Elise Majetich - Management Training, Encore

Elise Majetich will be the first Hospitality Management major to graduate from the Coles College of Business, and said she’s always wanted a career in the hospitality industry.

A native of tourism hotspot Chattanooga, Tenn., Majetich has prepared for her dream career by completing an internship with Hilton’s Tru/Home2Suites hotels, as well as working with Low Country Catering at the Masters Tournament in March.

“It’s so exciting to be the first graduate of my program, and I feel I’ve done the best with it I could,” Majetich said.

Majetich was a member of the Thrive program, Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society and a KSU student ambassador. She is president of the Hospitality Leadership Club. She has accepted a job with event management company Encore, entering its management training program in June.

Marion Granger - Ph.D. Program, University of South Carolina

Marion Granger is graduating with a master’s degree in applied statistics and analytics after earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from KSU. The two-time Owl has been called a “true rock star” by faculty members in the School of Data Science and Analytics within the College of Computing and Software Engineering.

Granger was an undergraduate teaching and research assistant and then became a graduate research assistant in the Human Studies Lab where she has performed groundbreaking research on infant growth and outcomes.

“When I was majoring in psychology I was introduced to research and the statistics minor by Dr. Katherine White, who was a huge role model. Statistics allowed me to use and grow my skills in analytics and design, and it led me to join the Human Studies Lab, where I found my passion in epidemiology under the mentorship of Dr. Louise Lawson and Dr. Nicole Ferguson,” Granger said.

Granger was accepted into the Behavior Biomedical Interface program at the University of South Carolina where she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Epidemiology.  

Andrea Brenner - Ph.D. Program, Arizona State University

Andrea Brenner admitted she wasn’t sure what to study in college, and at one point, she declared a business major. But everything changed when she took an environmental science elective. “I loved the idea of helping to change the world, and that class opened my eyes to those possibilities,” she said. She transferred to Kennesaw State and declared an environmental science major, taking a class from Associate Professor of Environmental Science Dan Ferreira. She did research in his lab about soil remediation after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. She then worked in the lab of Associate Professor of Chemistry Bharat Baruah and was one of 11 recipients of the Birla Carbon Scholarship.

“I contributed in two different ways to changing the environment for the better,” said Brenner, who will pursue her Ph.D. in life sciences at Arizona State University. “It is an interdisciplinary field. You cannot look at one piece of the environment without considering the whole.”

Courtney Linkous - Ph.D. Program, University of Alberta

The collaborative nature of her experience stands out for Courtney Linkous, who will earn her Master of Science in Integrative Biology. She studied the effects of urbanization on wildlife with Assistant Professor of Biology Sarah Guindre-Parker, doing research amid nesting boxes at KSU’s Field Station that filled each spring with migrating starlings, followed by lab work supported by various departments in the College of Science and Mathematics. “There are a lot of opportunities for personal growth at KSU,” she said. “The collaboration among professors has not only allowed me to engage in my research more but also to make connections with people outside of my field and area of study.” She founded the Ornithological Society at KSU, where bird experts came to campus for talks and there are organized birdwatching outings. She’ll continue to study birds at the University of Alberta in Canada, where she will research how black-capped chickadees adjust to a warming climate. She will pursue a doctorate in biological sciences with a concentration in ecology.

Jeremiah Hayes

Jeremiah Hayes, an industrial and systems engineering major, is also a member of the KSU Journey Honors College and has proven to be a leader on and off campus. 

Hayes has served as an honors ambassador, peer mentor and a student assistant throughout his KSU career. Outside the classroom, Hayes worked a co-op with Southern Company Services and was elected by his peers as president of the company’s co-op student organization.

Hayes said hands-on learning has been a highlight of his Kennesaw State career.

 “Working in a senior design team with other students on optimizing processes for a local furniture and mattress store has been excellent,” he said. “I can apply knowledge from my classes into a project design that will create solutions for the business and its warehouse processes.”

Hayes plans to pursue a master’s degree in business or analytics.

Patrick Rodriguez

As Patrick Rodriguez prepares to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in organizational communication, he plans to use his Kennesaw State education and experiences to help people who have served time in prison to improve their lives through education.

During his college career, Rodriguez, who has served five years in prison himself, was accepted into the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials' Institute for Leadership and was one of eight formerly incarcerated people nationally chosen to be a Justice Policy Fellow with the Education Trust. He serves as co-executive director of the Georgia Coalition for Higher Education in Prison, and the director of advocacy for Common Good Atlanta. During his senior year at KSU, Rodriguez, co-authored and won $1 million in grant funding to expand educational opportunities for incarcerated people and support them upon release.

Rodriguez plans to attend law school.