ANDREW LEE
In the face of a downward-spiraling economy, many seniors are looking at graduate school as a way to avoid the stagnant workforce. This is true for graduating senior Andrew Lee, except that his continuing education will not be the typical academic experience. Enrolled in Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) for the past four years with the goal of becoming a commissioned Marine officer, Lee will be attending The Basic School (TBS) in Quantico, Va., where students develop the professional knowledge and skills to effectively lead Marines under their command. Upon completion of TBS, he will attend flight school for two years.
"I always knew that I was going to do ROTC. I started as a freshman and was initially in the Navy program, but switched my scholarship from Navy to Marines after attending [Career Orientation and Training for Midshipmen] during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year," he said.
Lee found that the Marines had a higher esprit de corps and a more developed sense of camaraderie. He said that these characteristics both attracted and motivated him.
During his time at Tufts, Lee has lived with the goal of being a team player. He ran cross-country all four years at Tufts and ran the Boston Marathon with the Tufts team this year.
This tendency toward teamwork will be important as he embarks on his post-graduation journey. "I have a commitment to be a pilot for eight years upon completing flight school. At that point I will choose to stay [in the armed forces] or get out," he said. "If I leave, I want to go to business school."
To Lee, his choice to do ROTC was borne from his desire to serve his country. "The reason I joined is that we are a part of this 9/11 generation and I am going to do my service that I feel I owe as an immigrant," he said. "I am a part of this country and I want to give back. It's the same as Peace Corps or AmeriCorps or Teach for America."
PATRICK ROATH
Patrick Roath, who graduates today, has some words of wisdom about how to ensure success: "Try everything, do everything." It is advice that he himself has followed and will continue to follow after graduation.
Roath, an International Relations major and an English minor, was awarded a prestigious U.S. Fulbright grant through the State Department and will use this grant to teach English at a high school in a rural province of coastal Malaysia for seven months. "It's going to be really cool to give people language skills," he said. "It's a form of service that I think is really valuable."
Roath is no stranger to this type of service. During his sophomore year, he attended the Boston Academy of English where he learned to teach the language. Involved with The Tufts Observer since sophomore year, Roath served as editor-in-chief this past fall; he also acted as chairman of the Media Advocacy Board on campus.
In addition, he served as a leader of Tufts Wilderness Orientation for two summers. "They were both incredible experiences — having the ability to introduce freshmen to Tufts and get to know them really well in that environment," Roath said.
During his time between graduation and Malaysia, from May 22 to Aug. 14, Roath will be interning in the White House Communications department working with local media affairs or new media. From his work in the Council of Foreign Relations to working in a branch of the White House, Roath hopes to represent the United States in a positive way abroad.
"I want to represent the values of the U.S. government and of the country," he said. "The town I'll be working in is almost all Muslim and very conservative. I hope that I gain an appreciation for what our country tries to do abroad from a very ground-level perspective and how people think about their own place in the world."
JYLL SASKIN
It was clear to graduating senior Jyll Saskin, aspiring fashion magazine editor, that she would continue her education after graduation. The where and how were slightly less clear, but she soon decided to go down a somewhat experimental route and join the first class of Harvard Business School's brand new 2+2 Program, in which students work in any professional field for two years and then attend business school for two more.
The program, intended to add diversity to the business classroom, encourages students of all academic concentrations to apply. A child development and psychology major looking to be editor-in-chief of a magazine, Saskin knew the program was a good fit for her.
Saskin found out about 2+2 when a friend of hers read an article about the program in the New York Times.
It was mostly by chance that she discovered her passion for magazine editing, as well.
"The summer after my freshman year, I wanted to do something fun, so I became a makeup artist. Then my sophomore year, I wrote a fashion column for the Daily and it was a lot of fun … I decided to apply for the internship at [Canada's Flare Magazine] and I applied to the beauty department because I was a makeup artist and I thought that would help," she said. "I got the internship and by the end of that summer, there was no turning back. I knew [magazine editing] was what I wanted to do, and I've just been working hard at that ever since."
For Saskin, a business degree is not a departure from her career path but another step along the way. Among other advantages, in an economy in which print publications are suffering, Saskin feels that a business degree will be looked at favorably and may be pertinent to growing industry problems.
"I feel like a business degree is more like a degree in leadership than a degree in business," she said. "It's all about running corporations [and] managing people. My ultimate career goal is to be the editor-in-chief of a magazine, and once you're in that position, you have to deal with the business side of things a lot."
Until she matriculates in 2011, Saskin will be moving to New York to seek an entry-level job in the magazine industry. She is eager to work full-time in her dream business but, facing an intimidating job market, takes comfort in her secured plans for 2011.
"I don't know if I'll be able to find a job, I don't know if I'll be able to find a job I love, but no matter what I do, it's only for two years, and then I get to come back and be a college student again," she said.
ROBYN GOLDBERG
When graduating senior Robyn Goldberg studied abroad in Melbourne, Australia during her junior year, she felt almost immediately that she would return to the city after completing her Tufts education. One year later, Goldberg is still as enthusiastic about her premonition and plans to make the move.
"For many years, [Australia] has been the place I've wanted to visit and when I got there ... I got the feeling that ‘this is why,'" she said. "I can't even explain it -- it's not a place or a person in particular; it's the entire atmosphere, the way that they live their life, the pace of their life and their attitude toward others. I came home and I figured if I'm still thinking about it in months, I'm going to move back."
