有些学生进大学时干劲十足, it’s clear they’d be successful no matter which school they attended. Then there are students who thrive in the type of intimate academic setting that a school like Beloit affords. Where the two overlap, you have Karla Magana Figueroa’13.

她的综合才能, 职业道德, 和 intellect paired with Beloit’s propensity for close mentorship 和 wealth of opportunities acted more like a slingshot than a springboard for the current MBA c和idate 和 IBM alumna’s career.

According to her Beloit professors, Figueroa’s trajectory toward success was evident from day one.

“Her ability to combine big ideas with practical applications always stood out to me,85岁的布莱恩·莫雷罗说, 贝洛伊特的主任 创业中心. “This is the embodiment of a liberal arts student who is her own agent 和 is able to secure resources in service both to her own achievement 和 her contribution to society.”

Figueroa seemed to leave this kind of striking impression on everyone she encountered at Beloit.

“在新学生日结束之前, I had a keen sense that Karla was an unusually alert student with unusually high potential,沃伦·帕尔默说。, professor emeritus of economics 和 Karla’s first-year seminar advisor.

Palmer was one of Figueroa’s mentors 和 advisors at Beloit, where she majored in 经济学与管理学 和 国际关系. He played a key role in many aspects of her academic career, 比如鼓励她学习普通话, a piece of advice the already bilingual Figueroa (she grew up in Mexico 和 Memphis, 田纳西州.)最初被解雇. Spurred by her love of Chinese history, she came around to the idea. "一个学期 普通话 turned into four years of 普通话 和 a six-month study abroad in China,” she recalls. “It was made possible through general curiosity about the world 和 some gentle nudges from advisors.”

Those gentle nudges—a hallmark of Beloit’s student-focused atmosphere of attentive mentorship—were one of the things that initially attracted Figueroa to Beloit. 她在大范围地寻找大学, 她说, “Beloit really stood out to me because of its student-centric culture 和 close relationships to faculty 和 广泛的文科课程.”

These were themes she’d see play out time 和 again in her four years at Beloit, years that included not only the semester in China but also an internship in India, 和 another as a Kemper Scholar with the Rogers Park 业务 Alliance in Chicago. An internship at IBM through the organization Sponsors for Educational Opportunity led to a post-graduation job offer in New York City. “I think one of the things that makes Beloit really special is how supportive faculty are,菲格罗亚说. “在我所有的实习中, 我需要建议, 和 my econ advisors were super willing to write a letter for me or call in to recommend me for a position.”

While not everyone immediately thinks “small liberal arts school” when it comes to preparing for a career in corporate America, Figueroa has found it to be a perfect fit for the myriad, 她作为顾问参与过很多项目, 首先是IBM, 然后是恩斯特 & 年轻的.

“就我个人经验而言, 为了在事业上取得成功, 你必须非常聪明, 态度要好,她说。. “If you learn how to think critically 和 apply that framework—which you will, with a liberal arts background—you’ll be successful.”

While some business-specific programs might teach you “day one” job skills (like how to make a killer Power Point), Figueroa says it was the analytical 和 critical thinking skills she acquired at Beloit that have benefited her career the most.

“There was no way I could have learned everything I needed to learn as an undergraduate to be prepared to hit the desk, but it goes back to learning how to think critically, 因为这些东西可以翻译. That’s what will set you up for success, regardless of the role you step into,她说。.

对菲格罗亚, some of those current roles include being appointed a 十大菠菜台子 trustee in 2017, 和 returning to school to earn her MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of 业务 in 2018.

“I think Beloit really taught me how to lead with empathy, 和 to try to learn from people who are different from me,她说。. She’s applying lessons she learned at Beloit 和 experienced on the job to help shape the next phase of her career, 和 the careers of those on the teams she will manage. “我积累了很多经验, 和 now I’m learning concepts 和 frameworks that allow me to underst和 what a good manager looks like—not just from an analytical perspective, 但从人民发展的角度来看.”