My 4 years spent at UW-Madison was some of my most favorite times. I had intended to get into Fashion Design and Marketing, but ended up in a major called Consumer Science in the School of Human Ecology. At the time, I just felt that it was a Marketing major for students that were not in the actual Business School, but now I realize I’ve gained a lot more “real world” experience with this degree. The courses I took were mostly in the Marketing Business major but I was also fortunate to take courses in other areas such as Psychology, communications and journalism. The other part of what made this major incredibly useful (post mortem) is that the professors that taught the actual Consumer Science courses were adjuncts. This provided me with such real world insight and first hand experience on jobs, careers and…well, reality.
At the time I felt that getting that 3.5 GPA hindered my growth by not getting into the business school, but it was a blessing as I am happy I had the experience and extended learnings from this major to help me today not only professionally but also personally.
Linda l. Baehring 