Ready Here and Beyond

Elon’s mentor-driven culture turned Macey Rodrigues-Cowl’s curiosity into career momentum. Inspired by her family’s stories of first-generation perseverance, the double major from Merrimac, Mass., arrived at Elon University sight-unseen after a pandemic-era virtual college fair.

A subsequent Winter Term study abroad journey from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City reshaped her view of business: “Fast-growing markets reward companies that lead with empathy, not extraction.” When an internship collapsed, she pivoted to manage construction of an EcoVillage tiny home, milling 2,000 reclaimed wood tiles and hand-grouting a shower in 103-degree heat—project management in real time.

Faculty mentors later steered her toward Grainger’s two-round sales role-play challenge. While balancing five courses and campus jobs, Rodrigues-Cowl topped a field of 80 students, impressed recruiters with clear, value-focused conversations, and landed a sales offer in Charlotte. “Employees talk about staying a decade or more,” she says. “That loyalty told me it was a culture worth joining.”
With lease signed and toolbox packed, she’s eager to “chase new quotas, new friendships and new skylines.” Her headline advice to first years fits on a Post-it: “Get uncomfortable; growth lives there.”

A late-night TikTok scroll reshaped Yadira Fernandez Delgado’s Elon in LA semester. Her comment, “Need an intern?”, landed her at a Latina-owned photography and event studio in downtown Los Angeles, where she planned an anniversary pop-up, recruited local vendors and even stepped in front of the camera for her first modeling shoot.

“Business can be a megaphone for voices we don’t usually hear,” says the first-generation student from Winston-Salem, N.C. “Helping creatives gain visibility showed me how strategy and storytelling empower communities.”

Away from spreadsheets, the finance major dove into screenwriting, media law and L.A. architecture courses. “Numbers make sense only when they’re tied to ideas and human connection,” she notes. Support from the university’s Odyssey Program, including an Elon Commitment scholarship, and mentors in the Love School of Business and Latinx Hispanic Union encouraged her to blend analytics with creativity and pursue the 3+1 master’s in business analytics.

From a TikTok comment to a West Coast internship, Fernandez Delgado now sees risk as a gateway. She hopes her path reminds other first-gen students that bold questions can open unexpected doors—sometimes thousands of miles from home.