Business

Business Career Blog

From Law School to Business School

By Elizabeth Barry '17

August 24, 2022

Tags Business

I did not expect to find myself in the business world—let alone thrive in it—and I certainly never planned to pursue my M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration). Now, five years after graduating from Hamilton with a double major in history and economics, I am an M.B.A. candidate at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth with a passion for bettering the world through business.

It’s funny how these things happen…

Rewind to 2017: I had just graduated from Hamilton and my sights were set on applying to my dream law school (and *hopefully* getting accepted). I spent countless hours that summer studying for the L.S.A.T. (Law School Admission Test), drafting essays, and dreading the start of my consulting job.

When I started my job in September, I was knee-deep in the law school application process. I can remember coming home from work and doing little other than eating, sleeping, and studying. A few weeks later, I took my first L.S.A.T. I was well on my way to becoming a lawyer.

But over the next few months, everything changed: my father was diagnosed with cancer, my L.S.A.T. scores came back lower than I hoped, and I was busier than ever at work. I made the difficult choice to table my law school aspirations and focus on my family and my job.

For a while, I felt lost—attending law school was my dream. I was afraid that I would be stuck in the same consulting role forever. But about a year later, I was staffed on a digital transformation project that totally shifted my perspective.

My team was implementing several new software systems for a large medical center, and I was tasked with measuring how these new systems would impact the patient, provider, and caregiver experiences at the facility. Perhaps it was because I had spent so much time visiting my father in the hospital, but for the first time, I realized that I had the power to positively impact people’s lives through my work.

I could see now that I could better the world through business just as much as I could through law.

From that point on, I threw myself into my work with renewed vigor. Over the next three years, I worked closely with my firm’s not-for-profit and healthcare practices to deliver deep insights and unique solutions for our clients and their constituents. I found ways to stretch out of my comfort zone and I constantly challenged myself to learn more so that I could better serve my clients.

But as I set my sights on driving value and attaining more senior roles at my firm, I realized I was missing many of the business fundamentals or “hard skills” needed to move to the next step. Hamilton had done well to prepare me with the requisite soft skills, like communication and organizational leadership, but I needed an M.B.A. to help me bridge the gap.

I applied to the Tuck School of Business and, thankfully, got in.

Since beginning my journey at Tuck earlier this year, I can certainly say I have learned a lot about business, about myself, and about how to be an empathetic leader. I am excited to apply my learnings during my summer internship at Altman Solon and look forward to finding new and exciting ways to continue bettering the world through business.