Alex Miller

Alumni

Bay College graduate Alex Miller initially chose to attend Bay due to its affordability but found many other things to like about the school after she started taking classes there. During her time at Bay, Alex decided to pursue her true passion and found a job in her field of choice—a position she plans to keep even as she gears up for a move across the country.

In 2011, Alex graduated from Whitmore Lake Middle and High School in Whitmore, MI. Later, she headed to Marquette to begin her college education at Northern Michigan University.

“I met my husband there and we ended up getting married very young—19, 20 years old. We started having kids, and I made a decision to be a stay-at-home mom while my husband continued his education,” she said.

Alex spent the next eight years raising her four daughters as a stay-at-home mother. During the winter 2020 semester, she resumed college classes at Bay.

“I chose Bay because it was important for me to earn a degree, debt-free. That was my priority when choosing a college to attend,” she said.

Though she initially decided to take classes at Bay for financial reasons, Alex got much more out of her experience as a Bay student than she thought she would.

“I had no idea that I would walk away with not only a degree but a community behind me,” she said.

According to Alex, her primary field of study at Bay also changed from what she first expected.

“My initial plan was to go to Bay and start education classes to become a teacher. I believe I have the heart of a teacher and I thought doing that with the public school system was the only way,” she said.

However, she really wanted something different—a chance to teach in the financial industry. As a result, one of her professors encouraged her to combine her passion for education with her interest in personal finance by switching to a business administration degree.

“Our family hit a rock-bottom moment with our finances four years ago, and we worked hard to not only get ourselves out of that mess but set ourselves up for a successful financial future. In the process, I developed a passion for helping other families do the same,” Alex said of her reason for wanting to enter this field.

Alex maintained a 3.6 GPA during her time at Bay. In the spring of 2022, she graduated from the college with an associate degree in business administration. Alex’s time at Bay also helped her find her current job.

As a Bay student, Alex entered a two-day-a-week internship at KerberRose Wealth Management in the fall 2021 semester to see if she would be a good fit there. The internship ended in December 2021; at that time, the company offered her a full-time position and agreed to pay for continuing education if she wanted to get licensed. That allowed Alex to pass her Series 65 Uniform Investment Advisor Law Examination last November.

“Getting an internship with KerberRose Wealth Management has quite literally been the best thing to ever happen to me, career-wise. I get to do what I love every single day and I am honored to work alongside, in my personal opinion, the best Team out there,” she said.

In her role as a Financial Wellness Advocate, Alex meets with plan participants and individual clients to provide support in the form of financial coaching, wealth-building encouragement, and debt management. According to Alex, her classes at Bay went a long way toward helping her get ready to work in her current position.

“A reoccurring theme in all my classes on the business level was presentation and communication. This has been vital to what I do now every day in my career. My professors were very firm on how I presented not only myself, but my work as well. Because of that, it has equipped me to be the future self I desire to be,” she said.

Earlier this year, Alex’s husband (who serves in the National Guard) got into the Interservice Physician Assistant Program—a highly competitive training program that accepts just 30 soldiers from this military branch each year. While Alex’s family will move to Texas this summer because of that, she will not have to leave her current position behind while her husband completes the three-year program.

“KerberRose has been very, very good to me. They offered to let me work completely remotely during our time as an active-duty military family,” she said, adding that she plans to move back to the Marquette area in 2026.

As she continues in her new career, Alex has stayed in touch with her former Bay College instructors on LinkedIn.

“The professors here are the hidden gem that makes us Alumni feel like family. Their teachings went beyond the call of duty to challenge me as a mother, a student, and now an advisor. To my professors reading this, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for believing in me,” she said.

Alex said Bay College was the perfect place to restart her college education. With that in mind, she now encourages other people getting ready to start their own higher education journeys to seriously consider the possibility of starting at a community college.

“Going to a community college before going to a university is something I’m an advocate for,” she said.