News

Leavey School of Business students have been very busy this summer.  We asked a few of them to share their summer experiences.

Brandon Sage
Major: Management & Information Systems
Hometown: San Diego, California
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  I spent my summer living and working in Cochabamba, Bolivia as a Global Fellow. My placement, called Bolivia4ward, is a free math and science tutoring program under the company AHA Bolivia that is provided to the kids of the artisans employed by the company and local orphanages. I helped the company create a system to quantify the progress of the students and identify the qualitative benefits of the program that would be useful in their mission to obtain a fair trade certification.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable parts of my experience in Bolivia were getting insight into the extent of the work involved in obtaining a fair trade certification for a company and helping to educate underprivileged Bolivian students. Traveling around the city of Cochabamba to conduct interviews with artisans opened my eyes to the many different aspects involved with fair trade. Another extremely memorable aspect of the experience was the opportunity to take weekend trips to the Andes mountains, the Amazon, and the world renowned salt flats in Bolivia which allowed me to interact with locals and learn more about the culture first hand.

Sarah Tatley
Major: Accounting
Hometown: Cupertino, California
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  This summer, I traveled to Xiamen, China and Bali, Indonesia with my family to visit long-distance relatives. I also attended a number of summer leadership programs/externships hosted by various accounting firms. In addition to attending externships in San Jose, I was able to travel to Portland, Oregon and Westlake, Texas to get a better understanding of what it would be like to work at these accounting firms.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable part of my summer took place in Bali. We fed elephants, held butterflies, saw volcanoes, rode ATVs in the mud, and played with monkeys in Bali's monkey forest.

Brian Schunk
Major: Economics & English
Hometown: Monte Sereno, California
Graduation Year:  2019

What did you do this summer?  This summer, I worked as a teaching fellow with a program called Breakthrough Collaborative. I taught a couple writing classes as well as an improv class.  Breakthrough Collaborative works with children from low income families to help them get into college. The program spans over six years and provides summer classes as well as year round academic advising and counseling.  The Summer Program is for rising seventh and eighth graders and features six weeks of classes designed for students to get ahead on what they're learning the upcoming year. When not in class, students are competing in various games, going on field trips, or performing skits. This program focuses not only on academics but also leadership development and other crucial soft skills. 

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable part of my experience was Visitor's Day, when my parents got the chance to come and sit-in on one of my writing classes. I was definitely nervous, but class went well and my parents really enjoyed seeing me in action.

Erick Barrientos
Major: Accounting
Hometown: Pittsburg, California
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  This summer I was the Coordinator for Student Programs on SCU's Orientation Program! My job was to help train and support our new team of Orientation Leaders. I also attended Deloitte's National Leadership Conference in Texas, and PwC's Elevate Program in San Francisco.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable part of my experience with Orientation was being able to see the growth with our new team of Orientation Leaders. It's extremely rewarding to see the impact that every leader has on the incoming first year students. I will truly miss working with the Orientation Program.

Lauren Tauriac
Major: Finance
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
Graduation Year:  2019

What did you do this summer?  I spent my summer working at Identity Eyecare, a small optical boutique in Dallas, as a marketing/merchandising intern.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable part of my experience was buying Gucci merchandise for the boutique. I was given free range and was able to pick pieces that I knew some of the patients would love, especially those I had the privilege of meeting throughout the course of my internship. 

Matt Sipowicz
Major: Accounting
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Graduation Year:  2019

What did you do this summer? I traveled to Denmark with the Santa Clara Men's soccer team and competed against Danish teams as part of an extended pre-season. I also toured Copenhagen and went to a world cup watching party.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  I thoroughly enjoyed playing soccer against foreign competition and immersing myself into a foreign culture. The overall experience of a foreign sporting experience was something I have dreamed about my whole life, and I loved every second of the trip.

