Hundreds of students enroll in the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business each year, so what about Kellstadt attracts them and how has Kellstadt supported their success? In this Q&A series, we’re inviting students as well as recent alumni to share their perspective on why they chose to study at Kellstadt and why they’re glad they did.
Palak Patel
Next up is alumna Palak Patel, who graduated in June 2021 with a Master of Science in Business Analytics. Patel is passionate about global supply chain management and currently works in operations management at Amazon.
Why did you choose Kellstadt?
Because I was pivoting to a new career path (my undergraduate degree is in chemical engineering), I wanted to be a part of a reputable business school with good connections and professional opportunities, especially in the heart of Chicago. Kellstadt had that to offer and more. The business analytics program at Kellstadt gave me a sense of excitement and opportunity. Business analytics to me represents the idea of a sustainable, essential and dynamic career in which numbers meet people. It was just the type of focus I was looking for.
What stands out to you when you think back on your time at Kellstadt?
The culture of community and support. DePaul and Kellstadt are full of kind and genuine people that help you feel more like a person than a number. My classmates were focused on their careers in a non-toxic, non-competitive way. Everyone that I had met and worked with was there to help each other out. I met so many people who genuinely wanted to help me grow professionally and I felt that the faculty and staff were personally invested in my career and success, all of which made me feel very supported throughout my time in the program. The bonds I formed during my grad school experience with classmates and professors continue today.
What Kellstadt resource made the biggest impact on you?
The Kellstadt Career Management Center (CMC) opened up so many opportunities, connections and experiences for me that I would never have found alone. All it took was one sincere, sit-down conversation with my advisor for me to recognize that the CMC is genuinely and personally invested in students.
The CMC introduced me to fellow students, professors, professionals and opportunities to help me figure out my career path and what I can contribute to the academic space. It connected me to the Kellstadt Business Analytics Organization (KBAO) and Supply Chain Management Society (SCMS), two student organizations that I became involved in and that helped me broaden my network, develop my confidence and inspired me to discover what I’m passionate about and what motivates me.
Through these organizations I was able to participate in student panels and discussions as well as case competitions. All of this helped me discover a career where analytics meets supply chain, and I met professors and mentors who guided me along the way. For introducing me to all of this, I’m so thankful to the people at the CMC. These opportunities gave me a lot more practical learning and business exposure beyond just the classroom.
What would you to say to someone who is considering studying at Kellstadt?
If you are looking for personalized support as you advance or change your career, a strong business community and opportunities to be a trailblazer, then Kellstadt is the place to be!
Read the other spotlight in this series:
Randa Mahmud Ulankiewicz, a student in the Master of Science in Marketing Analysis program, shares how much Kellstadt’s faculty members have impacted her professional career.
Hundreds of students enroll in the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business each year, so what about Kellstadt attracts them and how is Kellstadt helping them achieve their goals? In this Q&A series, we’re inviting students as well as recent alumni to share their perspectives on why they chose to study at Kellstadt and why they’re glad they did.
Randa Mahmud Ulankiewicz
First up is Randa Mahmud Ulankiewicz, who is in the Master of Science in Marketing Analysis program and expects to graduate in December 2022. Ulankiewicz is an experienced industry researcher who currently works at Adtalem Global Education as a senior analyst, providing consumer insights to medical and nursing school clients. She’s also a volunteer with the Insights Association, a market research association, for the North Central chapter, and co-founder of the charity Refugee Life Foundation.
Why did you choose Kellstadt?
I had an amazing experience attending DePaul as an undergraduate student. I received my BS in marketing in 2006 and loved the curriculum and faculty so much that it made sense to come back to study at Kellstadt. I knew that I was going to receive an education from professors that have experience in their field. I also knew that I was going to get the support I needed to succeed.
While it’s a little different being a student as an older adult, the experience continues to surprise me as it has been better than what I expected. Everything I loved about DePaul’s business school as an undergrad has remained the same since I left. I’ve kept in contact with some faculty from my undergraduate career and love seeing the amazing work they continue to do.
Other reasons I chose Kellstadt: I enjoy the pace of DePaul’s quarter system, I feel that DePaul professors are invested in their students, and I’ve greatly benefited from the connections I made and continue to make here. Some have become lifelong friends, and others have become colleagues in the industry or at work.
Last but not least, I have a lot of pride being a DePaul alumna, so I would love to hold the Double Demon title.
What about Kellstadt stands out to you?
The professors. Most of my professors either had or continue to work in their respective fields, and it is extremely valuable to learn from people who actually practice what they teach. Their knowledge and passion for what they do is shown in their classes. They aren’t assigning work for the sake of assigning work, they are ensuring you understand the fundamentals and tell you how to apply it at your job, when the time comes. DePaul professors are invested in their students’ futures and will continue to check on you after you graduate. My suggestion is to always stay connected with the professor that has influenced you. I plan to do so.
Which professor has made the biggest impact on you?
