New York businesses beckoned\u2014and 21 Furman students and two professors headed to the economic hub of the United States.<\/p>\n
About 60 percent of the students participating in Furman\u2019s Business at the Top of World class during the three-week May Experience program in New York City were business, accounting, or economics majors. They were joined by students from other majors including English, earth and environmental sciences, political science, and psychology.<\/p>\n
Led by Dr. Kirk Karwan, Furman\u2019s Robert E. Hughes Professor of Business Administration, and Susan Zeiger, Furman\u2019s director of internship programs, the group toured numerous New York businesses, cultural organizations, and tourist attractions.<\/p>\n
To prepare for what they would do in the city and to maximize their potential for learning, the group researched the companies they would visit and heard a presentation from a local marketing firm. After the presentation, they practiced forming\u00a0insightful, probing questions that would help them learn more about each company on their tour schedule.<\/p>\n
The goal of the class was to expose the students to businesses in a major urban economic center while also acquainting students with Furman alumni and other contacts in the city.<\/p>\n
But the students took away much more from the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cBesides learning about the state of the economy in New York City\u2014which is strong\u2014the kids got real world advice on what it takes to land a job in a city like New York,\u201d Karwan said.<\/p>\n
While on the trip, Kathleen Marsh \u201918 discovered that she wants to work in finance and\u00a0find an internship in New York City next year. \u201cI need to make more of an effort to network because forming lasting relationships seems to be the way to get opportunities,\u201d she said<\/p>\n
\u201cI am going to start making connections with individuals, whether at a family gathering, at a Furman event, or at other social events. Having an introverted personality, I used to think of networking in a negative way, but talking to alumni who are so willing to help showed me how easy it can be,\u201d said\u00a0Allie Buff \u00a0\u201916.<\/p>\n
The group toured the New York Stock Exchange and the Bank of America\/Merrill Lynch trading desks, Mircrosoft, SWIFT, Carnegie Hall, LinkedIn, DBRS, Sirius XM, Weitzman Group, Bloomberg, Bayer Health Care, Google, L\u2019Oreal, MDRC, and Index Exchange. The company visits included lectures and discussions with managers who often brought in younger associates, Karwan said. Young Furman alumni were involved in many of the visits.<\/p>\n
Jack Benton \u201917 learned that GPA isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to landing a job. \u201cI know that grades matter in getting a great job, but until this trip, I didn’t realize how much importance companies place on an individual\u2019s prior experience and ability to learn new material quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Students visited the R&D lab at Bayer and the Microsoft and Google offices where they experienced new and innovative work environments that they could then compare to more traditional office environments at companies like L\u2019Oreal.<\/p>\n
Some of the newer technology companies have open work places, casual dress, and provision of anything an employee might need or want\u2014\u201canything to encourage you to want to be in the workplace,\u201d Karwan said.<\/p>\n
At the Stock Exchange, a couple of the students were allowed to finalize a trade, at LinkedIn they set up their own accounts, and at Sirius they met rapper 50 Cent.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t all work. The group had dinner events with young alumni in the city, visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walked about the High Line in Chelsea, toured the garment district, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the 9\/11 Museum, attended an alumni event at the New York Athletic Club, and took in a New York Yankees game, dining on Stadium Terrace. Armed with subway passes, the students also explored the city in their free time.<\/p>\n
When asked what he took away from the program, Logan Hayslett \u201916 said,\u00a0\u201cI am going to update my LinkedIn, ask employers for advice on entering their careers, and I also learned that it’s important to gain a few years’ \u00a0work experience before entering an MBA program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learn more about the\u00a0May Experience<\/a>\u00a0program and\u00a0internships<\/a>\u00a0at Furman.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New York businesses beckoned\u2014and 21 Furman students and two professors headed to the economic hub of the United States. About 60 percent of the students participating in Furman\u2019s Business at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":3821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,3,20,37,46,31,58,54,32,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-alumni","category-business-and-accounting","category-earth-environmental-and-sustainability-sciences","category-economics","category-english","category-internships","category-may-experience","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-psychology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}