Category: Business

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Internship Opportunities: Engineer Edition

Are you a Mechanical Engineering major? Electrical Engineering major? Looking for a summer internship? There is hope for you, just talk to Shannon Stovar!

Shannon Stovar is a senior Mechanical Engineering major at Grove City College. She is from Butler, Pa. and the first person in her family to attend Grove City College.

Shannon was one of my three ‘random’ freshmen roommates and has stayed a close friend of mine throughout college. During our sophomore year, Shannon was looking for an engineering summer internship, and I knew just the person she should talk to. I immediately called my dad, Rich Bartek, who at the time was the vice president and COO of the manufacturing company, Oberg Industries. He worked there for about 14 years and loved to hire Grove City College students as interns and employees. Oberg is headquartered in Freeport, Pa., which is only about a 25-minute commute from Shannon’s hometown of Butler. My dad and I both knew Shannon was a hard worker and fast learner and he was more than happy to help her. Shortly after, Shannon applied for Oberg Industries’ mechanical engineering internship and got an offer for the summer!

Shannon excelled that summer at Oberg Industries and outshined the other interns. Oberg ended up offering her another internship for the following summer, after her junior year. She gladly accepted.

“I assisted the design engineers in a variety of tasks along with helping in other areas of the company like die maintenance and quality control. I developed 3D models and drawings for customer parts and tooling. I worked on quite a few independent projects where I was given a problem such as a component in a machine that had broken and had to come up with a solution to fix the issue,” Shannon explained to me when I asked about what she did both summers.

I followed up by asking Shannon if she liked her time with Oberg, “I really enjoyed the experience! I think one of the most important parts about a company is the people that you work with, and everyone I worked with was extremely helpful and kind. I formed close friendships with workers from all different areas of the company. I was able to work with some of the brightest engineers in the company and was really challenged by this. Oberg gave me a wide variety of tasks so that I wouldn’t get bored and they really trusted me to work independently on big projects.”

Shannon received a full-time job offer from the company this past August. Oberg was gracious and gave her roughly six months to decide if she would like to take the offer. She had obviously proven herself very worthy over the course of her two summers there. Shannon is giving herself some time to decide and taking other options into consideration as the halfway mark of her senior year quickly approaches.

Many Mechanical Engineer majors assume internships are only for business majors. “Companies like Oberg Industries are overjoyed when they receive a resume from a student coming from Grove City College,” my dad stated. “When Shannon applied we could not wait to work with her.”

This is just another example of how connections within the Grove City College community can give you great opportunities. Students need to continue to persevere and form relationships during their four years because you never know where they will land you.

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Inside Grove City College: A Transfer Student’s Perspective

 

The process of selecting a college is stressful, with its seemingly endless applications and interviews and paperwork. For transfer students, the excitement of going to college for the first time has worn off, and going through this process twice can seem overwhelming. It can be intimidating to think about leaving a school, a friend group, and familiar studies to start fresh somewhere else. However, seeking advice and learning as much as possible about potential schools is crucial.

Hannah, Larisa, Gab, Julia, and Tara have stepped in to make your transfer process as easy as possible. These ladies, all first-year Grovers, have offered to give you a peek into what it was like for them to join the Grove City College community as a transfer student. Their advice is an insider’s perspective on things like how to make friends as a transfer, how they chose their roommates, and how to get involved on campus.

Larisa Steiner, a sophomore, transferred from Indiana Wesleyan University and enjoys studying Management with an HR concentration. Finding a school with this specific field of study and a reputable business program was key in her transfer search. Also a sophomore, Hannah Kaufmann, an English major, was interested in Grove City because it aligned with her Christian values. Tara Pierce, as a junior, finds herself in the rare position of being an upperclass transfer student. She previously studied at a local community college, and enjoys the new Social Work major at Grove City. Julia Helmich will graduate in 2021 as an Elementary/Special Education major. She enjoys the on-campus preschool, where Education students are able to get hands-on work experience. Gab Capaldo, a sophomore, studies Communication and edits for The Collegian, the campus newspaper, in her free time.

