Meet Traci!

Hi Everyone! My name is Traci Gillen and I am a second year graduate student here at Fisher College of Business in the MHRM program! This year I am working in the Graduate Programs Office and I am so excited to share my experiences with you all.

Before I even started my journey in HR and in Fisher, I was already a buckeye at heart. While I am from New Jersey and am East Coast born and raised, I completed my undergraduate degree at The Ohio State University, a school and culture I have come to love so much and is honestly what drew me to continue my education and stay here for another two years. I got my degree in Psychology with two minors in Sociology and Organizational Communication, all leading me to an end goal of studying and pursuing a career in Human Resource Management. I was always super intrigued by my organizational and personnel psychology courses and after lots of research and due diligence, I realized that HR was the path for me and that's when I came across Fisher's MHRM program. Not only is it one of the best programs in the country, it allowed me to grow my love for this school even further, stay in Columbus (a city I really grew to love) and expand my network immensely.

While the transition to Ohio State and Columbus in general was not a large culture shock, since I have been here for several years already, the transition to graduate school life definitely did take some adjustment. The MHRM program consists of mostly night classes, with the exception of a few electives, which was a huge change for me. For most of us, we are conditioned to being in school during the morning/day time and then unwinding and getting extra work done at night time, when need be. This new schedule was difficult to get used to, to say the least, but I honestly have come to enjoy this new learning dynamic, especially as someone who is NOT a morning person. Above that, the emphasis placed on discussion in the classroom was also a bit of a change, but in the best way possible. Not only do we get to learn from our brilliant professors, we get to thrive off class discussion and debate, learning from classmates with all different kinds of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. It also makes learning the material so much more invigorating as we get to have real conversations full of open dialogue and mutual respect. This structure allows us to collaborate and get to know our classmates incredibly well, forming a really strong network, even when we were completely virtual. Those connections carried on into this year which has been much closer to 'normal' making the second year in the program already off to a great start.

I am so excited to share my experiences, helpful hints, and all things Columbus, OSU, and Fisher this year via my blog posts. It is a bittersweet feeling to be at my last of many years at Ohio State, but looking forward to everything this school year brings and being able to take you all along for the ride!