Campus celebrities aren’t just the students and faculty you see walking around campus everyday. Some celebrities have moved on in the world, working and living in the careers they studied hard to get. These people are often viewed as living testaments that, through perseverance and a bit of luck, you too can find your place in the world. For this week’s interview, I sat down with someone near and dear to me, my brother Andrew Minnick, to hear what he had to say about postgraduate life and the challenges and freedoms that go with it.
Andrew is a 2014 alumnus who majored in accounting and minored in economics. Upon graduating, he received a job offer from the Ayco Company, a business that offers financial and investment advice for corporate executives and families. Currently, he serves as a financial educator. He says that what he likes most about advising is helping people shape their futures.
“I like that I’m helping people make responsible choices with their finances,” he said.
He plans to work hard and stay at Ayco for as long as possible and has been thinking about graduate school. Someday he hopes to take the Series 7 exam, the Series 66 exam, or the Unified Certified Public Accountant Examination. All three are qualifying tests that certify individuals as trustworthy and capable enough to perform as public accountants, investment advisors and security agents.
As our interview turned to more personal matters, talk of school and home, I asked Andrew what he missed about college.
“I probably miss my friends,” he said. “And … my sister. Actually, Danielle, scratch that from the record!”
Amidst laughter, he went on to say that he missed everyone he made connections with.
In postgraduate life, it was the free time that he missed most.
“I miss the freedom from school but I have a different form of freedom now,” he said.
Though his job and life now allow him to afford things he could not during college, he misses the lack of responsibility that came with college.
While he worked hard in his classes and received top grades and a diploma for his perseverance, he likes that he now has different options within his career. Other than the lack of free time, Andrew enjoys his life. He is especially happy with successfully getting his career on track. He said that being able to utilize his skills for the job he studied for is important. Andrew also likes being out on his own, with his own apartment and job.
Thinking about how great life after graduation has been, I had to ask him if he would go back and change anything about his Oswego experience. His response was immediate.
“No, just because if I had changed anything I wouldn’t have had the experiences I had.”
He answered that if he went back, the experiences would no longer be ‘his.’ According to Andrew, he did all that he wanted to and that if he were to change anything it would “be to his detriment,” as he wouldn’t have met his friends or followed the path that he did. By changing his experiences, he says he would have received a different education and thus would have graduated from college a different person.
When asked to give advice to today’s undergraduate students, he instructed that students should take advantage of every program and opportunity available to them, including participating in internships and programs that would be “critical to your success.”
“When professionals come and speak, go,” Andrew said.
By going, asking questions, and meeting individuals in a field you’re interested in, you can build important connections and gain a wealth of knowledge that will be useful later down the road.
The Bonadio Group, a Rochester-based financial advisement company, offered Andrew an internship while he was in school but he turned it down. Now, he regrets the decision, claiming that without those connections and experiences, job hunting was made more difficult.
“Now is the time to do it,” he said urgently, as we wrapped up the interview. “You don’t get to make this up.”