Inside a Vanderbilt Master of Marketing Student’s Week

For Lily Grace Thome, it was love at first sight.

It was the spring of her junior year at Auburn University, and Thome was trying to figure out what she wanted to do post-grad as a double major in PR and marketing. She had a few friends heading off to Vanderbilt University for graduate school, and seeing as she’d grown up in Knoxville, TN, she’d spent her whole life hearing great things about the university.

When she visited the downtown Nashville campus to learn more about Vanderbilt’s Master of Marketing program, she immediately fell in love. “The program sells itself: Nashville, Vanderbilt, 10 months,” she says. Thome applied the “very first day the application dropped,” and soon her dream came true. Today, she’s in her final quarter as a Master of Marketing student at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management.

Some things were exactly what she expected — top-notch classes and professors, a challenging yet rewarding environment — and others, like the tight-knit bond with her cohort, surprised her. In February, we spent a week with Thome to find out what her day-to-day as a Master of Marketing student looks like, how she finds time to slow down and be present in the moment, and what she’s looking forward to in the future, armed with a Vanderbilt master’s degree.

Inside the Owen Building

The hub of Thome’s experience at Vanderbilt is, undoubtedly, the renovated Owen Graduate School of Management building. It’s lively at all hours of the day, Thome says, with students working on group projects, listening to visiting speakers, or enjoying happy hours with alumni.

Mondays through Thursdays, Thome has two classes per day, about an hour and a half each. These days are action-packed — similar to what she assumes a real job in marketing is like. “The classes are super interactive, and they’re super group-focused,” she says, explaining that a typical class might look like getting into class at 8 a.m.; her professor giving them a case study 10 minutes later; and then the students forming groups to make slide decks and give presentations with proposed solutions within an hour. “It’s super fun, super engaging, keeps you on your feet,” she says. “You’re definitely not sitting there bored at class.”

Right now, she’s taking Selling Strategy: Promotions, Persuasion, and Public Relations and Quantitative Analysis for Marketing Decision-Making, a good balance of a subject she knows well (having studied PR in college) and something more numbers-driven. As she describes it, “It’s been cool to have one class that’s my bread and butter, and one where I’m constantly raising my hand, like, ‘Help me.'”

The group-focused nature of the program also means that she’s constantly learning from her peers, who come from “such unique backgrounds and experiences.” Some, like her, are fresh out of undergrad, while others have been working for a few years and are looking to level-up their marketing careers. Because the cohort is small — just 76 students — she has gotten to know her classmates very well, and relies on everyone for support.

“You’re seeing these people every day,” she says. “You know everyone in your class and you’re not nervous to talk. You really get to build on each other’s strengths. I know exactly who needs to present this, who’s number-driven, that sort of thing.”

A Star-Studded Internship

Outside the classroom is just as impactful for Master of Marketing students. Everyone has an internship requirement, and because the entire program has Fridays off, it’s the perfect opportunity to get impactful professional experience. Many students take advantage of all that Nashville — the home of country music — has to offer. “It’s so cool to see my friends be like, ‘I’m working for Dolly Parton’s publicist,'” Thome says.

Thome opted to work as a PR and brand management intern for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, which means that she’s getting hands-on experience in things like press releases and media relations — and she gets to liaise directly with talent, a huge perk of her role.

“It’s been really cool to get to work with A-list artists — Kenny Chesney, Vince Gill, Kelsea Ballerini — and I’m just an intern,” Thome explains. She was even able to work as a media temp for the red carpet at the CMA Awards, brushing elbows with talent.

The experience has been eye-opening for Thome, who hopes to go in-house at a brand after graduation. She’s particularly interested in brand management, leadership comms, and crisis communication. She previously interned at Delta Air Lines, which was a great place to build those skills because of her love for travel (she studied abroad twice in undergrad).

She’s not too worried about her next step; she meets regularly with her career coach, Zeke, who is helping her navigate the world of recruiting, and also has a leadership training coach. Hearing about where Owen alums have landed — from big-name corporations to top agencies — gives her a lot of confidence, too.

All the Extras and Intangibles

With so much going on between Thome’s classes and internship, it’s hard to imagine there’s time for much else. But she is adamant about making the most of every opportunity at Vanderbilt, particularly because her program is just 10 months long.

Although her days are so busy, she takes a walk across campus every day before class starts, rain or shine — “the campus is just gorgeous,” she says. And whenever she can throughout the day, she’ll try to practice that mindfulness as well: “It’s important to find time when you can put your screen down and eyes up and really look at the person in front of you and the professor at the front of the room.”

She loves lunchtime in particular in the Owen building; there are different lunch-and-learns, some with guest speakers (they recently hosted the former CEO of Weight Watchers and a pair of Olympians). This week, Thome gets to play with therapy dogs, a helpful de-stresser amid finals.

One of her favorite traditions is Closing Bell, which happens every Thursday at 6 p.m. for the entire business school. It’s a social hour and dinner, and her professors often bring their families as well. That means more time to bond with her professors, who were a huge draw for her in the first place.

“Our professors are what led me here — they’ve actually worked and practiced before, they have a lot of great advice and connections,” she says. “And everyone goes the extra mile. They’re down to earth, they care about your journey.”

Joking around with her classmates and professors at the end of the week, Thome couldn’t be happier that her love story worked out. She says that these are the memories that are “going to last far longer than the 10 months we’re spending here.”