University of Illinois | 150 Years & Beyond

The former Shannon McCarty remembers her first two years on campus as a frustrating “fog of statistics, accounting and finance classes that I didn’t particularly enjoy.”

And the future marketing executive enrolled in a course that changed everything.

“I wasn’t even sure that I had selected the right major until Professor Brian Wansink’s Marketing Research class,” the former marketing major says from the Bay Area, where she’s held VP/marketing jobs at Sungevity, Lenda and, as of September 2018, Vendini.

“From then on, I was hooked on the science behind marketing and consumer behavior.”

Truth be told, “the hardest lessons, and the best memories, all occurred outside the classroom,” Shannon Everley says. “Sorority life at AGD, dance performances with Illini N Motion, and bar crawls for no reason in particular gifted me best friends for life and a lot of fun stories.

“My favorite time on campus was each fall, when the leaves started to change and the week revolved around football games and tailgating.”