MS Marketing Student Spotlight: Jacob Schuster
Jacob Schuster (BSBA ’20, MS Marketing ’21) will be among the first batch of students graduating from the MS Marketing program this spring. After graduation, he goes to work at Oracle in Austin. Congratulations, Jacob!
Q: Tell us about your background.
Schuster: “I graduated from undergrad at UF in just three years with a bachelor’s in marketing in 2020. Currently finishing my master’s in marketing in spring 2021. I will be a part of the first ever class from UF with this degree, with the program only being introduced in Fall 2020.”
Q: Why did you join the MS Marketing program?
Schuster: “I joined the MS Marketing program because the undergraduate content was enjoyable and felt that a graduate degree would enhance my resume (plus I really wanted to see Trask get the Heisman). While I started as a marketing major in undergrad because of the financial success of Schmidt from ‘New Girl’ (a pop-culture hero of mine), I felt that my creativity and business experience would blend well in this environment. I went on to love the courses in consumer behavior and analytics and knew that a graduate degree would add to my specialization.”
Q: What do you enjoy the most in the MS Marketing program?
Schuster: “The fast pace of modular courses (essentially Fall A and Fall B, followed by Spring A and Spring B) keeps me on top of my workload, able to focus more on each class. The marketing program course options helped me specialize in my field, product development and sales. Being able to choose from the graduate course catalog across the entire business school also lends to my personal ventures in creativity and entrepreneurship as well.”
Q: What is your advice to current undergraduate students who are thinking of doing the combination MS Marketing program?
Schuster: “While I graduated undergrad in three years and applied for the traditional master’s in marketing degree, I did consider the combination degree to save time and money. Researching the requirements further, I simply did not have the GPA to apply for combination, so I took my chances with an advanced course load in my final year of undergrad and aimed for the traditional degree path.
For any business major coming into school with credits from AP classes, IB, or dual-enrollment, I would recommend reaching out to an academic advisor and researching the specialized master’s degrees as much as possible early in your undergraduate careers and to keep an eye on the GPA/credit hour requirements to save yourself a lot of time and hassle. The chances are pretty good that a business major can graduate early, so it is absolutely worth investigating the addition of a valuable graduate degree onto your education.”
Schuster: “Mapping out my college path on my own in undergrad was sufficient for graduating, but lack of interaction with academic advisors in the first two years nearly prevented me from seeing my full range of post-graduate options. Frequent communication with academic and career advisors is an essential part of launching a successful post-graduate career, either in grad school or in the job hunt.
Preparing for the GRE was an intimidating task. I did not score ridiculously high on my SATs or ACTs when headed into college, so I was not too confident in my standardized testing abilities. Having not practiced some of the test’s math skills in years, focusing on statistics courses while in undergrad, multiple business school advisors recommended Magoosh, an online tutoring service that was absolutely worth it. Practice exams and mental exercises helped me score higher than anticipated on a part of the application that I was really worried about.”
Q: What are you doing after graduation?
Schuster: “After graduation in Spring, I will be moving to Austin, TX to work at Oracle as a Business Development Consultant at the new corporate headquarters. I will be joining several other Gators at Oracle, one of the largest tech companies in the world, in June of 2021 to start my career.
This role was found through the school’s career resources, Gator CareerLink and HireWarrington, which I highly recommend for students interested in a role after college. Applying online to roles found on company websites and occasionally filling out a LinkedIn Easy Apply simply does not cut it, so look into companies that are looking to hire Gators through the school’s resources.”
Q: Where do you see yourself 5 years from today?
Schuster: “I hope to still be at Oracle in the next 5 years, growing from my entry-level position to an Account Executive or managerial position. My love for creative problem solving is what drew me to the consulting and sales role initially, and with the corporate headquarters moving to Austin this year, growth within the company seems to be unlimited.”
Q: Tell us 3 cool things about you.
Schuster: “Some fun facts about me are that in four years, I’ve never studied in Library West or worked out at Southwest, in summer 2020. I closed out the Swamp Restaurant on its final night at the original location, and despite being a national qualifier in club swimming, I have crippling thalassophobia (fear of the ocean/bodies of water). I’m comfortable sharing these since I never have to do Two Truths and a Lie in syllabus week ever again.”