The most important person in all of my DePaul experience, undergraduate to graduate, is Dr. Stephen Koernig. Because of him, I chose to practice in this field. I’ve utilized him as a resource at Kellstadt and have always received honest feedback. Dr. Koernig’s knowledge and passion for marketing research and insights can’t be matched. Not only did he give me the opportunity to explore this field, but he continues to advise, influence and mentor me as I navigate life as a graduate student and full-time employee in my organization. While many people in my life didn’t think I was going to succeed, Dr. Koernig continued to remind me that hard work and continuous learning is why I will achieve any goal I set for myself. My gratitude to him is immeasurable and I cannot say thank you to him enough.
There are many other great professors at Kellstadt who have made an impact on me, but Dr. Koernig stands out.
Ulankiewicz (far right) with Marketing Department Chair Stephen Koernig and fellow alumna and friend Lena Hanson Zickus (BUS ‘05) at the 2017 Driehaus College of Business Marketing Advisory Council Rising Star Award ceremony. Ulankiewicz received an award that year for her exemplary work in market research.
What would you to say to someone who is considering studying at Kellstadt?
Kellstadt has a great reputation, an abundance of resources, fantastic faculty and a terrific location! Having the DePaul name on your résumé does wonders and is a conversation starter at networking events. To be able to put Kellstadt on my résumé is a badge of honor because of the hard work I put in to earn my degree. The resources are amazing here and you continue to have access to them as alumni. DePaul has TWO libraries (in the Loop and in Lincoln Park), the software programs are at our disposal, and DePaul has done a great job in transitioning in the pandemic to online learning [with classes currently offered online, in-person and in hybrid modes]. The faculty is one of the many reasons why I came back. Kellstadt has its reputation because of the intelligent professors who have real-world connections and experiences in the business community.
Lenka Antonijevic on the court/ photo by DePaul Athletics
By Neil Fotre
This is the third and final spotlight in a series on Kellstadt students who are DePaul Women’s Tennis Players. Read parts one and two.
Lenka Antonijevic is almost a walking contradiction but surely an eloquent student enigma. She’s capable of gracefully blending finite, data-driven focus atop innovative teamsmanship. Compounding the paradox, the 23-year-old Kellstadt student believes Chicago pizza is overrated due to the ”gallons of marinera sauce,” yet enjoys making and cooking various sauces for recipes in her spare time!
Lenka Antonijevic
Antonijevic has an astute intellectual capacity, possessing a dual threat mind. She unlocks the analytical strengths of her brain’s left-side in her academic coursework, while seamlessly integrating her right-side creative serves on the Blue Demon Women’s Tennis Team. “My studies activate the brain and doing well in school means I will have confidence on the court,” she says.
Antonijevic does not just activate her brain with her studies, she has maintained a 4.0 grade point average through the entirety of her undergrad in computer science as well as her current academic pursuit of an MS in Business Analytics (just like her teammates Maddie Yergler and Valentina Martin, she’s in DePaul’s dual degree program).
Humble and equally well-spoken, it would be unbelievable to know at an initial introduction that Antonijevic’s worst subject in school growing up was English.
Antonijevic had a slightly unorthodox path to Kellstadt. A seemingly fateful interaction with a DePaul coach, while she was competing in her home country of Serbia, steered her focus towards Chicago and DePaul. Although, she knew at the age of 10, while watching Serena Williams play, that she wanted to play in the United States.
“It was going to be my first time living alone and my first time living in a big city,” she shares. “But knowing DePaul had other players in the same position as me made me feel better.”
Antonijevic’s hometown in Kragujevac, Serbia has a modest population of 150,000. It was an adjustment coming to Chicago, but she had no trouble finding community at DePaul, especially since the women’s tennis team boasts athletes from six countries outside of the US.
Since arriving in Chicago in the fall of 2017, she has excelled and discovered a new sense of joy. “Every day I fall in love with the city,” says Antonijevic, commenting on her affinity for long walks in Lincoln Park. “Here you can choose the place you want to be. You can go downtown or go to the lake.”
Antonijevic is grateful for her opportunity to be both a student and an athlete, as Serbian universities do not offer athletic opportunities for students during their concentrated studies. She’s proven that her success in both endeavors feed each other, saying that “Everything you do in life is related. If you are disciplined in your work on the tennis court, then you will have that discipline off the court.”
Antonijevic credits her favorite professor Goran Kuljanin for inspiring her to pursue her business analytics concentration at Kellstadt. “And he’s my favorite not just because he’s Serbian-American!” she says.
Successfully defeating Middle Tennessee in their last home match, Antonijevic is no stranger to converting match points into wins on the court. She is also no stranger to converting text to python because Antonijevic enjoys using her coding skills in Kellstadt classes. However, what may seem strange is her affinity for the Dark Knight Trilogy. In between workouts and tests, Antonijevic is an ardent fan of Batman.
While Gotham City is usually draped in the dark, noir of the criminal underworld, Antonijevic has a bright spring and summer to-do list. “This will be my first full summer in Chicago, and I am looking forward to going to the beach and spending time with friends. I would also love to do an American-style road trip to the Grand Canyon,” she says.
She also has great career plans for the summer as she will start her first internship as an IT business analyst at Motorola Solutions—an opportunity she snagged on DePaul’s career resource, Handshake.
Aside from her Kellstadt coursework, in the meantime, Antonijevic’s focus is steered at a conference victory in April and working up the courage to try New England-style lobster.
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.
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.
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