Simmons’ Online Degree Completion Program gave Rashida Alisha Hagakore ‘24 more than a degree in business — it transformed her career trajectory. Gaining confidence, leadership skills, and a new professional identity, she advanced into a supervisory role and now approaches her work with clarity, strategy, and purpose.
Rashida Alisha Hagakore ’24 felt stuck. She was in a role without opportunities for growth — at least not without the right degree. Knowing she could do more, she decided to go back to school.
Ready for Career Growth
Hagakore began her academic path far from the business world, pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College. After three years, financial challenges and family responsibilities forced her to pause her education. She took a role at an ophthalmology clinic, a medical office specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of eye and vision conditions.
Despite taking on more responsibilities and working hard at several clinics over the years, she realized she was stuck in a job with little room for growth.
“I have what it takes to be a leader, but on paper, it isn’t showing,” Hagakore remembers. “To be a clinical supervisor, you need at least a bachelor’s degree.”
Determined to break this barrier, Hagakore created an account on LinkedIn, where she discovered an ad for Simmons University's online bachelor’s program.
The ad featured three words that instantly captured her attention: "empowerment, women, and leadership."
Drawn to studying in a women-centered environment, and recognizing that a business degree would help her achieve her income goals, she quickly applied to and enrolled in Simmons’ Online Degree Completion Program’s Bachelor of Science in business administration (now business and management). She began the program in August 2021.
Discovering the Language of Leadership
The journey was demanding. Hagakore juggled two jobs — working in ophthalmology as a certified ophthalmic assistant, helping the doctor with exams, procedures, and refractive surgery during the week and as an apprentice optician on the weekends — while completing her coursework online. She found the program highly rewarding and engaging.
About six months before graduating in May 2024, her Simmons student status helped her compete for that coveted role.
"I actually became a clinical supervisor. That was my goal, and I did it,” she says. “The fact that I was in the program and scheduled to finish, that was how I got the job."
Beyond the tangible career advancement, the program also equipped Hagakore with the formal business vocabulary to match her innate strategic talents, which she says solidified her professional confidence.
“The program gave me the vocabulary for things I was doing that I didn't understand from a systems point of view or from the business mindset point of view,” she says. “It helped me to solidify the skills that I didn't recognize in myself."
Now, Hagakore has a clear view of what she brings to her work.
"I'm a strategist. I would have never known that, or I didn't think of myself like that because that's just not where my mind was oriented,” she says. "When we're given education, knowledge, and words, we understand something about ourselves that we didn't know was there or is emerging."
Faculty Mentorship Beyond the Classroom
For Hagakore, a sense of care and the ability to instill confidence in students seemed part of the culture at Simmons, where nearly 80% of the faculty are women.
“The very first class I took was project management with Professor Emerita Spela Trefalt,” Hagakore says. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow — this is exactly what I expected a business class to be.’”
She recalls learning valuable lessons in business communication from the course and being impressed by Professor Trefalt’s teaching approach.
“She’s such an eloquent person … she was so smart, so kind, and very giving and really interested in you learning and not just going through a checklist,” she says. “We’re still connected today on LinkedIn!”
Associate Professor Masato Aoki was another teacher who made a lasting impact on her because of his unique approach to teaching. He used storytelling to explain the psychology and context behind economic formulas, making the material highly relevant to the students.
“I loved the care that he put into the learning experience because he's really passionate about the material. He was very committed to helping us absorb the content,” she says.
She was particularly impressed by his intuitive ability to “read the room" and answer questions students were too nervous to ask.
After the class ended, he continued mentoring her by providing resume feedback and by including her in an economics networking group.
A Network of Driven Professional Women
Hagakore valued not only the interactions with faculty, but also with her peers in Simmons’ women-centered undergraduate community.
She regularly collaborated with a diverse group of professional women from across the country, highlighted by her team winning first place in every metric of a rigorous Harvard Business School simulation.
“The three of us in our group all took [the simulation] so seriously. We were professional women, balancing life and family, but we would literally spend an hour plus talking about the decisions and the different levers that we had to manage to achieve our goal,” she recalls, adding that applying class tools in this collaborative project was rewarding.
Building Skills, Gaining Confidence
Hagakore’s coursework also prepared her to manage modern, large-scale data.
“I learned how to use R to run statistical analyses and illustrate data,” she says. Beyond simply inputting data, she learned how to troubleshoot data issues, adjust the code, and, crucially, interpret the "story" the data is telling.
Connecting data to stories really spoke to Hagakore’s creative foundation and showed her that those talents could be useful in business and leadership roles, too.
"I feel like I really do have something more than what I started with,” she says. “It was all there, but now it's gotten polished, and it's front-facing instead of kind of hidden and still raw.”
Today, as a surgical counselor at a long-established ophthalmology practice in Houston, Hagakore applies those skills every day.
She uses CRM tools to manage patient relationships and follow-ups, helping ensure continuity of care and a personalized experience. She also guides patients through their surgical options, translating complex information so they can make confident decisions.
In addition, Hakamore collaborates with marketing efforts — contributing to patient-centered storytelling, including content that highlights individuals who have opted to share their experiences.
In her current role, she feels empowered and steady, equipped with both the analytical and interpersonal skills to navigate her career with confidence.