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As a child, Teshera Hull ’19 remembers tagging along with her mother to the local community college, but her mother never had the opportunity to complete an associate’s degree.

More than a decade later, Hull earned her own Associate of Arts degree, becoming the first in her family to pursue higher education. She carried the degree proudly—not only for herself but also for her mother, her grandmother, and the many others in her family who hadn’t been able to take that step.

“I always had a thirst for knowledge and education,” says Hull. “Now, my siblings have gotten their college degrees, too, and my younger brother even has his PhD.”

She later decided to build on her AA by earning a BS in Business Management from Pepperdine University. The program was flexible to fit around her full-time work schedule, and it helped her understand the theory behind the practices she had already been applying in education management roles as she worked in for companies like Johnson & Johnson, Cardiovascular Systems Inc., and Terumo Medical Corporation.

After spending more than a decade in the for-profit world, Hull joined the American College of Surgeons in the not-for-profit sector. It was an opportunity to study the transection between medical societies and industry. “Because medicine constantly evolves, medical societies continue educating doctors and professionals after they get their degrees,” she explains. “It was a very intentional choice that allowed me to better understand how to work with doctors and key opinion leaders.”

When her employer transferred her from California to Chicago, she began to consider a master’s degree. Not-for-profit work moved a slower pace than what she was accustomed to in the corporate world, making it feel like the right time to advance her education—even as a single mother who dabbled in real estate development (and continues to do so today).

“I chose communication as my path for my master’s degree because I realized that communication would be the lifeblood of whatever I chose to do,” she explains. “With Northwestern’s MS in Communication (MSC) program, I was really excited about the experiential learning and the practical way they spoke about communication. I even sat in on a class to get a feel for how discussions unfolded.”

After graduation, she was given the opportunity to join GE Healthcare. She decided to return to the for-profit world and join GE Healthcare as a solutions marketing manager for radiology and interventional cardiology.

When Education Translates to a Career Advantage

Hull saw the value of her degree pay off within the first few months of working her new role, when she was able to identify and address a critical communication gap. Her organization was preparing to launch a new product at a medical conference, but the sales team hadn’t been notified. The plan was to let them know after the announcement was made and teach them more about the device later.

“Because of my training in the MSC program, I know how communication works in the digital age,” she explains. “While the approach they wanted to take was one that’s been done many times over the years, we needed to handle this differently. We had to talk to the sales team beforehand because the news would spread quickly. They needed to know before everyone else.”

She also credits the program with helping her recognize the need to temper perfectionism before it hinders task completion. “I realized that it’s okay to give something your very best shot, do as well as you can, and then stick a pin in it and acknowledge that it was the best you could do at the time. Not everything always has to be perfect. When you’re killing it in one area, sometimes you have to fail in another area. It’s about give and take.”

After making such a fast impact in her first role at GE Healthcare, the organization was eager to offer her a skip-level promotion, moving her into a higher-level position where she has even more influence. Hull now serves as the marketing director for diagnostic cardiology.

“My communication skills and being able to identify, listen to, and synthesize information, as well as seize new opportunities, opened the door to an amazing opportunity for GE Healthcare,” she explains. “Every year, there’s a challenge around engaging cardiologists at medical conferences. I’ve said year over year, ‘It’s not about gimmicks at a booth. It’s about being integrated into the curriculum.’ ”

After leading the team in the development of eight 30-minute didactic sessions for a medical conference, she saw a nearly 1000% improvement in cardiologist engagement. These sessions also sparked conversations about potential research opportunities. This remarkable achievement recently earned her the GE Healthcare CEO Award for 2025.

Healthcare’s Expanding Audience Requires Smarter Communication

The communication skills she built at Northwestern are also preparing her for a big change in medicine: the need to reach and engage with a broader audience. Historically, medical device manufacturers like GE Healthcare target practitioners and technicians. Today, however, these companies are talking to everyone in the healthcare ecosystem, including patients and employees.