Though none of these ladies would say that being a transfer student anywhere is easy, they are adjusting to life as a Grover and getting involved on campus. Intramural sports, Greek life, and Orientation Board events are just some of what they mention as ways to find friends and make connections at Grove City College.

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Career Networking Mixer

Grove City College Career Fair, 9/26/18

After the Grove City College Career Fair on Sept. 26, the Business Department offered a career networking mixer and panel discussion. This event offered an insider’s perspective into the business world and insight on how to gain a competitive advantage in interviews. Students had an opportunity to mingle with business professionals over hors d’oeuvres before hearing from speakers at the panel session.

David Durfee ’13, returned to the Career Fair as a sales executive with Armstrong World Industries. His degree in Marketing prepared him for this career, but he said that the services offered to current students has improved since his college years. Durfee explained that the annual career fair – a school-wide event – attracts more marketing and management firms now, which provides more networking opportunities to business students. In addition, he has seen improved professor interaction during the fair; students can now find guidance from their professors on which firms to approach, how to start a career conversation, and how to increase self-marketability.

Grossman Yanak & Ford (GY&F), a Pittsburgh accounting firm, regularly sends representatives to recruit Grove City College students. Colleen Febbraro, HR Director at GY&F, says that the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firm seeks Grovers because they have found that Grove City graduates are well-rounded compared to their peers. In addition, the graduates have been prepared by their education to work well on their own and in groups. She mentioned that GY&F has found Grovers to have “superb” communication skills and advanced technical training – attributes that are evidence of thorough preparation by trained faculty. Though GY&F has a familiarity with the quality of a Grove City College education, Febbraro said that Grove City’s exceptional Accounting program – which graduates students with a CPA passing rate at nearly 30% higher than the national average – is making a name for itself as ninth in the nation for CPA success rates.

Emily Miller, who graduated from Grove City College in 2015, now works with Grossman Yanak & Ford and returned to the Career Fair to help with recruitment. She says that Grove City College left her prepared to excel in the CPA exam and her future career. Though she was not expecting the volume of writing that her job demands, she says that the Grove City humanities core adequately prepared her to handle this challenge.

The business mixer representatives offer not only career placements, but also higher education opportunities. Alexander Lowry represented Gordon College as the executive director of its Financial Analytics program, explaining that this program would be ideal for Grove City students studying a variety of disciplines. For students interested in a career involving finance, statistics, or data analysis, the Boston school offers a Master of Science in Financial Analysis. Entering a fast-paced career after college can be intimidating to undergraduate students, but Gordon College offers insight into the Boston financial scene. Lowry, who has experience in executive management at JP Morgan, explains that students can expect networking and internship opportunities during the 12-class program – Gordon has long-standing ties with financial powerhouses like Liberty Mutual, Fidelity Investments, and Putnam Investments.

The question and answer panel, which featured several Grover alumni, consisted of several businessmen giving advice and feedback to the students about launching a career. After the event, there was a tangible atmosphere of excitement and anticipation about preparing for the future, with many students discussing what they liked about the panel. One student noted that it was encouraging to see Grove City College alumni in such high positions at their firms – evidence that a Grove City degree is highly marketable. Another observation was an appreciation that the speakers went very in-depth in giving advice on how to prepare for a full-time interview. Interviewing for a part-time job in high school, the student said, is very different from the process for a “real” career, and so he enjoyed the tips for interview preparation. Overall, the Business Mixer was a huge success, providing not only opportunities for students to network with prospective employers and fellow members of the Business department, but also opportunities for students to hear relevant advice for career preparation during the panel.

 

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Interview Advice from Keystone Ridge Designs

The interview process can be a stressful time for anyone, especially when one is unsure of what to expect upon entering. Heather Starcher is Vice President of Keystone Ridge Designs, a company that manufacturers site furniture, and has been working in the business world for over 20 years. In her experience with interviewing, especially with students from Grove City College, she has focused on aspects that strongly affect an interview, positively or negatively. “Remember, they are hiring you to help their company. So they want to know what you bring to the table, how you can be an impact and help them succeed. They don’t want to hear from you ‘this is what I want’,” Heather said.