Despite moving halfway across the globe, Goldberg's career goals will likely remain unchanged; she is still seeking employment in clinical psychology, psychology research or alternative education.
"If anything, [my move] will open up more doors because I think international experience would be looked at really positively if I were to come back here," she said. "Whatever I end up doing, I will be better at it because I'm in a place where I truly want to be."
But for Goldberg, career plans are not what are driving her next step forward. Rather, the formerly goal-oriented student is looking forward to adjusting fully to a focus-on-the-present mentality.
"In Australia, I made an effort to explore a lot more than I ever did in the [United States], and I think that's kind of extended to my philosophy here," she said. "I live more in the moment. I think before going [abroad], I never looked around me or cared about Boston, and since coming back … I've tried to just live a little more here too."
Beyond the desire to travel and explore, the mentality Goldberg picked up in Australia is about happiness and well-being, she said. And on this matter, she had some advice:
"First of all, go abroad to Australia — I'm a big advocate of that. And if you don't do that, then do something," she said. "I feel like so many people get wrapped up in this big American dream of making the most money possible and getting to this big finish line in 20 or 30 years that they don't realize that right now matters too. I just completely switched my life plan around. I don't have this need to know exactly what I'm going to be doing fifty years from now, and I don't need to be rich, and I think it's made me much happier. Maybe it would make other people happier if they stopped and smelled the roses a little."
While her parents might not be as enthusiastic as she is about the 16,000-mile move, they are realizing more and more that moving to Australia is the right decision for her, Goldberg said.
"It's been almost a year now, and I'm still gung-ho Australia," she said. "I think everyone has come to accept that it just really is a good place for me."
ADITI MANWANI
By this point in their academic careers, some Tufts students have developed a similar come-home-from-class ritual: Facebook.com, then homework. Starting this summer, for graduating senior Aditi Manwani, the two will go hand-in-hand.
In July, Manwani will be joining the Facebook advertising team as an associate account planner. But while the Web site will become her work, Manwani hardly thinks of it that way.
"I definitely research what's new on Facebook a lot more now … but it's my dream come true, so it's not even tedious. I don't think of it as, ‘Oh great, now I have to go research this company,' I just think of it as something I like to do," she said.
A psychology major and economics minor, Manwani knew she wanted to go into marketing or advertising from early on and completed internships in marketing and advertising for several consecutive summers prior to her application to Facebook. An interest in the business, she said, was something instilled in her as a child.
"My dad has been in marketing his entire life, so I feel like I've grown up watching ads as some people watch TV shows," Manwani said.
And of all the companies to which she applied, Manwani believes Facebook to be the most integral to the future of social connection, as well as to her own current social life.
"I think what really drew me to Facebook was the Facebook brand and what it does. As college students, we live our entire lives on Facebook," she said. "I personally use it obsessively, and it's such a young company that I want to be there to watch it grow."
Originally from India and more recently a resident of London, Manwani was unsure whether she would be able to stay in the United States post-graduation and feels especially lucky to have landed the job in New York.
But most of all, Manwani sees the Facebook company as the perfect setting in which she can both thrive and contribute.
"Everyone I interviewed with [at Facebook] was really young and friendly," she said. "I feel like the company is very ‘me,' and the environment, culture and vibe I picked up were all something I want in the place I work."
JESSICA SNOW
Upon graduating, many seniors end the period of their lives in which they sample from a survey of interests and devote themselves to one field, around which they hopefully build a career. But graduating senior Jessica Snow specifically picked a program that will buy her more time to peruse different interests.
In June, Snow will be moving to Mountain View, Calif. to begin a rotational program with financial software company Intuit Inc., best known for the development of its popular computer products TurboTax and Quicken. Rotational programs, designed specifically for recent graduates, expose newly accepted employees to several departments within a company before they assume more permanent, titled positions.
Intuit's rotational participants fulfill one three-month training period and one six-month period of employment in each of three company fields: marketing, operations and product management. Upon completion, rotational associates are then placed permanently into one of the three fields based on employer evaluation and individual preference.
"It's like a 27-month internship to figure out what you want to do," Snow said. "[Rotational programs] are the best way to get to know yourself and to get to know a company before you start full-time in a particular place. Once you simply start in marketing or in operations, you're pigeonholed; you can't move … By the end of the program, the idea is that you'll have the knowledge to better decide what job suits you."
Aside from the program's structure, what drew Snow to Intuit was its repute as a high-quality workplace. In 2008, Intuit was ranked 43rd in Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work for" and has held a place on the list for several years prior.
Though a political science and women's studies major, Snow knew she wanted to go into business fairly early on when she began serving as the vice president of public relations and marketing for the Tufts Inter-Greek Council her sophomore year.
Breaking into business with a non-business degree was challenging, she said, and some of her former employers worried about her lack of formal business-related training, but she relied on her liberal arts education and her multiple leadership positions on campus to help her out.
"Since there's no business degree at Tufts, I went to Career Services and they asked whether I would want to major in economics. I said I would rather die than go into economics so [they] told me to sit tight and hopefully, my liberal arts education would pay off, which it did," she said. "Even though my majors aren't totally related, my women's [studies] degree has taught me to question and analyze everything, and those are two things that you need in business."
