Jenny Lerman

Jenny Lerman envisions owning her own business someday — specifically, a wellness education center where people can learn to take proactive approaches to their physical, mental and emotional health.

While her concentration as a business major was in entrepreneurship, Lerman absorbed as many marketing lessons as she could — especially in Social Media Marketing with Assoc. Prof. Spencer Ross. In that course, Lerman and a team of students helped a Lowell ice cream shop, Sweet Bar, create content for TikTok.

“As students, we’ve grown up with social media. But this was an important class to learn effective strategies for utilizing the platforms in different ways,” she says. “Wanting to be a business owner myself someday, it was good to get firsthand experience with it.” 

It also helped Lerman see a more positive side to social media, something she had stepped away from during the early days of the pandemic for her own well-being.

“When COVID hit, I took a long break from social media and lived under a rock for a little bit,” says Lerman, who was studying hospitality at the College of Charleston in South Carolina at the time. “Social media can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your intention for how and why you use it. It has its drawbacks but has great potential to be a force for good. You need to understand how it works to avoid going down a rabbit hole.”

She moved home to Tewksbury, Massachusetts, took a gap year and then transferred to UMass Lowell — much to the delight of her father, business alum Richard Lerman ’87.

“He nudged me just a bit,” laughs Lerman, who grew up coming to UML hockey games with her dad. “That’s our thing together, and now we’ll be UML alumni together.”

Transferring was “a struggle” at first, but Lerman got involved on campus and quickly felt part of the community. She joined the women’s club soccer team and the Joy Tong Women in Business student organization, and she participated in cross-university mixers at Harvard, Tufts and Boston University. 

Lerman also was selected for the Business and Entrepreneur Scholars in Training (BEST) program, receiving a $2,500 stipend to work with Asst. Prof. of Operations and Information Systems Belleh Fontem on his research on risk aversion for brokers.

“Being compensated helped immensely, and it opened my eyes to research and teaching, which is on my radar now,” she says.

Lerman, who completed her degree in December, is already putting her social media lessons to use as a marketing assistant at BH Management, which owns five health care-related companies.

“I’m ready to soar,” says Lerman, who plans to “always be in a learning environment” like the one she found at UML.

“UMass Lowell has some kind of energy that’s different from other schools,” she says. “People here work really hard for it from the start. I love being part of that.”