miserable stint as a goalie on a youth soccer team. “I like the fact that I can control my own world on the tennis court,” she says.
Though she prefers singles-play to doubles-play on the courts, the team atmosphere at DePaul was the “match point” that swayed her away from other university prospects: “DePaul, was the first team that actually felt like a team.”
Yergler speaks highly of her teammates and the relationships that she has forged with the other players, many of whom are originally from other countries, including Venezuela, Bosnia, Russia, Serbia and England.
“It’s like I’m getting to learn something new about different cultures every day. And so many of us are taking classes at Kellstadt too. We are always quizzing each other and pushing each other in our classes, even when we are traveling to matches,” she says.
Yergler believes that one of her strongest qualities is her ability to receive critical feedback – something that has been nurtured by years of having coaches push and critique her in practice and after tournaments. She ultimately believes her thick skin, work ethic and willingness to receive direction will allow her to “outplay” her competition post-academia.
Though Yergler plans to finish her undergrad as well as her MS in finance in the summer of 2023, she has aspirations of working in corporate law in several years. In between serves and data analysis, the self-proclaimed “can’t-sit-still-student” is fine-tuning her test-taking skills in LSAT preparation coursework. The Double Demon could very well be a Triple Demon in the near future at the DePaul College of Law.
Presently, Yergler is anxiously anticipating the cold to break so she can ride her bike on Chicago’s Lakefront trail. She has quite the warm weather to-do list: watching the Cubs, attending outdoor concerts, frequenting fresh markets and perhaps catching a comedy show at Second City. Living in the big city she’d always dreamed about definitely has its perks.
Neil Fotre is a full-time MS candidate at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. He is a former United States Army cavalry officer and a forever seltzer aficionado. He has an MBA from Kellstadt and an MS in investigative journalism from Northwestern University. In-between academics he has become an Instapot chef and homemade chocolate connoisseur. Outside of the kitchen you can spot him on the lakefront trail, running off sugar and caffeine jitters.
Valentina Martin on the court/ photo by DePaul Athletics
By Neil Fotre
This is the first edition of a spotlight series on Kellstadt students who are DePaul Women’s Tennis Players. Did you know? The Women’s Tennis team has the highest GPA [3.97] of all DePaul athletic teams.
Valentina Martin
Valentina Martin has enough energy to sprint around the tennis court after delivering a multi-layered case study. The 21-year-old, headband-sporting, combined degree seeking student is a unique personality among the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business population.
“Valen,” as her friends refer to her, originally hails from Caracas, Venezuela. She transferred to the DePaul community in 2020 after spending two years at the University of Central Florida. Martin astutely stands at five feet and one inch tall. Yet, her modest vertical prowess masks the near 100-mile-per-hour serve she fires at her opponents on the Blue Demon tennis courts.
The ability to merge an athletic opportunity with an undergraduate degree in business administration and a graduate degree in marketing was a major allure for Martin. Although, she admits that Chicago pizza was a welcome addition to her transfer to DePaul and the transition to living alone in a big city for the first time in her life.
Pursuing a dual-degree is a daunting task for any motivated student. Despite the workload, Martin has maintained a 4.0 grade point average in her academic tenure at DePaul, while simultaneously beginning her marketing intensive coursework at Kellstadt. This academic achievement alone is worthy of standout recognition. Remarkably, the self-proclaimed academic and “super-nerd” is a highly dedicated athlete as well. Martin balances her coursework obligations while also committing to an at times, 20-hour-a-week workout regimen as an active student athlete.
Martin first picked up a tennis racket at the age of four and completely dedicated herself to the sport by her tenth birthday. She began competing internationally shortly after, “racketing-up” tournament wins across South America and North America.
According to Martin, traveling and moving around due to sports isn’t easy; it can be difficult at times to feel accepted in new environments. However, she describes the DePaul community as “so welcoming of new students and players.”
“I love school,” Martin says, reflecting on her recent start at Kellstadt. “My favorite professor is Professor Paul Petricca, who currently teaches my Customer Relationship Management course at Kellstadt. This course has really strengthened my motivation and passion for working with people and being a team player.”
Her Kellstadt coursework has also furthered her ambition to capture a career where she can combine her court-side “service” skillsets in a customer-first corporate culture.
While Martin maintains that tennis and a workout schedule will always be a part of her life, she is excited at the prospect of entering the professional corporate workforce. In the summer of 2021, Martin successfully completed a 12-week internship at Dell. She will also be continuing at Dell this upcoming summer as a lead intern, acclimating new interns with their workplace responsibilities while also tackling new independent projects.
Despite the fact that she navigates the Chicago winter with a thick, Blue Demon parka, her warm-weather background prefers and awaits the upcoming spring and summer. Sadly, Martin has not had the opportunity to watch the Cubs play at Wrigley Field since moving to Chicago. Despite the fact that the stadium does not serve her preferred Venezuelan snack, tequeños, she is hoping to cross a home game off the list of summer Chicago-to-dos.