To make sure stakeholders receive the right message, Hull relies on data and storytelling. For example, she created a data-driven storyline to help internal teams understand the power of the products they were selling. “The story compares a hospital’s diagnostic cardiology to a department store’s shoe section,” she explains. “Our ECG management system not a high-ticket item, but it’s everywhere, and it penetrates all over the hospital. It’s in over 90% of the top hospitals across the country. That smaller-ticket item can lead to bigger-ticket items: capital equipment like million-dollar MRI and CT machines.”

The message started to reverberate across the organization, and it helped her gain the internal support and buy-in she needed.

Using data in storytelling is something she plans to integrate even more into her work as she explores new ways to drive meaningful change in healthcare.

“One of the reasons I’m fascinated with cardiology is because my aunt passed from a sudden heart attack. My father—her brother—had a quadruple bypass,” Hull explains. “Many times, women don’t get the same level of care because research and studies aren’t done on women. I want to be the voice in the room advocating for equitable care. I want to leave a legacy by using technology and data to address care in a more equitable way. What I learned at Northwestern will help me do that. When you put a lot into the MSC program, it’s the gift that keeps giving.”

Although Anurakti (Ana) Srivastava ’23 was drawn to the idea of studying journalism or communication as an undergraduate, she decided to pursue textile design. Attending Mumbai’s National Institute for Fashion Technology, she viewed this major as a way to connect her education to a creative field.

While she knew a master’s degree was in her future, Srivastava wanted to gain work experience before returning to school. After graduation, she applied to a few campus-placement companies that focused on textiles, but then she found an open marketing position at Shopholix, a fashion and lifestyle rewards app. “I was chosen from 200 applications. That’s when I realized my knack really is communication and marketing. I’m more suited for those roles.”

As Shopholix’s brand growth manager, she helped build a database of more than 3,000 fashion influencers. She also led a campaign where 100 influencers went live on Instagram simultaneously to promote the company’s product, reaching 30 million users and resulting in 1000+ app downloads in 24 hours.

After spending a year at Shopholix, she moved on to IdeateLabs, where her work for The Mumbai Festival generated more than 500 million impressions and 10,000 social mentions, along with 80,000 in foot traffic across four events—a huge feat, considering the event was held right after the first wave of COVID-19.

“I managed to get sponsorships from large companies, and I negotiated the festival’s outdoor media,” Srivastava explains. “But event management wasn’t something I set out to do. I wanted to be more involved in marketing, so I knew my next step had to be a master’s degree.”

While she was watching Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, a Bollywood movie where a main character receives an offer letter from Northwestern and pursues a career in journalism, she realized she could do the same. Srivastava knew about Northwestern, so she started searching and discovered the MS in Communication (MSC) program.

“It was the perfect fit,” she says. “It would give me skills in leadership and organization, conflict management, crisis negotiation, and networking.”

She sent in her application and letters of recommendation and hoped to receive an acceptance letter of her own—and she did.

Looking back, she says the experience gave her the skills and knowledge she was looking for, plus much more.

Foundations of Professional Communication, a course led by Professor Anne Marie Adams, was a catalyst for Srivastava. “It covered things that seem so common, but they were so critical to learn as an international student. We talked about how to write effective emails, appropriate tones to use when responding to someone, and persuasive communication. It was a complete game changer.”

She also credits Leading and Leveraging Networks, taught by Professor Noshir Contractor, for giving her a competitive edge and helping her navigate job searches. “Both of the jobs I’ve held after earning my MSC came as a result of networking,” she explains. “When I was searching for a job after earning my undergraduate degree, my application conversion rate was 1% or 2%. I applied for thousands of roles and never got the output I wanted.”

After learning how to engage the right resources and build relationships, she decided to approach her post-master’s career search differently: by reaching out to connections. She sent messages to people who worked for companies of interest, and she set up calls with many of them to learn more about their work. In the end, it led to her current role at Behind the Work, an inbound marketing agency led by Sonny Sultani ’11.

As a marketing strategist, Srivastava receives frequent praise for her project management skills as she helps clients in education, healthcare, legal, and B2B sectors optimize their marketing strategies.

