This Zicklin Online MBA Student Is Building Community, Zoom by Zoom

Ever since her days at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Heather Stewart (MBA, ’27) dreamt of matriculating at Baruch and the Zicklin School.  

“At the time it seemed far-fetched,” admits Heather, who grew up in Jamaica and is the first in her family to attend college. “At BMCC, I heard many success stories of Zicklin students accomplishing their goals, but the thought of enrolling there seemed out of reach.”  

Nevertheless, she persisted in that dream, carrying it through finishing her associate’s degree in business administration at BMCC and her bachelor’s in business management at City College, all while raising three children and working full time. Then, when the Zicklin School launched its Online MBA program in 2023, Heather seized the opportunity.  

Today, Heather is in her second year of the Online MBA program and is already reaping benefits. Officially an intern with the treasurer’s office of the state of Connecticut, she’s moving into a full-time role there, in part thanks to her MBA training.  

“Everything I learn in my Business Analytics class with Patrick Slattery, I take to the workplace and apply,” Heather says. “I even created a training for my co-workers based on his lectures on data quality.”  

Her hands-down favorite course, however, is Strategy and Competitive Advantage: “That was the very first course I took for my MBA and it left quite an impression. I love Professor Korn!”  

Heather says the number-one highlight of the MBA program is “being part of a group of exceptional students who think outside the box.” A close second is Student Life—specifically, the Data Science and Analytics Society (DSAS), where she’s co-lead coordinator, and the Zicklin Black Graduate Students Society (ZBGSS), where she started as outreach chair and was recently elected president.  

It’s not often that an online student becomes a leader, but Heather wanted more than education out of her MBA: “I wanted to meet like-minded people who shared my experience” as an underrepresented student, she explains. “These clubs have given me the space to be myself and go beyond the classwork.”  

Whether she’s leading club meetings over Zoom or sharing data insights at work, Heather demonstrates that an online MBA program can still build a strong sense of community—one connection, one conversation, one Zoom at a time. 

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