Sick of people asking you, “So what are you going to do with your life?” Don’t worry if you don’t have an answer. Sherri Jaffe, for example, started out wanting to study history and law, but concentrated on insurance while at Wharton. Today, she runs the Chicago office of Cohn & Wolf, an international marketing communications firm.

How did she get from point A to point B? The short answer is: A business degree opens doors, leaving you with a wealth of possibility. “I think business school gives you the framework to understand the whole range of business regardless of what you major in,” she says. “You can parlay a business degree into anything.”

Were you interested in
business in high school?

I really wasn’t. I was interested in history and law, and I participated in New York state’s mock trial competition for high school students.

When did you decide
to go to Wharton?

My dad started out as an engineer and moved into business. His perspective was that I could go to law school with a Wharton degree—but if I changed my mind and didn’t want to go to law school, then I’d have a business degree and have lots of  opportunities.  I looked at the curriculum for the school, and all the different programs that were available, and was persuaded by that argument.

What was your favorite part
of your undergrad experience?

The interaction between the students and the faculty. With my concentration in insurance, the classes were very small. The department’s very small. And so it was a much more interactive last two years as opposed to some of the core classes in Wharton or the College.  I also liked the range of the coursework. There were classes in marketing, management, economics,
finance, statistics.

How did you go from insurance
to marketing communications?

I took a position in a management training program at Reliance Insurance Company. For the first year, I spent time in various areas within the company, including underwriting, claims, and agency operations. In the second year, I interviewed within the company and ended up in marketing.  Afterward, I went to graduate school and got an MBA.

What was your concentration?

Marketing.

So that pointed you
down the marketing path?

Yes. I’ve always tended more to areas that are quantitative and logical, rather than creative and free-flowing. That’s how I ended up as an insurance major. In marketing for the pharmaceutical industry, you are very driven by scientific data, epidemiology, studies, things like that, as opposed to people who market for fashion companies or packaged goods.

What’s a typical day for you?

If I have one, I would say it involves four areas. One is client services, working with our existing clients on strategy, programming, execution, and implementation. A second big part is new business development.  A third part is people management and recruiting talent. And the last part is agency operations, the financials. We’re part of a public company, so there are a lot of reporting requirements and those type of activities.

What’s the difference between
public relations and marketing?

We work with companies to help them build brands. We deliver messages through the media, which adds credibility that you don’t necessarily get with just advertising. But it is still marketing. There are public relations agencies that specialize in public affairs, or financial communications, or crisis management. Not to say that we can’t do that, sometimes we do that within the context of a marketing program for our clients, but that’s not the core of what Cohn & Wolf is.

What’s the coolest part of your job?

Travel. I’ve seen places in the United States that I’ve always wanted to go, but was never able to get to. And I’ve gone to Europe and other different places in the world. Part of it is always for business, but there’s also an opportunity to sightsee, explore the culture, and learn about different people and different ways of life.

In public relations, a lot of the work you do involves meeting some very cool people. It could be anyone from athletes like Terry Bradshaw to actresses to extreme sports athletes like Tony Hawk. 

In PR, do you think it’s better to
have a business degree or a
communications degree?

Business.  A business degree can be a door opener to many, many things. You can go into sales if you’re interested in interacting with other people. You can run a business—whether it’s a large corporation or a small business or your own business.

Do you ever look back and
think that you should have
gone to law school?

I don’t look back. There’s still a part of me that wonders if I should have gone to law school. But I don’t look back and say I would have done anything differently.

And you may not have met Tony
Hawk if you’d gone to law school.

I would never have met Tony Hawk or Terry Bradshaw if I’d gone to law school.