Industry Trek Creates New Bonds, Career Exploration Pathways for UVA Darden Part-Time MBAs

Professional degree programs like the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Part-Time MBA find creative answers to a challenging question: How can we provide the same high-quality education experience that full-time, residential students receive while providing the flexibility working professionals need to carry on with their daily lives?

The question can be hardest to answer outside the classroom. For example, Darden’s Full-Time MBAs spend a significant amount of their two-year program focused on recruiting—countless company meet and greets, internships, on- and off-Grounds job interviews.

Darden’s Part-Time MBAs have the same lofty career aspirations, yet with full-time jobs, they need a different structure to learn about opportunities and engage with the recruiting process.

Enter the Part-Time MBA Washington, D.C., Industry Trek.

Over two days in late July, Darden Part-Time MBA students visited organizations representing the technology, consulting, financial services and sports industries.

Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for Professional Degree Programs Melissa Thomas-Hunt and the Darden Career Development Office team organized the trek to give students opportunities to engage with senior leaders, Darden alumni working within companies and talent acquisition professionals in order to learn more about career paths, functional roles and required skills. Adding to the stakes, the trek was part of the course “Explorations in Enterprise Leadership” and included formal experiential learning components outside of the visits.

“Our Part-Time MBAs have less time to explore career paths than our Full-Time MBAs,” Thomas-Hunt said. “An industry trek creates capacity in their very busy lives for focus on their future careers and introduces students to the landscape of industries and opportunities that abound. This opportunity becomes a game changer as they consider their career trajectory.”

Part-Time MBA Gia Beaton, a senior policy associate at Capstone, agreed.

Part-Time MBA student Gia Beaton

“The industry trek’s main value was the firsthand exposure it gave us to organizations, roles and cultures that are difficult to fully understand from a job description, company website or classroom discussion,” Beaton said. “Hearing directly from employees made the differences among companies much more real—particularly how culture, leadership principles, career paths and day-to-day work can vary even within the same industry.”

Over the course of the trek, the program visited the Washington, D.C., area offices of Amazon, Cambridge Associates, Goldman Sachs, Workday, Major League Baseball’s Washington Nationals and Bain & Co. Among the employees at those companies who hosted the visits were nearly two dozen Darden alumni representing every MBA format.

“These company visits would not be possible without the involvement of our fantastic alumni,” said Emily Funk, associate director of employer engagement and recruiting for Darden professional degree programs. “From the students’ perspective, connecting with alumni is incredibly valuable. Alumni offer candid perspectives and insights into their career paths, experiences and how the Darden MBA not only helped them get where they are now but also how they have applied the MBA.”

Involving alumni has a mutual benefit, too: It adds to the strength of Darden’s tightknit alumni network.

“One of Darden’s greatest strengths is that the community doesn’t end at graduation,” said Greg French, executive career coach for Darden professional degree programs. “Alumni are incredibly invested in staying connected, and company visits provide a structured way for them to share the experiences and insights that shaped their own careers with the current generation of students.”

Highlights and Lessons Learned

Part-Time MBA student Raksha Dondapati said the trek taught her to keep a more open mind about her future.

Part-Time MBA student Raksha Dondapati

“In any given industry, there are a variety of roles that are not specific to that industry,” Dondapati said. “We heard from a finance partner at AWS, recruiters at technology companies, a marketing professional from the Nationals. These are not people who necessarily delve deeply into their current industry, but they still have a role that provides value to their organizations as well as personally.”

Dondapati said the visits also highlighted the importance of cultural factors like innovation- and collaboration-focused cultures. “These might make a company or workplace highly compelling, even if the specific industry is not something you are naturally drawn to,” she said.

Beaton said one of her most important lessons learned was the importance of remaining adaptable as new technologies like AI reshape work. “I came away with the view that AI is less about replacing jobs outright and more about creating an advantage for people who can use it thoughtfully and strategically,” she said. “It reframed AI from a potential threat into a professional development opportunity.”

Dondapati and Beaton both said the Workday visit stood out for its employee-focused culture—a sentiment the Career Development Office team said was shared broadly among students on the trek.

Darden’s Part-Time MBA students received a warm welcome to Workday.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a company having ‘fun’ as one of its core values,” Dondapati said.

“The visit to Workday gave me a concrete example of how company culture can shape the employee experience and, ultimately, customer outcomes. I heard the contrast drawn between organizations that treat employees as central to their success and those where that value is less explicit,” added Beaton. “I left the visit reflecting on the kind of environment in which I would want to build my career, which is one that values meaningful work and the people doing it.

Some of Beaton’s and Dondapati’s classmates on the trek are specifically exploring a near-term career switch—either to a new industry or a new function. For the prospective switchers, the trek was not just an exploration but an opportunity to put a literal foot in the door.

“It gave students a better way to evaluate fit,” Beaton said. “Hearing from professionals that included Darden alumni and Part-Time MBA graduates illustrated that an MBA could create credible entry points into new roles.”

Dondapati agreed that Darden alumni served as models for her classmates interested in a switch.

“Many of the panelists went through a similar journey,” she said. “They provided reassurance that these types of switches are common, and that teams are not necessarily looking for people who come from the same industry. They also provided good advice on recruiting and applying; for example, the need to network and the importance of explaining how your differentiated experience is applicable to the role.”

Real Value Goes Both Ways

While students get an inside look at industries, roles and cultures, companies that participated in the trek got something just as valuable in return: an introduction to a pool of qualified, motivated professionals who don’t need to wait until the end of their program to start making a difference in the workplace.

“One of the advantages of working professionals is flexibility in timing to switch jobs or to climb,” said Jennifer Windus, executive career coach for Darden professional degree programs. “Working professional students also have the advantage of being able to implement classroom learnings the next day in their job.”

For French, the value to companies includes showcasing their brand to talented students and strengthening their connection to a top B-school.

“This helps raise awareness of the organization among future leaders and strengthens engagement with alumni,” he said.

‘We Are All in This Together’

Because the trek was part of a for-credit course, the experience was designed to include opportunities to help students synthesize learning across the course and company visits.

Students used a framework to evaluate their visits based around the cycle of anticipate, observe, interpret and apply. To ensure they were applying the framework, the cohort engaged in a formal discussion each morning on the bus before visits began.

“Students were incredibly thoughtful throughout the process,” French said. “It was rewarding to see how intentionally they reflected on their experiences and identified actionable ways to leverage experiential learning in their own career development.”

Dondapati said those discussions were a highlight of the entire trek experience.

“This class created an open dialogue for students to share their career aspirations as well as uncertainties,” she said. “Knowing that we are all in this together trying to figure it out—that we might each be looking for different things in a career and there are so many pathways we can take—was both a bonding and personally fulfilling experience.”