Risk

I want to first talk about the decisions that I made my freshman/sophomore years. I chose to become an Economics major, largely because I did not get into the Business school. I figured that Economics offered a broad set of tools similar to what Business had to offer. Now, an Economics major definitely is very broad which is good, but it doesn’t really teach one particular skill that a recruiter might be looking for. So for this reason I think that settling for Economics definitely increased my income risk going forward. Sophomore year I went to my first career fair and landed an internship with Enterprise, which was pitched to me by the recruiter as a position where I would learn about all aspects of business, but in reality it was entirely all sales. With that said, I excelled at the position and was the top intern on the sales matrix, and I genuinely found a passion for sales. I am the type of person who likes to meet new people and talk, I never wanted a job where I would be stuck in a cubicle working with numbers all day.

Next I want to go into my junior year, my current year. Knowing that I wanted to pursue a future in sales I decided to target a Communications minor, I figured this would help me stand out with regards to other students aspiring for sales careers. With my second career fair looming I wanted to have a plan this time around, I had a more prepared pitch that sold myself as someone that their company should take a chance on. With this plan, I saw a lot more success from almost all of the companies I targeted. I received interviews which eventually led to offers. This coming summer I will be working for Textron as a Territory Manager Intern, and I hope that this internship leads to a full time position because it is quite lucrative. If I do as good as I expect it would set me up to land a full time job that makes on average $75,000 with commission bonuses. I chose to work at Textron over various other companies, like Pepsi, Arthur J. Gallagher, and Otis. I chose Textron because I believe they are the strongest company; they manufacture products that cross a diverse platform of businesses. Working for a company like Textron will allow me to mitigate future risk and hopefully will open the door for even better opportunities down the road. I also considered Pepsi but their products are not as impactful as what Textron has to offer, I predicted the risk that each company offered in terms of commission percentages on sales and Textron offered a much better opportunity.

Next, I want to take a look at the Economics of some of my choices thus far. At Enterprise I had immense success, and my managers noticed this. Seeing this success, they sent me an offer to come back again the following summer. After some consideration I decided to decline the offer and try to obtain a better position at the career fair. I did so because the opportunity cost was too high in my opinion, I saw my talent fitting in with a better company that could offer a higher salary to me. If I took that Enterprise offer, I would have essentially been throwing the Textron opportunity away, an opportunity that is way more lucrative and an opportunity that opens the door for so much more. In regards to choosing Economics, I was forced to settle because I was declined from the Business school. This increased my future income risk because Economics majors are less sought after. I was forced into a situation where I wasn’t allowed to learn what I had envisioned on learning, and it definitely pushed me back a bit. However, it didn’t derail the train, it actually has only pushed me further. Ever since my rejection I have pushed myself to find internships and prove that I will still be a success even without the major I had envisioned. Adding a communications minor allowed me to diversify my knowledge, which helped me avoid risk. A lot of the lessons I was taught in my communications classes I applied directly into the career fair, and that career fair is where I landed my internship this summer. Choosing to diversify my coursework is one of the major reasons I have reduced a lot of my future income risk.

Lastly, I do have an older brother who went to UIUC as well. He is four years older than me and was a communications major. He needed an extra semester to graduate because he miss-managed his course work. When he began looking for a job he struggled at first, it took him a fair amount of time before he landed a job at Cars.com. He did not manage the situation well out of school though, he needed more time to graduate and he struggled to find a job, but I took note of this. I thought about why this was the case for him and really made an effort to make sure it didn’t happen to me. This is why I go to my counselor regularly and also why I keep trying so hard to find internships. The counselor allows me to make sure I’m on the right path to graduating on time and getting internships should allow me to find a job much easier out of college. My brothers struggles made a huge impact on how I have been handling my collegiate career, having his guidance has been a huge reason for my success.