Mark Kushinsky '16

Name: Mark Kushinsky

Mark Kushinsky started his degree at UMass over 30 years ago. This fall, he returned to Isenberg to finish it.

“I take personal pride in wanting a degree, especially from UMass,” Mark says. “It’s where I started, and it’s where I want to finish.”

There are other reasons, too. Mark, a finance major, owns an IT services company which provides infrastructure solutions and support in Eastern Massachusetts. In recent years, Mark realized that he needed to invest in his company by investing in his own education.

“I would like to improve the company’s performance and figure out what I’m doing correctly and what I’m not doing correctly,” he says. “Where I need the most amount of help is in the marketing aspects. I’m fairly outgoing, but I’m a techie and it’s hard to market the firm. That’s one of my goals in completing the degree.”

He took a few standalone continuing education (CPE) courses with Isenberg before deciding to enroll in the online degree completion program.

“I was concerned that I couldn’t handle the pace of everything, but the pace is fine,” he says.

In fact, the online program perfectly fits into what he calls a “crazy life.” As an IT professional, and the owner of his own company, Mark works unpredictable hours. He may be on call at 3 a.m. or during normal business hours.

“The ability to watch course lectures when I want to, to read text books when I want to, to take quizzes and tests when I want to, I love it,” he says. “For me it’s a perfect mesh for my crazy life.”

Just finishing his first semester, Mark is seeing his degree pay off. After taking a business law class, he decided to incorporate his company to protect his personal assets and to provide for easier ways for the company to grow through the addition of people and/or investors.

“The [Isenberg] program is wonderful,” he says “I can’t say enough good things about it. The professors care, are responsive and are very knowledgeable. It’s very conducive to my preferred style of learning.”

There’s one other reason Mark is determined to earn his degree from UMass: his son just graduated from the same college.

“If he can do it, I can do it,” he says.