Followed by her few statements, employees Dave Starcher and Angela Maloney gave insight from their involvement with being both the interviewer and the interviewee.

Interview Advice from Director of Sales of Keystone Ridge Designs, Dave Starcher:

  1. Be prepared. Know the company and be prepared to ask questions that prove that you have done your research.
  2. Be yourself. Remember that you are interviewing the company just as much as they are interviewing you. Figure out if the company’s culture would be a fit for you. Ask what a typical day might look like or who are the team members with whom you would most often interact?
  3. Ask about the future. What could be worse than taking a job with a company that is about to fail?! Ask about their vision and how they foresee the future. What are they doing better than their competition to ensure success? Are there plans to spin-off other sister companies? How much are they growing?

Interview Advice from Director of Marketing of Keystone Ridge Designs, Angela Maloney:

  1. Take notes.
  2. Have good questions ready for whenever the interviewer says “What questions do you have for us?”
  3. Always ask for next steps at the end of the interview to show you are truly committed and want the job.
  4. Follow up. Thank you emails and notes help keep you top of mind and show your ability to follow through.
  5. Don’t ask about money in a first interview.
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My Summer Internship – Work Relationships

This previous summer I had the opportunity to work at my parents’ business, Keystone Ridge Designs, an expertise site furniture manufacturing company.  It was a comforting image to know that before I started my senior year at Grove City College, I had an internship to add to my resume.  I mainly looked at the internship as a “check off the list” of things to do before graduation.  Although, after a summer of a great deal of hard work, knowledge gained, some family tension, and strengthened relationships, I can say that working was so much more than just an internship.

Keystone Ridge Designs has been around ever since I was born, existing as a purely family business since around 1995.  My grandpa worked hard raising his family that would soon be raising me, along with building a company ever since his early 20s.  Since then, the business has excelled in terms of profitability, customer relationships, and building its brand.

The major concept I took away from my “job” was how important family businesses are and how they function in a world full of the idea of pure profit, no matter the ethics.  I appreciated the relationships between employees and their bosses, essentially my family members, except they were personal.  I watched as my family could ask their employees specific questions about their home lives because they genuinely cared to listen.  When meaningful work relationships are developed, work becomes easier.  It is more straightforward to work together, be efficient in the tasks they do, along with authenticity in the work completed.  The employees took responsibility for their actions, whether good or bad and were not purely focused on their individual career.  The collaborative atmosphere made for better problem solving and the generation of new product ideas to grow the business.  The selflessness that came from these work relationships goes to show that it is possible to profit in a business, while still caring about the needs of each employee.

Hearing about large corporations treat their employees like they are just another person working under them is something I personally could never work for, especially after seeing the relationships at Keystone Ridge Designs.  Similar to Grove City College’s ethics about faith and education, keeping them unseparated, my family’s business functioned to serve a greater purpose.  Working hard, helping others, extending generosity, and accomplishing business in a loving manner are simply four ideologies I want in any potential company I would work with.

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Grove City College Internship Opportunities – CCO

As a freshman at Grove City College, I never anticipated the opportunities that would come my way during my next four years here. During my sophomore year, I started networking with Grove City alumni. Networking for me meant talking to parents of my friends at school who either are alumni or know alumni of the College. The parents of my current roommate are both alumni and knew at the time I was interested in event planning. They helped me navigate the internship world and by March of my second semester sophomore year, I was offered an internship in the Development/Events Department with a company called Coalition for Christian Outreach, otherwise known as CCO.

