New York City Career Tour
The second annual New York City Career Tour, presented by the Department of Economics and Business, took place January 1-4, 2008. Department Chair Deborah Pittman, Professor John Planchon, and Linda Gibson from the Department of Economics and Business and Holly Hilliard from Alumni Relations led a group of 24 students on visits to the following Wall Street financial institutions: Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Capmark Financial, Credit Suisse, FactSet Research Systems, Hawkshaw Capital, JP MorganChase, Merrill Lynch and Tricadia Capital.
Numerous Rhodes alumni made these visits possible. Two Bank of America’s presenters were Frank Pinkerton ’96 and Brandon Couillard ’05. At Bear Stearns, Truett Horne ’07, Philip Ruppel ’06, and Jon David Willingham ’04 talked with the students about their experiences in moving to and living in New York City and what they did to prepare for their investment banking careers. Frank Byrd ’90 of Hawkshaw Capital and Vimal Shah ’94 of Tricadia Capital gave presentations and answered questions about hedge funds and why they decided to pursue their career paths. Ben Gohman ’97 organized small discussion groups with several bankers and employees of Credit Suisse. Gohman, his wife Katie, and Leslie Curry ’98 also visited Rhodes College in November to prepare participants for the tour through workshops and mock interview sessions. John Marshall ’00 acted as a tour guide for one day of the trip and later hosted the students at JP MorganChase. Phil Brooks of Capmark Financial, father of tour participant Will Brooks, taught the students about the real estate equity industry. Michael Lynch, also a father of a Rhodes student, gave the students insight into the life of a sales trader at Merrill Lynch and also provided a tour of the trading floor.
Students were given multiple opportunities to learn about living and working in NYC as well as to network with alumni at their companies and at a NYC Rhodes Alumni reception held at the Forbes Magazine Galleries. The majority of students were sophomores who gained insight about what they should do in preparation for internships in the second half of their education. During the trip, several of the upper class participants had interviews and made connections with alumni in order to help with NYC internships and careers. Overall, the trip helped Rhodes students differentiate between career paths, make connections with successful alumni, and see what life in New York City is really like.
Rhodes students attending included Karli Alvino, Adeeti Amin, Osman Atiq, Parks Barker, Blake Branum, Will Brooks, Catherine Casey, Nick Coffelt, Sarah Crowley, Mike Duch, Rachel Harpool, Chelsea Hennessy, Allie Henson, Alison Jones, Andrew Maryott, Andrew McCann, Megan McDonald, David Mooney, Katherine Owens, Mallory Raffensberger, Ben Ricketts, Alicia Roldan, Charlie Wagner and Alison White.
-Mallory Raffensberger ’09
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