As a child, Karen Washington ’22 envisioned working in a high-rise office with floor-to-ceiling windows and sweeping views of a large city, telling family and friends, “One day, I’m going to be the CEO of a huge corporation.” Since then, Washington’s professional and personal life has taken a number of fascinating turns. She is a Marine Corps reservist, an employee health and safety manager at e-commerce giant Amazon, and a mother. Hers is by any measure a full, rich life, and she would not have it any other way. But her responsibilities don’t end there. The Brooklyn, N.Y., native is also a student in Le Moyne’s MBA program in the Madden School of Business. And as someone who firmly believes that “the pit stops we take make us who we are today,” she is confident that her time on the Heights will help prepare her for “wherever the road ahead may lead.”
Washington’s path to Le Moyne began in 2020. At that point, she had retired from active-duty service in the Marines and had earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Park University in Missouri. She was wresting with the question of what to do next when a friend urged her to consider pursuing an MBA. The degree’s breadth and utility could open any number of doors for her, he said. The idea appealed to Washington, and soon she began carefully researching programs. Le Moyne immediately stood out to her. Its small class sizes meant that at the outset she would receive the hands-on, individual attention that was important to her as someone with a background in the social sciences taking on a graduate degree in business. The flexible nature of the program meant that later, when her job at Amazon led to a move from Syracuse to Central New Jersey, she would be able to complete some of her coursework via Zoom. (When she does return to campus for Saturday classes, she is able to stay at Le Moyne’s Veterans House.)
Balancing her responsibilities as a service member, employee, mother and student is an effort, Washington acknowledges, but it has been well worth it. Professionally, she has had the opportunity to meet and learn from people from a broad array of fields and industries. Personally, she has modeled for her children that if you are persistent and determined, anything is possible. Working for Amazon had always been one of her dreams. “I love my job. I love safety. You can incorporate it into anything you do,” she says. Whatever comes next in her career, her time at Le Moyne has given her a new set of skills from which to draw and a broader understanding of the possibilities that lie ahead. Her advice for others considering pursuing an MBA at Le Moyne is simple.
“If you’re thinking about doing it, the first step is doing it. Just start.”
This is part of a series of stories on students pursuing a graduate degree from the Madden School of Business.