My boss at CCO for that summer was Allyson Sveda, Grove City College alumna of ’88. Allyson was a Business and Communication Studies major during her time at college. To say Allyson was “involved” on Grove City College’s campus would be an understatement.  She was in the Alpha Beta Tau sorority, president of Student Government Association, president of Omicron Delta Kappa, president of Association of Women Students, while also involved in Orchesis, Campus Tour Guide, and Orientation Board.

Since May 2013, Allyson has served as the Development Director within CCO. She works with a team of six people to raise funds for CCO’s mission of “transforming college students to transform the world.” The Development team is responsible for raising money for the Next Generation Fund through direct fundraising efforts, planned giving, and annual events. As the CCO grows nationally, Allyson’s department looks for new donor bases across new regions to support the campus work in those areas.

Allyson and I have maintained a close relationship even after I completed my intern summer with CCO.  I recently spoke with her and asked why she hires Grove City College students as interns. Her response was extremely genuine and compassionate toward the campus community. “Personally, I like to give a fellow Grover the opportunity to learn new skills while they discover more about their personal strengths/weaknesses, build a more robust network, and gain solid experience that can leap frog them into their next position or future career. The CCO has a great relationship on many levels with Grove City. I will give Grove City College students first chance at any summer internship slots in our Development Office,” Allyson replied.

“Have you ever seen differences between Grove City students/alumni compared to students/alumni from other colleges? If so, please describe those differences,” I asked. “I have found the students here to be willing to dig in, be concerned with the importance of the details, creative, self-starters, great communicators, immediate contributors, motivated and willing to please! Other departments have commented on the solid nature of our Department interns. It’s no surprise to me,” Allyson said.

As my own career goals have shifted over the last couple of years, Allyson has continued to help by introducing me to other alumni of Grove City College. The Marketing and Sales internship I had after my junior year happened to be under one of Allyson’s sorority sisters! Allyson is just one prime example of all the Grove City College alumni that love to help out current students of the college. The close-knit community  happens to be a very giving and generous one. There are so many opportunities out there, even at a small school like Grove City College. Be confident, get to know more people, and keep your eyes and ears out for any possibilities that may come your way.

 

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Alumni Colleen Castle Shares Advertising Career Experience with Business Students

Dr. Powell’s advertising class recently had the opportunity to Skype with alumna Colleen Castle, an Account Director at advertising company Ogilvy.

Castle is a 2009 graduate of Grove City who majored in Marketing and Communications. She was eager to share her career path experience with the class, detailing all the jobs she has had since coming to her current position, including an internship in distribution, budget organizer at L’Oreal Paris, working for Avon and Ikea. She explained that being an assistant media planner in NY with L’Oreal Paris was a good stepping stone for her. While she knew that the math-based job that required working with spreadsheets was not a permanent career path for her, it was a way to build her network and to determine where she wanted to go. She then transferred to the creative industry which involves creating advertisements.

Castle shared that one perk of this job is that she “knows a little about a lot of subjects.” She explained that working on account teams is like having a small business within a much bigger business. One of her favorite parts of the job is going on shoots and seeing the strategy and creative development come to life through film and the workings of the crew.

Castle also shared the learning process that she experienced in her jobs to the current juniors and seniors in the class. She said the onboarding process at her job consisted of learning the history of the brand, their campaign, and their plan for the next five years. She spoke on how it is important to earn trust and respect early on with both with clients and coworkers and how this might require long hours of work.

Castle dove into the subject of bringing faith in the workplace. She reminded students to not have idols in their career and how you have to be focused on people. If your goals are going to hurt others, then it is not Christ-like. She said that people often assume advertising and faith do not mix, but she believes it can when you chose to work with brands that help the world and perpetuate good values. As an alumnus, she said Grove City prepared her to bring her faith into her career. Her recommendation for current students is to find a mentor who is further down their career path and slowly build their network.

