Friends from overseas align graduate degree with career goals

Friends from overseas align graduate degree with career goals

Scott, Martyn, and Jonathan

Getting a master’s degree is great. Doing it with friends is even better. Scott Lamont, ’20 (left), Martyn Sayer, ’20 (middle), and Jonathan Watson, ’20 (right) all graduated from Cumberlands’ online MBA program in August 2020.

Lamont and Watson reside in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Lamont works at a logistics software startup company, and Watson is a career consultant for Medical Solutions, a travel nurse agency. Sayer is an executive account manager living in California. The guys played soccer together as undergraduates and have been great friends ever since. Watson was already enrolled in the MBA program and convinced Lamont to give it a shot. Lamont is glad he did.

“It was a great opportunity to work while learning about the business world,” he said. “The impact and correlation that the classes had with my daily life was huge, and the education helped me with the software startup company where I was working.”

Watson pursued the degree to expand his career options and potentially choose a new career path down the road. He said the degree “aligned perfectly with my goals,” he was grateful to find a program “suited for internationals like myself” with a staff whom he could trust. He jokingly added that he especially liked the faculty who gave him all A's in his classes.

All three of the men grew up in the United Kingdom. As international students, they face unique challenges like ensuring that all their paperwork and visas remain up-to-date. It is also hard to keep in touch with family and friends back home, missing them more on some days than others, while still maintaining friendships here in the U.S.

Watson said, “Being a student at Cumberlands, I became more empathetic and open-minded. I learned this from working with a lot more internationals and understanding everyone comes from different backgrounds with different views and perspectives which is usually different from mine.”

Sayer entered the program to gain the skills he needed to navigate the economy with greater attention to the minor, yet crucial, details of the business world. He hopes that his MBA gives him the tools he needs to accomplish “any entrepreneurial pursuits that I might endeavor” and help him achieve his leadership goals.

Lamont insisted that if the three of them can earn a degree while working full-time, then anyone can do it. “Anyone can do what we did,” he said, “they just have to be disciplined and understand that it is going to be hard work and long hours to get there.”

Sayer and Watson have decided to pursue doctorate degrees, also from Cumberlands. Watson said earning his MBA is what gave him the confidence to pursue an even higher degree.

It was neat for the friends to find out there were people like them facing such similar challenges and feeling the same determination to accomplish their goals. There were certainly long hours and late nights, but there was also the support of two close friends every step of the way. It wasn’t easy for any of them to finish their degrees, but they did it, and as a bonus, they grew closer as friends in the process.