Corporate Partnership Empowers Employee to Return to School

District leader and 18-year GameStop veteran Dash Singleton always planned to go back to school but, like many working adults, chose to focus on his busy career and growing family first.

"One of my personal goals is to obtain my MBA, and one of the things that has prevented me from going after that is flexibility," Dash said. "I'm a father of three. I'm married and coming up on my 14-year anniversary. The flexibility of being able to be a family man as well as dealing with a busy professional life was really a barrier for me to go to a traditional classroom."

Dash heard about GameStop’s partnership with the University of Arizona Online and the tuition reimbursement benefit through his HR field leader and was intrigued with the online platform and the quality of the degree.

"[The University of Arizona] Eller College of Management kept popping up as one of the top business schools, with a lot of praise for the online courses, so I decided to give it a shot," said Dash, now finishing up his first semester at Arizona Online. "The best part about it – and this is something that was important to me – is that the course material and the class experience that I receive from Arizona Online is the same as the students who go to a traditional style classroom … When talking to my team about it, I say, 'Hey, imagine being in school, but you could pause a lecture, or rewind a lecture, or go back and hear something again or stop and take notes.'''

Dash also enjoys applying his knowledge from Arizona Online coursework to his everyday job duties.

"I call it Practical Life Application,” he said. “While I'm in stores or talking to team members … I use this all day long, so I think it's fantastic to have this kind of education.''

Learn more about Corporate Partnerships.