My Path to Stanford GSB

My name is Marquis Parker, and I come from a small town in Virginia. My hometown is a very tiny place where kids typically aren't exposed to big careers and options.

I graduated from Princeton, majoring in computer science. I had decent grades, although they were not stellar. After I graduated from Princeton, I spent five years working as a software engineer.

My first job was with one of the former high flying Dot Com consultancies called Scient. That company went under when the bubble burst. Then I went to work with a small government contractor outside the Washington, D.C. area.

During my time with that contractor, I got my first graduate degree in Management Information Technology at the University of Virginia (UVA).  When I had completed that degree I realized that it was not enough. I would need to go to business school in order to reach my ultimate goals in business.

I went to Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB). While I was at GSB, I learned about a joint degree program that the school offered, so I also applied to the education school while I was still a student at business school.

I graduated from GSB with both the MBA and an MA in Education in 2006. Then I moved to Atlanta to work for McKinsey & Company, the management consultancy group. I spent a little more than two years there and worked on a range of projects in different functional areas and different industries.

When I left McKinsey, I moved on to a company called Waterstone Group Holdings. This company was a higher end model, a per-project reinvestment strategic advisory. I stayed there for about a year-and-a-half.

I moved on to Aon Corporation, which is a 10 billion dollar provider of insurance in capital services. I currently work in a global strategy role. I focus on mergers and acquisitions activity in one of Aon’s divisions.

For the past seven years I have been an active blogger on the side. I also run a side business in which I provide business consulting services, MBA admissions prep and career advice. In addition to these enterprises, I am thinking of launching a start up in the next few months.

When I started out on this journey, I really didn’t have specific goals in mind. Looking back, I can see that, if I had, my journey might have been even more productive than it has been. In this series of articles, I would like to share my business school experiences with you and provide you with some tips and ideas for setting your course for success at a Top 10 MBA program!