Rachel MacKelcan ’14 obtained two degrees at Merrimack College in five years; the English major earned her Bachelor’s degree in 2018 and received her Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) in 2019. During her time in Andover, MacKelcan kept herself busy as she was a member of the Warriors Track & Field team, served as the editor-in-chief for the Merrimack Review, performed for Merrimack’s slam poetry team called the “Slam Shadies,” and won the Ahern Poetry Contest. Moreover, her essay on a “Series of Unfortunate Events” as it related to gothic literature was accepted to the Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society Conference in Cincinnati. 

For the past five years, Rachel has worked on content strategy for companies such as HealthyCapital, Fidelity Investments, and Universal Parks and Resorts. As a Content Producer, she works with UX/UI (user experience) and Development teams to finalize the front end development of web experiences. Reflecting on what she loves most about her work, Rachel states, “I like being able to look at a website and say, ‘I built that.’ I like to know that when I do my job right, someone, somewhere, on the other side of their own screen gets to plan an incredible trip or navigate an experience that gives them one less thing to worry about.”

While at Friends, Rachel was a three-sport varsity athlete and wrote for the Whittier. In fact, she still holds the school record for the longest shot-put throw. Her advice to current WFS students? “Fail often and train yourself to pivot confidently. It’s really easy, at any point in your life, to feel like you’ve fallen short of the person your younger self imagined they’d be… In other words, it’s really easy to feel like you’ve fallen short, when you’ve actually just tripped differently. Some of the best moments in my life have happened after I got laid-off and flipped the script or walked away from something that wasn’t good for me. So fail often, fail proudly, and train yourself to pivot confidently.”

Keep up the great work, Rachel!