Growing up in New Orleans, Jane Bostick knew she wanted to pursue business long before she came to Wake Forest. While at Wake Forest, she was able to explore different majors and find the best path for her.
“Most people stay in—state,” Bostick said. “But I knew I wanted to do business, [and] my mom’s a Certified Public Accountant, so I thought I wanted to do accounting.”
She continued: “We were looking into good accounting programs, and that’s what led me to Wake Forest because it’s top 20 in accounting [programs] in the country. So I came and toured, and the campus was so pretty that I loved it.”
Bostick arrived at Wake Forest planning to follow the accounting route. But as she gained exposure to the classes and began picturing her future, she realized that accounting jobs were not the right fit for her. That realization led her to the Business and Enterprise Management (BEM) major, which offered both structure and possibility.
“I’ve always been pretty creative and… I didn’t know if a 9-to-5 desk job was really for me, so I kind of pivoted away from accounting,” Bostick said. “I made my own [concentration and] I was able to have a little more flexibility with my major.”
She said one of the major’s biggest advantages was its custom-built concentrations. Within BEM, students complete a foundational business curriculum with three additional specialized courses to carve out a focused area of study.
A lot of people do real estate or sports marketing [or] business law,” Bostick said. “Mine is merchandise planning, buying and allocation. So it’s retail [and] fashion.”
She was able to further explore her concentration through study abroad in the South of France. There, she took fashion-focused classes that complemented her coursework at Wake Forest.
“I think all that [study abroad and Wake Forest classes] together was just really fitting, and I really like how flexible that part of the business school is,” Bostick said.
Within the business school, one of the courses that shaped Bostick most was consumer behavior, taught by Professor Kenny Herbst.
“[It’s about] how people make decisions and how to put yourself in the mind of a consumer,” Bostick said. “I think that is really applicable to my career and I feel like it’s a class that I’ve gotten a lot out of.”
She also highlighted the leadership classes, many of them taught by Professor Pete Watson, as a meaningful piece of her education.
“Sometimes [the classes] can feel kind of repetitive, but I think that it’s nice to kind of have that foundation of learning how to work with different people and manage people,” Bostick explained.
After graduation, Bostick will enter the buying industry. Her job will involve working with vendors, predicting what will sell and understanding shifts in consumer trends.
“There’s a whole timeline element to it too, where you can’t buy things that are too far in advance because they might be out of style by then,” Bostick said. “So it’s a lot of really understanding your customer.”
As she reflects on her time at Wake Forest, Bostick shares her advice for incoming students: explore everything.
“Your career or your major doesn’t dictate your career,” Bostick said. “If you don’t know what you want to do, business is a really good thing to go into because you can kind of change it to what you want. I also think Wake Forest does a really good job of doing divisionals. When you take those classes, it helps you realize… what you like and what you don’t like.”
She continued: “My minors are art history and philosophy, and I kind of stumbled across those on accident because I was taking so many classes I was interested in and that’s just what aligned.”
Looking ahead, Bostick is eager, though a little nervous, for what comes next.
“I think transitioning to being fully on your own and not having necessarily somewhere you can go to ask for help all the time is gonna be a little bit hard, but I’m excited,” Bostick said. “I’m excited to, like, do my own thing, live in a new place.”
