Patricia Valerio:  MBA showed me how to communicate science

“It is one thing to know science, it is another to communicate it,” said Patricia Valerio, who with a bachelor’s degree in environmental science made the decision a few years ago to enter Caldwell University’s MBA program. “I saw the gap in my knowledge. The MBA bridged the gap. I know a lot now about two very different sides of work,” said Valerio who was chosen as the student speaker to deliver Caldwell’s commencement address to the master’s and doctoral graduates on May 15.  

A resident of Lincroft, New Jersey, Valerio is an assistant manager for Medforce, a full service medical communications company,  where she does event planning for pharmaceutical companies. Caldwell’s MBA program was conducive to her working schedule, especially in these “very unique, uncertain times. It was all handled so well,” said Valerio.  She appreciated how the Caldwell professors brought the changing business climate into the discussions where she learned the importance of “being on the pulse of what is unfolding, actioning a response quickly, and communicating those steps to your clients.” 

Valerio is grateful to the Caldwell University professors and her family for “going easy” on one another when it came to some of the structures that were in place before the pandemic.  There are lessons to be learned, like being adaptable to change, as she told the graduates at commencement while stating one of her favorite quotes from Charles Darwin’s book “The Origin of Species” –“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one most adaptable to change…“I think one of the most powerful qualities about the Caldwell University Class of 2022 graduates is that this is a group that is not only not apprehensive of change, but also one that has made efforts to welcome those challenges into our lives.”

She hopes the graduates and everyone remembers to use change to make the world a little better.  “If it took this ‘global situation’ for people to be more kind and accessible,” that is not a bad thing,” said Valerio. “I think it is important that we use that same kindness with people, to see when one needs to be more understanding.”