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Business Policy and Strategy Writing Competition

Business Policy and Strategy is a senior level course required for all business majors including business management, accounting, finance, marketing, international business, and industrial management. Many students refer to the class as their “Senior Capstone” taught by Professor Richard Kocur. Throughout this speaking intensive course, students are given various writing and presentation assignments within a group. However, at the end of each semester, Professor Kocur asks his students to complete an individual writing assignment with the prompt, “What does it mean to be a Christian in today’s business world?” Students are able to submit their essays into a writing competition among approximately 60 members of the class. Professor Kocur narrows down the top seven papers, which are then evaluated by various professors in Grove City’s business department. Students with the top three essays receive a monetary prize and an in-class recognition.

Mr. Kocur decided that this assignment was a great way for seniors to think about how their faith will be incorporated in their future jobs. He stated, “The assignment is a unique aspect of our business department and I think demonstrates our connection with the College’s mission and values. The essay contest serves to support not only the mission of the College, but the Business Program’s vision of being a premier undergraduate business program where scholarship and application combine with Christian principles.”

As an accounting student in the Business Policy and Strategy course last semester, I had the opportunity to complete this assignment and consider the “Christian Perspective” in the business world. I personally loved this assignment, and I took the time to look back on what I had learned in my classes at Grove City about implementing Christian values in the real world. The prompt for the paper was not an easy question to answer. However, I focused my paper on living out Christian values in all aspects of life, rather than compartmentalizing work, family, friends, and faith. Although discussing your faith in the workplace is not always appropriate, acting as an example of Christ is a great way to implement one’s Christian values in all components of their life. After writing my paper, I was lucky enough to receive third place in the competition among my classmates, which was a great way to complete my semester.

Second place writer, Olivia (Ebert) Greathouse, also enjoyed the assignment and explained how she felt on the paper. “I thought the business writing competition was a great opportunity to express and share my thoughts about Christianity and business. It forced me to put into words the thoughts in my head about how I will bring my faith into the workplace. I believe being a Christian should permeate every aspect of our lives including our life at work. While we may not proclaim our Christianity to everyone we encounter, it should be evident in our actions and attitudes each and every day.”

Austin Everett took first place in the competition, and found that this question was something that had been on his mind for quite some time. He stated, “The paper was really a culmination of four years of wrestling with the subject matter. Discussions in classes and with professors outside the classroom lit my interest in this subject which then led me to various books and thought leaders. The understanding of the Christian and his or her work became an increasingly pressing issue on my mind, so when it came to writing the paper, it was really an issue of simply putting onto paper four years of thought that was nurtured by professors and books from the church, past and present.”

The writing assignment will continue to be assigned to students in the Business Policy and Strategy course each semester. Altogether, the competition for the paper is a great way for business majors to really dive into the complexity of the question, “What does it mean to be a Christian in today’s business world?”

 

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Myth Busted: If You Switch Majors You Will Not Graduate on Time, Chapter 2

Grove City College Chapel

It was not long into my second semester of college that I realized that I was again in a weird position. What is business management and why am I majoring in it? It was a good thing that at this point I was taking Principles of Management to find out. This only led me more astray though. I was again in the situation of, “What is this major and why am I in it if I do not know what I can do with it or if I even want to be a manager?” So, again I went in search of my calling. This second semester of college I took various types of business and economics classes trying to find my place in this big crazy world. Nothing “did it” (whatever “it” is) for me. I was forced to stay on this business track until I found what I wanted to do.

It was the first semester of my sophomore year that I found “it.” I was in Principles of Accounting with Professor Stone and I was not sure what it was but I was convinced that this “it” was in fact the “it.” At the end of that semester I decided to drop the business management major and pick up accounting (if you have not kept count until this point, this was my third different major). I continued on second semester of sophomore year as an accounting major and then into my junior year. I grew to appreciate the field and enjoy it more and more. That appreciation has led me to now, my second semester of my junior year, and I am still an accounting major.

