It is a well-known rite of spring for college seniors: looking for a job and comparing notes with classmates about the search or about offers they’ve received. That ritual takes place at the Carroll School, but not necessarily on that familiar timeline.
Increasingly, Carroll School students are leaving their summer internships after junior year with a job offer in hand. Or they’re lining up jobs in the fall semester of senior year, at least partly on the strength of experience gained during one or more internships.
By the middle of the spring semester, approximately two-thirds of Carroll School seniors know where they’ll be launching their careers. Last year, fully 87 percent had signed on with an employer by graduation. Most of the rest were looking ahead to other endeavors such as graduate school and volunteer opportunities; some were still negotiating or interviewing. Here's a look at five soon-to be-graduates.
Rebecca Hatcher
hometown: new york city
concentration: accounting
bound for: ernst & young, boston
Hatcher had not one but two internships at EY, during the summers after her sophomore and junior years. The second internship took her all the way to Melbourne, Australia, as a participant in EY’s Global Exchange Program, which is designed to help interns gain a global perspective.
Like many seniors, Hatcher says she “really can’t imagine leaving so soon.” She’ll be leaving to work in one of EY’s advisory practices. But she adds, “I think it’ll be an easier transition having 40 of my classmates also go to EY with me. I’ll be supported by the office managing partner who is a BC alum, down to all of the service line heads who are also BC alums, not to mention the interns. Being in this supportive BC community is really important to me.”
Joshua Reed
hometown: new egypt, new jersey
concentrations: finance &entrepreneurship (international studies minor)
bound for: hubspot—cambridge, massachusetts
Reed served as a Google intern at corporate headquarters in California during the summer after his junior year. With that distinction under his belt, and with a driving interest in the business side of tech, he received an offer in October from the online marketing firm HubSpot. There, he will work primarily in marketing—an interest he didn’t always have.
“I’m the first one in my family to go to college, so I had no idea what I wanted to do at all,” Reed says. “Business was not something I had really thought about. I just applied to the Carroll School on a whim. But thanks to TechTrek [courses that combine classroom work with field study in Silicon Valley and Ghana] and some other experiences like it, I started to pursue tech heavily. I’m excited to get into this field.”
Kelley Summers
hometown: hinsdale, illinois
concentrations: finance & marketing
(american studies minor)
bound for: accenture, chicago
American Express offered Summers a job a few days before she finished her internship with the company, in the summer after junior year. But she had until November to accept the offer. Around that time, Summers arrived at a different choice: to take what she called her “dream job” as a management consultant with Accenture, one of the world’s largest consulting firms.
What’s it like to search for a job as a Carroll School student? Summers has a quick response. “There’s an enormous amount of support that they give you here. Whether it’s letting you take some time off of class to go on an interview, or talking with a professor who has experience in the field, it’s great,” she points out. “The mentorship is part of the great support system here. And I just hope I can carry that into my career and do as much for others as everyone did for me here.”
Jose Alvarez
hometown: los angeles
concentration: accounting (french minor)
bound for: pricewaterhousecoopers, los angeles
Alvarez began building his relationship with PwC during his junior year, as recruiters from the firm came to campus for various events including company-sponsored dinners. That relationship only grew stronger during the following summer, when he interned at PwC and showed managers what he could do. By the end of his internship, he had landed an after-graduation role in auditing and assurance services.
Recalling one of those PwC events on the Heights, Alvarez says: “I really liked the feel that these were all BC alums. Cutting through all the vagueness, they gave me real-world examples, and I thought, ‘Oh, I can see myself being a public accountant.’”
Ronald Ren
hometown: worcester, massachusetts
concentrations: finance & marketing
(philosophy minor)
bound for: bank of america commercial banking group—hartford, connecticut
Like other Carroll School students, Ren speaks enthusiastically about “the BC network,” especially alumni and, during his past years at the School, seniors who offered him guidance. “Everyone was extremely helpful and willing to teach me about whatever positions they knew about, whatever openings they had,” he says. After interning at Work ’N Gear and Fidelity, Ren found his permanent opening as a credit analyst in a group informally called “Business Banking” at Bank of America.
“What that means is that I’ll be giving them [business owners] money based on their credit and helping them grow. And what’s cool about it is that a lot of these companies don’t have accounts and financial statements,” he says. “They’re more mom-and-pop shops that write down their revenue at the end of the night. You’ve got to dig deeper, and a lot of it is relationship building.”
Stefanie Tracey is Web Specialist at the Carroll School