In the meantime, Martin is dedicated to continuing to achieve the highest marks in her studies, while aiding her fellow tennis teammates in another winning season, one “Ace” at a time.
Neil Fotre is a full-time MS candidate at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. He is a former United States Army cavalry officer and a forever seltzer aficionado. He has an MBA from Kellstadt and an MS in investigative journalism from Northwestern University. In-between academics he has become an Instapot chef and homemade chocolate connoisseur. Outside of the kitchen you can spot him on the lakefront trail, running off sugar and caffeine jitters.
By Janaki Soni
Every student entering graduate school is often presented with the same opportunities to get involved on campus, but what makes a difference is whether you act on those opportunities to shape your experience into exactly what you need.
I knew coming into Kellstadt that I wouldn’t hesitate to apply for or try out different clubs because I wanted to be able to look back at this time knowing that I tried to fully utilize the graduate school experience. I also intended to get some leadership experience on my résumé because as a woman, a person of color, and someone young in my career, I knew that on paper I had everything working against me. So, I joined Kellstadt Marketing Group (KMG) to get actively involved in the DePaul community, enhance my graduate school experience, gain valuable leadership skills, and build my network.
KMG is a professional, graduate student-led organization specializing in knowledge-sharing events. The organization is in its 14th year with a strong community of more than 2,000 members. The group consists of students, faculty and industry professionals committed to driving the development of the marketing and business landscape. KMG serves as a hub for networking, ideation, career development and more.
As an aspiring leader, I was attracted to KMG because its mission aligned with my career goals. Being a part of the organization has helped me cultivate my people management skills and has pushed me to utilize my time management skills, as I manage multiple priorities at once, from work to courses to clubs to a social life. It’s given me a chance to look at things with a more strategic and high-level perspective across the different functions of the organization, and it has also allowed me to meet some amazing colleagues and friends, which would have been more difficult in the pandemic while we were all virtual.
I understand that almost every student organization states “networking” as one of its benefits, but for Kellstadt Marketing Group it really is true and even goes beyond that. The community is tight-knit and genuinely wants to see you succeed. Besides networking opportunities, we host speakers who share expertise on different topics to cater to people with a variety of interests (branding and creativity, women in business, marketing and sustainability, sports marketing, etc.) The KMG alumni network is also phenomenal as the community keeps giving back to current students with speaker panels, job opportunities or thought-leader videos and articles. I have grown from many of the opportunities and connections that KMG provides.
If you are a graduate student at DePaul and interested in joining KMG, please visit: kellstadtmarketing.com and follow our Instagram page @KMGDePaul for upcoming events. Our biggest events include the Fall Kick-Off, Case Competition (winter quarter) and a Symposium (spring quarter) each year.
Janaki Soni works full-time and is an MBA candidate at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, and president of Kellstadt Marketing Group, previously holding the role of vice president of public relations and membership. Janaki is a double-demon and graduated in 2017 with a BS in business management information systems. She has always had a passion for the marketing space and enjoys taking on active leadership roles to increase community involvement and connect people with similar interests. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, reading and kayaking.
By Neil Fotre
Almost 10 years ago, I left the U.S. Army. I boxed away all my gear and embraced the luxuries of civilian life in Chicago, like flushing toilets and readily available pizza.
Military transition was and is a weird experience to say the least. It is filled with situations and emotions that can paint you with a veneer of confidence but with an underlying feeling of being different or somewhat out of place. The experience of feeling out of touch or alone inevitably projected my brain back to memories where I ironically felt comfortable; in combat, I felt like I had a community.
Neil Fotre (left)
Combat is controlled chaos. It is exciting, exhilarating and it kind of smells and sounds like a Fourth of July fireworks show. After any successful engagement, you are left with a feeling that you have won the most competitive sporting event of your life. The most rewarding piece is sharing the event with a group of people that suffered through the proverbial suck together. We ran into the breach together not because we hated what was in front of us, but because we loved what we left behind.
DePaul University and the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business do not smell like a Fourth of July fireworks show, but they do offer something I’ll always miss about my time in the army. The university makes it a point to provide a community and a support network for veterans that other Chicago-based universities do not offer.
More than 500 hundred veterans currently attend DePaul. I can affirmatively attest to the fact that the school provides direct support to all veterans for our unique needs via a veteran student organization and a veteran’s office. Also, there is a veteran’s student lounge in the downtown campus where they do not check veteran ID’s… It doesn’t matter though, because “we” know.