“I know when to lean in, and when to do the opposite,” she explains. “I still use many of the strategic communication, brand positioning, and content marketing frameworks that were taught in the MSC program. I still have all the books we read in class. Every time I’m stuck, I go back to Guest Lecturer Andy Crestodina’s book, Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing, for inspiration or the answer.”

Srivastava says the MSC program helped her find her calling: She’s doing exactly what she envisioned. In the future, she hopes to use her skills and knowledge to make a lasting impact not only on clients but also on her community.

“I feel like I was born for excellence, and the MSC program nurtured that. From the people I was around to what I learned, it helped shape me and pushed me to be better. That’s the spirit of Northwestern and the MSC program.”

Lu Bai ’12 first experienced life in the United States during an exchange program that took her from Beijing’s Peking University to Atlanta during her sophomore year of college. That journey helped her understand how different countries approach education.

“Through the exchange program, I realized there’s more than one way to learn,” she explains. “I’ve always been interested in American culture, and my time in Atlanta solidified that.”

Bai decided she wanted to continue to explore new ways of learning by attending a graduate program in the United States. She was looking for a master’s degree that prioritized real-life skills and strategies like networking, leadership, and decision-making.

“Traditional marketing and communication programs don’t always highlight those soft skills, but they were most important to me,” she says. “I wanted to build confidence in these areas and practice working and collaborating with folks who have been in the job market or in Corporate America, especially since I was entering the program with no work experience. That’s why I chose the Master of Science in Communication (MSC) program at Northwestern.”

For Bai, who now works at Salesforce as a principal solution engineer, the MSC program has made all the difference when it comes to her ability to manage complexity, lead collaboratively, and deliver effective communication.

As an international student, these capabilities were especially important. “We aren’t always being offered many job opportunities,” she explains. “It’s a constant battle. But my MSC gave me confidence to stick with it. Even with English being my second language, I knew I had excellent communication skills and people skills. You don’t use all the skills you learn during the MSC program at once. You continue to draw on what you learned as you continue in your career. This has been the guiding light for me.”

After graduation, Bai began working for an investment banking company while also stepping up to chair the MSC International Student Committee (a role she held through 2022) so she could help other international students navigate studying and working in the United States.

A few years later, an interview at Oracle landed her in the technology industry—and she hasn’t looked back. She worked as a sales enablement and marketing consultant for a mentor she met through the interview process; she then followed her mentor to Stroz Friedberg to manage Salesforce administration for more than 100 users.

Bai’s expertise in Salesforce implementation then led her to new opportunities with Salesforce partner organizations like Bluewolf and Sikich. In 2020, she took on a principal solution engineer role with Salesforce directly.

But Bai says it wasn’t her technology prowess or strong tech background that helped her find her calling in the technology industry (she didn’t know much about technology when she landed her first tech role). Instead, it was her communication and problem-solving skills.

“My differentiator is communication: being able to work in a collaborative environment and serve as a translator who can go back and forth between IT and business,” she explains. “Every technology company is looking for that.”

Thanks to her MSC, she is able to play a pivotal role in selling autonomous AI and industry CRM solutions to Fortune 20 consumer packaged goods companies, helping them understand the transformative power of Salesforce software. Her love for her job motivates her to continue her work in technology for as long as she can. In the future, she hopes to take on high-level leadership roles that will allow her to not only maintain her connections with customers but also help her introduce more people—especially women—to careers in technology.

“This is such a promising industry, and I love being on the cutting edge and at the frontlines of problem-solving,” she says. “Companies are looking for great communicators who can present value and the art of the possible to customers. As a communicator, you get to be a painter. You get to be a translator. You get to be a matchmaker. You get to think big.”

For Jenna Rogers ’19, the decision to study communication as an undergraduate was an obvious one. After studying speech communication at the University of Arizona, her father had gone on to own a small business for more than three decades. She was inspired to follow a similar path as she realized how much he enjoyed his work.
During her sophomore year at Arizona State University (ASU), Rogers took a civil communication course that opened the door to new career possibilities. It was a facet of communication she found fascinating. When ASU rolled out a certificate program in civil communication just a year later, she quickly added it to her major.
As she earned her bachelor’s degree and certificate, Rogers also held various jobs: interning for Harlem Globetrotters, teaching young girls how to water ski, drafting documents for a law firm, and serving customers at a bakery. By the time graduation arrived, she had dedicated just as many hours to working as she had to studying.