Alyssa Fiddes
Major: Marketing  
Hometown: San Diego, California
Graduation Year:  2019

What did you do this summer?  Through the Global Fellows Program, I spent six weeks in Kolkata, India working as a marketing intern for a NGO called Destiny Reflection. Destiny's goal is to combat sex trafficking as it works to educate, employ, and empower survivors of trafficking. During this time, I focused on branding as I redesigned Destiny's website and social media.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable part of my experience was working directly with those impacted by sex trafficking. In addition to being a marketing intern, I taught English and computer skills classes in the red light district community center. I also visited a shelter home in Kolkata for young girls of all backgrounds, including survivors of sex trafficking, domestic abuse, and child marriages. 

Andrew Elliott
Major: Finance
Hometown: Guangzhou, China
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  I went to Kumasi, Ghana to work at an NGO called Bright Generation Community Foundation through the Global Fellows Program. While there, I was involved in marketing efforts for Bright Generation as well as for the Bamboo Bike Initiative - an initiative started by Bright Generation to produce environmentally sustainable bicycles. I also interviewed women in a local farming community who grow chili peppers in order to connect them with a zero-interest loan raised by a group of Santa Clara students.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience? The most memorable part of my experience was definitely the trip to the farming community to meet the loan candidates. There were some things that were frustrating getting used to in Kumasi, but visiting them and seeing the humble lifestyles they lived put a lot about my experience in Ghana in perspective and really impacted how I look at life back home.

Katherine Seely
Major: Finance  
Hometown: Mercer Island, Washington
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  This summer I interned at the Jordan Park Group, a wealth management firm in San Francisco. Jordan Park was founded about 16 months ago, after a wealth advisory group split off from Goldman Sachs to establish their own firm. Since Jordan Park is a relatively small company, with only about 50 employees, I had the opportunity to work on many different projects across the three departments - investment, client advisory, and client service.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  The most memorable part of my experience was Jordan Park’s family-like company culture. I loved working side by side with such welcoming, dedicated, and high-achieving individuals. Working at such a young firm was also particularly exciting, since I got to witness and participate in building their vision from the ground up!

Gen Kimura
Major: Finance
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Graduation Year:  2019

What did you do this summer? I had the pleasure of being accepted into SCU’s Global Fellows program to go to Cochabamba, Bolivia  Along with Ali Deambrosio and Andrew Bake, we worked for AHA Bolivia, an ethical and sustainable manufacturer of handmade knitwear products.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  Every Friday, our boss, Anna Aliaga, would host a big lunch at her house where she would invite all of the interns and her fascinating friends in Cochabamba.  I was able to meet the most interesting people such as Roberto Gironás, a world-famous chef, Graciela who lived and hid in a jungle for 11 years, and GoGo, a guitarist who performs all over Bolivia. Overall, what made this trip so memorable was all of the unique experiences that I was exposed to from living day-to-day in a completely different country and meeting people that practice different customs, traditions, and way of life. 

Agatha Goluszek
Major: Marketing
Hometown: El Dorado Hills, California
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  I have been interning at a real estate start up in the Bay Area, have taken many trips up to San Francisco that involve tons of good food while simultaneously becoming a BART and CalTrain regular, and drinking endless amounts of caffeine.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  I loved all of the people at my start up. There were only a few of us in our Silicon Valley office, so we all got really close within the first few weeks. The changes that you suggest and create are really transparent in a start up setting since they can happen fairly quickly or even immediately. It's really empowering and uplifting to see your impact.

Tanner Condit
Major: OMIS
Hometown: Missoula, Montana
Graduation Year:  2020

What did you do this summer?  I interned for Franklin Templeton in Hyderabad, India through the Global Fellows Program, where I assisted the US Transfer Agency Support Services Team. During my internship, I helped improve department quality through error analysis and curated improvements to the training program.

What was the most memorable part of your summer experience?  Several of the SCU Global Fellows groups in India all met up and traveled to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. It was so much fun and was great to explore India with the SCU community.