I have been fortunate enough to be able to serve as the president of Kellstadt Partners, a student organization that is charged with the sole mission of cultivating lasting relationships within the Kellstadt community. I am not entirely sure if the board members – TJ Valentor, Jason Giamou, Egle Visgintas and Delia Perez – would assault an enemy emplacement with me, but they are outstanding at planning and hosting events for the community. Aside from this, they along with many other students have offered me their time and support throughout many group projects during the school year. Walking off the battlefield with all your arms, legs, fingers and toes is quite a feeling, but so is getting an A in a tough course.
Military transition and carrying the title of “combat veteran” in a civilian world is always a bit of an isolating experience. However, being a student at DePaul University makes it slightly easier because of the community and the opportunities the university provides veteran students. I’ll always cherish my time ducking and dodging the zips and wizzes of machine gun rounds. Yet, overcoming case studies and group project deliverables with a like-minded team of motivated individuals is a rewarding substitute. Most importantly, I always have a hot shower available, a fresh change of clothes and a warm bed to sleep in at the end of a long day.
Neil Fotre is a full-time MBA candidate at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and the president of DePaul student organization Kellstadt Partners. He is a former United States Army cavalry officer and current seltzer aficionado. He has an MSJ in investigative journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from John Carroll University. In-between D2L discussion posts, he enjoys push-ups and poor attempts at rudimentary math without the use of a calculator. He does not oversell his cooking ability but everything he makes is edible.
Check out these veteran student resources at DePaul University:
By Natalie Velazquez
As a first-generation Latina student in the full-time MBA program at Kellstadt, I can say my journey to here has not been easy. You’ve probably heard the term “first-generation,” but what does it really mean? It is defined as people who are the first in their family to pursue a higher education—but actually, it means much more than that.
Being first-generation means the mental load and pressures we carry go beyond just our own needs. It means translating for our parents at doctor visits or filling out applications for them that they need help figuring out, if English is not their first language. It means being there for our younger siblings as mentors and answering questions about homework. From a young age I have had to play a big role in helping my family navigate many aspects of life that non-first-gen people don’t have to worry about.
Being a first-generation student is not easy. We don’t have the advantage of being able to ask our parents for advice about career paths or how to navigate college since they didn’t have those experiences. If we get stuck with something in class, we feel like we don’t fit in—we feel like outsiders.
But even through all the challenges, I’ve come to appreciate being a first-generation student as a blessing in disguise. It has provided me with perspective and grit, and has been a big reason for my drive to succeed. Below are some bits of wisdom I’ve picked up along my way that can hopefully help you succeed too as a first-gen student:
Reach out to professors. Whether it’s a quick email introduction or introducing yourself on the first day of class, it will make a difference and help make you feel more comfortable during class discussions. Also, keep in contact with them when the course is over, as you never know when you might need a recommendation letter or career advice. Remember, professors have experience in the field of study that they are teaching, so don’t hesitate to meet with them to learn about their professional experiences.
Find on-campus employment opportunities, starting with your department of study. My concentration is management, so I reached out to the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship to find opportunities for involvement. I ended up getting hired to help launch the department’s first official newsletter and I also found a part-time student position in the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center. Working an on-campus job is great for flexibility because the departments always understand that you are a student first. These jobs are an opportunity to receive hands-on experience and gain transferrable skills you can use later on in your career. Best of all, you are helping out faculty, staff and students when you work in the campus community.
Dive into Kellstadt events and organizations to build your network and experiences. As first-generation students, we have to build our own networks from scratch. The numerous events hosted by different student organizations at Kellstadt can help you do this. Check out the student organizations on DeHub or social media to find more opportunities for involvement. The ones that I have checked out are Kellstadt Women in Business and DePaul Consulting Club, as they host many career-related workshops. These kind of events are the ones to take advantage of because the companies that partner with these clubs are often looking for people like us to join their team one day! It’s always important to follow-up with the event presenter on LinkedIn or through email and ask for an informational interview if you would like to learn more about them or have questions. Another great resource for networking and career resources is Handshake. I have found recruiter and interview workshops there as well.
Take advantage of the flexibility of different course modes. Kellstadt offers different course modes, so use these options to set yourself up for success. The Flex mode courses, for example, where you can choose to attend your class in-person or online, have been very helpful as I am able to balance my time more wisely, especially with my many responsibilities at home.
Praise yourself. Last, but not least, you have to reflect on and appreciate how far you have come. As first-generation students, we are literally doing everything first in our families, and by ourselves. We are building a foundation for ourselves and for our family members who will come after us. You’re doing great and you’re not alone—keep going!
Natalie Velazquez is an MBA candidate at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. In addition to her studies, she stays active on campus with multiple student positions: peer mentor for College Access, student assistant at the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center and graduate assistant in the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship. She graduated from DePaul University in 2021 with her BS in business administration, making her a proud soon-to-be Double Demon.
Do you want to share some of your own tips as a first-generation student or alum of Kellstadt? Fill out this form and we may feature your responses on the @depaulbiz Instagram account.
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