Natalie Magura is determined to make the most of her undergraduate years.
Right now, that means the junior is soaking up all she can from the city of London. She’s exploring British museums in her art history class and learning causes and effects of Brexit in her political science class, then roaming the city streets in her free time.
But when she was a first-year, Magura’s appetite for edification didn’t take her across an ocean — just across disciplines. She started out as just a sociology major, learning how to scientifically study social structures and relationships.
“Then I recognized there were more pieces to the puzzle,” she said.
Adding majors in economics and political science gave Magura a more complete view of critical issues — take incarceration, for example. Through sociology, she learned about inequalities within the prison system and the effects of mass incarceration. Through economics, she learned how disparities in wealth translate into disproportionate incarceration rates. Through political science, she learned about the public policy environment behind the prison system.
To finish the puzzle, Magura just needed a career plan that could interlock with her wide-ranging interests. It took her a few semesters — and deep engagement with career development opportunities through the Beyond the Dome and Consulting Connect programs — to figure it out, but she started with the confidence that the skills she’d learn would make her successful in any field.
“Fitting all of those pieces together solidified my decision to move forward with three majors,” she said. “I’m constantly exposed to different lenses in my learning, no matter what the subject may be.”
Finding a career fit with three majors
To find her professional path, Magura began with the same strategy she used with her majors — more is more. She joined every club that sounded interesting and attended as many career discernment events as her schedule allowed. That brought her to Beyond the Dome, which would become a main character in her Notre Dame story.
A career development program exclusively for undergraduates in the College of Arts & Letters, Beyond the Dome empowers students to explore career paths while giving them opportunities to break into their desired industry. As a first-year, Magura took advantage of the program’s employer interaction events, one of which introduced her to the host of her upcoming summer internship: Bain & Company, one of the country’s top consulting firms.
“In high school, I had no idea what consulting was,” Magura said. “Beyond the Dome introduced me to the industry and matched it with the skills I had as an Arts & Letters student.”
Networking with a Bain employee at a Beyond the Dome workshop was the first step in Magura’s journey to an internship with Bain, but it wasn’t what sealed the deal. Along the way were more career workshops, resume refinement, interview coaching, and connections with upperclassmen.
Magura also joined Consulting Connect, a Meruelo Family Center for Career Development program that prepares students for consulting jobs through resume and interview prep and networking opportunities. What Magura found the most helpful, though, was the case interview training offered by students who had already gone through the recruitment process.
Business consultants provide guidance and solve complex issues on a wide variety of projects. So on top of traditional job interviews, consulting firms use case interviews to assess applicants’ critical thinking abilities with sample business problems, such as “How should I go about opening a new coffee shop?”
To solve a case — usually within a strict time limit — an applicant needs to generate a logical plan of action, requiring knowledge of business principles and a decent portion of math. Consulting Connect helped her learn how to ace a case through mock interviews with feedback from peers and actual consultants.
After she got the basics down, Magura realized the unique strengths that had taken her problem-solving to the next level.
“With practice, anyone is going to be able to solve a case — it’s not calculus,” she said. “But Arts & Letters students have an inherent creativity in the ways they think about problems. You’re not only thinking about it like a business problem; you’re almost thinking about it like a comprehensive essay.”
Focusing on giving back
Now that Magura’s found the right path for her, she wants to help other students do the same. To that end, she’s taken on responsibilities as co-president of Consulting Connect and chief executive officer of Beyond the Dome.
“I’m making sure I’m always a resource and an accessible mentor,” she said. “I’m very proud to be the support that I received as an underclassman.”
“Having a community that outlasts the time I’m actually at school is super valuable to me. For that, there’s no better place than Notre Dame.”
Magura is excited by the way both programs continue to develop and expand opportunities for students, especially Beyond the Dome’s new LaunchPoint Projects. In an immersive semester-long experience, students work with a company or nonprofit on a real business problem, and their recommendations will help inform senior leaders’ decision-making. The projects give students deep, practical experience, as well as connections to a managing director or senior partner at an influential corporation like McKinsey & Company.
As a certified connoisseur of career programs, Magura knows it can be intimidating to start getting involved, especially for students like her first-year self, who had no prior connections to Notre Dame. But her advice is just to show up — to clubs, to information sessions, to whatever sounds exciting.
“Everyone at these events is someone who’s a little bit lost or confused, and using these resources is definitely a way to get that extra lift if you need it,” she said.
Putting herself out there as much as possible was how Magura found her path and her community on campus. But now that she’s in the latter half of her time at Notre Dame, she’s focusing less on building new things and more on enjoying what she’s already built — taking electives, time for intentional growth, and long walks during golden hour.
And when she graduates next year, Magura knows that what she’s found at Notre Dame isn’t going away.
“Having a community that outlasts the time I’m actually at school is super valuable to me,” she said. “For that, there’s no better place than Notre Dame.”
Originally published by at al.nd.edu on February 26, 2026.