By Tue Vo
The Carey Fellowship, Sewanee’s business-intensive program, selected seven sophomores for a special program designed for direct exposure to the business world in the future.
The program was created for two purposes. First, it provides intensive opportunities for participants to be exposed to the business world. Selected Carey Fellows are required to take specifically designed courses and seminars, spend one summer in Sewanee their sophomore year and one semester working as an intern in their junior year. Moreover, director Chip Manning harbors an ambitious long-term goal: via the growing connections and expansion, he seeks to turn Sewanee into a hub for world-class companies’ search for potential future employers.
The benefits for participants in the program are ideally suited to the set of goals. Participants train and take challenging courses designed to prepare them for the business world.
The most notable feature is that the internship program occurs in the second semester of the participant’s junior year, — the internship program offers an exemplarily large amount of time for direct job exposure. “When you do an internship in the summer, you begin to settle down after six to eight weeks but then the job ends.” said Manning, “But with a 15-week experience, it gives you a much greater opportunity to truly understand the job.” Adding to that is the prestige of many internship sponsors, ranging from HTC Capital Partiners, LLC to Oppenheimer Funds, Inc., which will undoubtedly glamorize the curriculum vitae of potential applicants.
For all of its benefits, the program is competitive. Aspiring applicants are required to apply at the beginning of their sophomore year and have a GPA of 3.33 or higher in three consecutive semesters. The program stresses its importance also on the applicants’ interest in business, their leadership quality, and their adaptability to a new environment — all ideal traits for success in the business world.
The newly selected Carey Fellows share their interest in business and their excellence in both academia and extra-curricular activities. However, their interests are very diverse. For Amanda Lopez (C’15), the Carey Fellow serves as an important advancement in her career in business and finance. Sam Taussig (C’15), however, with a non-profit background, looks for a more “global internship experience” and seeks to use the Carey Fellow as the stepping stone to “broaden his business understanding and management skill to run a non-profit program in the future.”
The program is relatively new at Sewanee., although it is already impacting campus with its resourcefulness and opportunities. The Carey Fellowship is pushing forward its mission to help its applicants, who come from such diverse backgrounds and interests, to realize their dream and to serve the leading role in the development of business network on campus.