How Lucie found the perfect master’s program

It’s not a career move you would expect someone to make. It’s not even the type of career move you would think is possible. But, master’s graduate Lucie Wang managed to pivot from a career in diplomacy to working for EcoVadis, a company that rates the sustainability practices of other businesses. She says she was only able to do it because of her master’s degree.

“I was really interested in sustainability before my master’s, but I never knew you could make a career out of it,” she explains. (01:55)

“I did my bachelor’s degree in diplomacy, which is all about international affairs and relations,” she adds. “I didn’t end up pursuing a career in that field, so I went into business instead. I’ve always wanted to pursue further education in business, and so after working for four years I started looking for master’s programs.” (00:15)

Her hunt for the ideal master’s program led her to the Schulich School of Business in Canada. Schulich is regarded as one of the leading business schools in the country, with a diverse student body and faculty. It was here where Lucie found a school and program that were a perfect fit for her career ambitions.

“I found the Master of Supply Chain Management at Schulich School of Business, which was a 100% fit for what I was looking for,” she says. “I also wanted to study in Canada and just for one year. I wanted to be a full-time student but I couldn’t commit to two years, so a one-year program was perfect.” (00:35)

Schulich’s sustainable credentials

The Master of Supply Chain Management at Schulich is a specialized program that teaches students how to build, manage, and change supply chains. One of the unique features of the program is that it contains a mix of full-time and part-time students. Because of this, part-time students are able to bring valuable insights from the workplace into the classroom.

“We had part-time students in our class, which was something I really enjoyed. They would often tell us what happened the other day in the office: ‘this is what we did, we didn’t think about this thing or that thing’…it made the examples in class much more realistic,” says Lucie. (00:58)

Sustainability is a cornerstone of the program, and the program’s director is also the Director of the George Weston Ltd Centre for Sustainable Supply Chains at Schulich. This also comes through in the course’s consulting project, which was centered around a topic of great interest to Lucie. It would ignite her interest in a career in sustainability.

“For our consulting project, we were matched with a logistics company,” she explains. “The topic they wanted us to work on was gaining supply chain visibility, but specifically on GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. It was exactly the field I was interested in and wanted to work in.” (01:16)

She adds, “At that point, the knowledge I had accumulated on sustainability had been more textbook-based. Being able to apply that and use it to build a program for a company was super helpful.” (01:40)

Launching a career in sustainability

It was this valuable, real-life experience during her master’s program that allowed Lucie to get into sustainability. Now working as a Customer Success Manager at EcoVadis, she says her passion for sustainability continues to drive and motivate her career.

“At this stage, what drives me the most is to really help my clients get more mature in the field of sustainability,” she reveals. “A lot of them are just getting started, so it’s the toughest part of the journey. Helping them set up these foundations is one of the driving forces for me.” (02:03)

Are you wondering how you can launch your own career in sustainability? As Lucie admits, it wasn’t something that even seemed possible to her before she did her master’s. But by combining that practical experience with her own passion for the industry, she has been able to move her career into a field that she’s truly passionate about. A specialized one-year master’s turned out to be the missing link for her.

Would you like to learn more about the master’s experience? Reach out to student ambassadors directly through the MASTERGRADSCHOOLS Ambassadors Page.