College is the optimal time for self-discovery. Irene Jadic left El Dorado for the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. The former prep tennis and cross country standout learned a lot about herself. Her self-discovery process has taken her to Paris, France, where she is currently finishing her Masters in Management at ESSEC Business School.
“Leaving the U.S. to pursue a Masters degree in France has been a huge step for me,” said Jadic, who graduated from Penn in 2014 with a major in Systems Engineering. “I’ve also had the opportunity to do an exchange program in Singapore with the school’s campus there, which was amazing. The experience of living in another country is so challenging and eye opening, but ultimately has been the best decision for me.”
After graduating from Penn, Jadic said she worked for a small logistics company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She worked there as an operations manager for three years before she decided to go to business school.
Jadic won the 6A singles championship as a senior at El Dorado. She went to the Ivy League Penn Quakers, intending to compete in both track and cross country. Her freshman year was a time of discovery.
“My freshman year was pretty rough. Being in the Engineering school at Penn, I had a very challenging curriculum that took a lot of time and effort. After a year on the cross country and track team, I realized if I wanted to maintain decent grades and still have time to sleep, I had to reprioritize. I decided to step off the team after that first year. It was a pretty hard decision, but in the end, my education was more important for me than athletics,” said Jadic, who also made some adjustments academically.
“I actually switched from Bioengineering to Systems Engineering after my first year as well. I was not sure I wanted to go to medical school, which had been my initial plan, and the Systems Engineering major allowed me more flexibility to explore other classes. I’ve loved my experience in business school and am focusing on operations management and supply chains but, honestly, I am still trying to figure out if I am on the right path career wise - the modern millennial problem.”
Jadic said some of her career goals include an interest in the clean-tech sector and perhaps working for a sustainability-focused company.
“End goal is to hopefully start my own company once I get the right idea,” she said.
Jadic, who is of Romanian descent, had already seen quite a bit of the world even before moving to El Dorado as a youngster. The opportunity to study abroad was appealing and made sense for her.
“I wanted to pursue my Masters in Europe and since I have the EU citizenship, it’s much more affordable and I really wanted the experience of living here,” said Jadic, who said her French is a work in progress. “I took French up to AP level, so it was always a language I wanted to be fluent in, and I have some family in France, so I narrowed it down to some good schools here. I came with an intermediate speaking level but since being here and working in the language, I’m fluent-passing.
“Living here has been very interesting. You would imagine that it’s not so different being a western, occident country but there are certain cultural aspects that were definitely a shock for me. Not the most welcoming culture, which took a lot of getting used to. But like anything, once you understand it better, it makes more sense and you can relate.”