“I grew up in a biracial, bipolitical household,” says Rogers. “When I was first exposed to the study of civil communication, I realized that’s what I’d grown up around and been practicing my entire life. And through some of my work experiences as a student, I realized the impacts of poor interpersonal communication, especially when you throw it into a conference room behind paychecks, titles, and hierarchies.”

So, when it came time to wrap up her undergraduate journey with an honors thesis project, it didn’t take long for Rogers to choose her area of focus: improving workplace productivity, collaboration, and cooperation through civil dialogue.

MSC Creates an Unexpected Path to Entrepreneurship

After graduation, she moved to Chicago to start her full-time career working for a large company, but it wasn’t the positive experience she expected. This disconnect motivated her to broaden her understanding of communication in the workplace.
“The Master of Science in Communication (MSC) program was a very natural next step to do that,” she explains. A self-proclaimed “CEU,” Rogers continued to work in a corporate role by day but was an entrepreneur by night, building out the framework for what’s known today as Career Civility, her communication consulting firm.
While her business was initially a side job, losing her full-time position after the birth of her second child gave her an unexpected opportunity. “As a new mom of two, when I found myself without a corporate job, I knew it was time to put the foundation I had built to the test,” explains Rogers.
In January 2024, she took Career Civility full-time. Now, more than a year later, she’s making her first hire and watching her business grow every day. And she credits her success in part to what she learned during the MSC program:

• Applying Professor Leslie DeChurch’s advice about networking and prospecting to build her business.
• Sharing Professor Paul Arnston’s quotes on listening when she leads workshop presentations.
• Referencing Professor Randy Iden’s insights to educate organizations on communicating with people at all levels during periods of change.
• Using Professor Amy Hauenstein’s guidance to create curriculum based on adult learning styles.

“Even coursework that I didn’t think would contribute to my career is coming back around,” she explains. “I used everything I learned during the MSC program to launch my business.”

Using Communication as a Tool to Build Better Workplaces

Through Career Civility, Rogers’ mission is to help organizations use communication to create better workplaces for future generations. She does this by directing workshops, supporting employee resource groups, and guiding leadership teams through critical moments like:

• Onboarding and everboarding
• Providing and receiving feedback
• Creating cultures of productivity
• Reducing workplace conflict

She has even returned to Northwestern to lead workshops for students, staff, and faculty about building resilience and communicating burnout.

In addition to working with organizations, she also offers plenty of valuable advice for entry- and mid-level professionals through online courses and social media and newsletter content. Case in point: Every Tuesday, she posts a quick reel to share tips on crafting better emails. She dedicates Mondays to responding to questions from her followers.

As Career Civility continues to grow, Rogers envisions building a business that will meet employees wherever they are, whether that means onsite childcare, paid parental leave for men and women, or something else. “I want to build a business that offers the type of support I needed when I was working in the corporate world. I want to lead by example.”

Bob Rowley is often introduced as “This is Bob Rowley, who spent a life in communication.” Bob Rowley is the Northwestern Assistant Vice President of Media Relations and a Medill School of Journalism lecturer. He spent 30 years working for the Chicago Tribune, was a White House correspondent, Pentagon correspondent, national correspondent based in Dallas, lived in Mexico covering Latin America, where his daughters were born, and in Toronto and Jerusalem, going back and forth covering a dozen wars and different kinds of stories. He has worked in higher education for about eight years, first at Elmhurst College and now Northwestern University. After graduating from the Northwestern MSC program at age 59 in 2013, he became the first president of the MSC Alumni Association.

At what point did you enter the program and why was this the right time for you?

After I came back from living abroad in 1998 and was working in Chicago, Elmhurst and Evanston for more than a dozen years, it was time for me to do something I always wanted to do: get a Master’s degree to learn and in order to be able to teach.

