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Alumni Panel to First Year Business Students: Take Advantage of College’s Resources

Posted November 1, 2007

Networking and communication are skills that cannot be emphasized enough in any business career, according to a panel of six alumni in a recent First Year Business Seminar at the College. Members of the panel also urged the students to take advantage of advice from College faculty and career advisors.

Communication is important “even for the more technical jobs,” said Nathan Schwartz ’06 (pictured third from right), a senior underwriter for Sunlife Financial in Windsor, CT. Schwartz, a member-at-large in the Alumni Association Board of Directors, also advised the students in the Business 101 course to “use all the resources the College has available for help, including the CareerCenter.”

Ike Erike ’06, an industrial engineer and management trainee at UPS, credited the College with helping him develop his networking, organizational, interpersonal, and professional writing skills. “I would say that aligning myself with the CareerCenter played a great role in helping me attain my position,” he said. “Also, the willingness of professors to share their time outside the classroom setting was extremely beneficial in my development to become a valuable member of the business community.”

The other members of the panel were Sandra Stoughton ’04, a business development-marking associate at A.W. Hastings & Company in Enfield, CT, Mike Raymond ’02/G’04, head men’s and women’s tennis coach at the University of Hartford, Bart Haskell ’07, a systems engineer/software integrator at Progeny Systems in Groton, CT, and Danielle Nash ’07, an assurance associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Hartford.

In addition, Pat Kappenman, a corporate communications manager at MassMutual, presented a talk entitled, “Your career may surprise you…if you let it.” Alumni interested in speaking to classes to give students a glimpse of the working world should contact Kristina Oleksak at 413-782-1557.