Along this winding journey of major changes and confusion it was important for me to keep in mind my current position and what classes I needed to take to graduate on time, but this was the easy part. All three of my past and current advisors made this part of switching majors easy for me. They told me my current state and what I needed to take to graduate on time and even gave me pointers of how to spread the course load to minimize stress and maximize the value. I cannot stress enough that this was the easy part. You will figure it out, you will fit the classes that you need in. I am currently attempting to get a degree in accounting but to also acquire as close to 150 credits (128 credits is all that is required to graduate) as possible so that I can sit for my Certified Public Accountancy Exam (CPA Exam). I have made the classes fit, and so can you. No matter who you are, whether you switch majors six times or you do not switch majors at all, if you commit to finishing in four years (or five or six, whatever pace is most ideal to you) you can do it. In my journey to achieve 150 credits I have mapped out my schedule so that I will graduate with 146 credits. If I can do it, the kid who did not know what he wanted to do with his life and switched majors twice, then you can do it too!

Moral of the story is to have faith and meet with your advisors. It is funny how things come full circle. Did you notice how faith was one of the first things to come up when looking at how most people do not know what they want to do with their lives? This is because this faith is what allowed me and allows us as Christians to be joyful in times where we freak out because we have no idea of what we could do with our major and in times where we do not think that we can graduate on time. Faith is the overlapping factor. As Philippians 1:6 says, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” This walk, and this mindset of trusting in God that he will lead us to where we need to be has led me to being a junior accounting major, somewhere I would have never thought I would be as a senior in high school. So, have faith and God will lead you. We, as humans, do not know what we want to do with our lives because our lives here on Earth are in hindsight not for us, they are for a bigger purpose which we may one day fulfill in Heaven.

If you are interested in hearing more about my story or simply want to just personally contact me about any of your specific worries feel free to at gosstd1@gcc.edu. I would be glad to help a worried younger high school me build up the courage to do things that I never did and to help you succeed to your fullest potential! God bless!

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Myth Busted: If You Switch Majors You Will Not Graduate on Time, Chapter 1

Grove City College Chapel

What do seniors in high school and a junior accounting major from Grove City College have in common? Well yes, neither is going to have to take the annoying and stressful ACT /SAT tests again… But besides that, I was thinking more along the lines that neither really knows what they want to do with their future. I can say this speaking from self-experience and observing others. It may sound cliché, but no one knows what they truly want to do with their future, and if you do not believe me ask your parents. My father has worked at the same location for the past 27 years and he comes home most days saying he does not know what he wants to do with his life. So how did we go from having a title about switching majors to this tangent about how most people do not know what they want to do with their lives? I choose to take this route because this is my current position and this lack of knowing has not only inspired me to try new things throughout my time here at Grove City College but to also have faith, so let me elaborate.

My freshman year of college I came in as a chemistry major. Seems like a good idea right? For some people this may be the perfect fit for them but for me… not so much. In choosing to go to college I had no idea what I wanted to be and in a somewhat hap hazardous way decided that since I took a year of chemistry in high school and liked it that I would go to college and become a… who knows. Throughout my first semester I was pushed and stretched mentally and the 16 credits of chemistry, physics, calculus, biblical revelations, and fitness and wellness really threw me for a loop. I was constantly working to keep up and knew that I was a chemistry major but had absolutely no clue why. A major shifting point for me was when I attended the Grove City College annual Career Fair and immediately became aware that I had no desire to do any of the jobs that an individual with a chemistry major would be equipped to do. I still remember that day vividly. I left the Career Fair freaking out wondering what I had gotten myself into. I was working harder and studying more than I had ever studied before and had no desire to be doing anything in the field of chemistry. So, I ran (literally) to my room from the Career Fair and called my parents, on the verge of tears, telling them I was ruined. I had made the biggest mistake of my life, but what I didn’t know was that this was just part of a bigger plan.

After the long phone call with my parents I decided that chemistry was not the major for me and no matter the implications of changing majors I was going to switch, but to what? I had people suggest various majors to me but what I felt in that moment drawn to (see this common trend of me making these big “in the moment” decisions to decide my future) business management. I felt that this was the “career” for me. So, I finished out my first semester as a chemistry major and in the final weeks dropped the chemistry major and added business management.