Communications, specifically, came up in a couple of ways. When I left the Chicago Tribune, I had a wife and family to support and two daughters in college. So, I needed to find something that wasn’t unstable like print journalism. I found my skills were valuable in other fields, such as higher education. My journalism skills were valuable in a field I used to believe was very different from journalism.

I came to Northwestern with a plan: to swim in a bigger pond working at a larger research university, to do things I hadn’t done yet in journalism, to get my masters, and to teach at Medill School of Journalism. I originally thought, “Am I too old to do this?” While younger people in my cohort  were quicker with technology I brought much more practical experience, and we were able to learn a lot from each other that way. I learned as much from my cohort, in some ways, as I did from my professors.

Why was Northwestern MSC the right program for you?

Out of all the programs I looked at, the MSC degree stood out, because it had so many interesting courses. I shopped around for programs, but I realized everything I was looking at had something to do with communication. The MSC program was a way to look at the best that was known and thought in the world about communication.

In the 33 years I was working in print journalism, technology changed everything.

It’s common to learn about communication only from the little perch of one’s career, but my professors looked at it in an academic context and most importantly, a global context, and kept up with the changing world. I was so enamored with this degree, my cohort, and professors, that I was so excited to go back to school at age 58. The program made me a better teacher now at Medill.

What is something you’ve learned that has made an impact on your professional and/or personal life?

I took a course about managing information for innovation, which became extremely valuable to the work I do. Our final project was to apply this to somewhere in our lives. An MSC colleague and I interviewed everyone at my Northwestern office and did a report on how to bring more innovation to the office and make people completely open to new ideas. We learned how to best nurture new ideas, be more creative, and encourage our employees. I applied some things we learned in class into our report on how we do things in this office. I found now that I’m a better manager because of this class and others. Instead of being closed to new ideas, I’ve learned to say “yes, and?,” not simply “no.” I also observed how my professors taught, to learn effective teaching strategies for current Medill classes I teach.

What was your favorite aspect of MSC at Northwestern?

It made me understand the big picture of communications, the business world, and my own profession and job here at the Northwestern. They teach you the best that is known and thought in the world, the latest cutting edge technology, why communication is important, how to communicate well, the best practices, how to think strategically, and how to lead. It’s not just communicating one on one, but it’s also how to gather all those ideas and knowledge you take in, keep them in mind, and think about what message you want to take out there on the road.

What advice would you have for anyone considering the MSC program?

If you’re interested in communication, leadership and strategic thinking, and want to understand a very complex media world that is changing every nanosecond and how to navigate in that world, this is the program for you. If you’re strictly interested in business school, this is not the program for you. The difference between the MSC and an MBA is that the MSC is more broad and will teach you those necessary skills about leadership, but also more broadly about the communication landscape in 21st century. You can get bits of many other programs through the MSC, but it’s much more than that.

We are in an age where communication is all the more important. We live in an era of fake news and alternative facts, which makes it even more important to understand the tools of communication and how to use them effectively to cut through all of the noise and get your strategy and message out there. It’s a great program for that — thinking and navigating in a complex communication world.

Can you talk about the value of the MSC network and whether you’ve been able to keep in touch?

The class of 2013 was a very tight cohort, and the idea for an alumni association came about after we graduated. We wanted to create an alumni association to create the same cooperative, collaborative affinity as we had with our cohort. In March 2015, I became the first president of MSC Alumni Association, and now am co-chair of mentoring panel for the MSC Alumni Association. I have had a number of meetings with current students or fellow alumni who are interested in getting involved in networking for future career purposes.

We host a lot of events. We just had MSC Professor Jason DeSanto speak to us in an extraordinary two hour lecture. No one wanted to take a lunch break, but instead we all wanted to keep asking questions. That’s just one example of how much the program energized me and the different cohorts, to the point that some of us would’ve gone into a PhD program if they offered one.

I stay in touch with three quarters of all the 84 people in my cohort. Every year I hold a tailgate party for our 2013 alumni. The MSC Alumni Association has made staying in touch both among cohorts and across cohorts much more doable. We often have an event in which alumni are invited to be panelists and to network with current students, which helps connect the different generations.