Student Spotlight: Bethany Rolan

Bethany_Rolan

BHP senior Bethany Rolan was originally intimidated by the size of UT and envisioned herself at  small liberal arts college in the northeast. Her mother insisted that she apply to one Texas school, so she applied to UT Austin. She didn’t know much about BHP at the time. She had only heard about it through her college counselor. After being accepted into the program, she attended Discover BHP in the Spring of her senior year.  Bethany remembers it as an incredible experience, and appreciated that the professors really knew their students. The program was what led her to choose UT and BHP.

As an entering freshman, she aspired to be an event planner specializing in corporate events and high-end weddings. This led her to join the student organization Campus Events and Entertainment. She served on the Texas Traditions Committee planning such campus events as Texas Revue, the largest campus talent show, and 40 Acres Fest, the largest campus outdoor festival.

Bethany was honored to be accepted into Orange Jackets, the oldest women’s service organization on campus, her sophomore year. This year, she is serving as the president of the organization. She says that “it has been the biggest opportunity for development she has ever experienced” and says that trying to lead a group of driven, empowered women leaders has helped her to learn about herself, her competencies, and her leadership style. Bethany is also involved in the Best Buddies program, where she works with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and she is a member of the Honors Business Association.

Bethany added a supply chain major her sophomore year and landed an internship with Fiat Chrysler in the area of Purchasing . She enjoyed the role, but found her career interests shifting again as she learned from her peers about the dynamic opportunities to engage new audiences, travel across the world, and work on unique projects as a management consultant. She recruited for a management consulting position her Junior year and was grateful to have the opportunity to intern with McKinsey. Bethany will return to the firm as a full-time employee after graduation.  She plans to join the women’s network at her new firm and is excited to work for a company that will let her work on projects that empower women.

In the future, she would like to consult in education and lead empathy and language campaigns for young students, teaching inclusivity. “How we are taught to talk people and how we hear people talk about others is very important,” she says. 

Having a strong support system of students who are all driven, yet passionate about diverse interests, has made a significant impact on Bethany’s BHP experience. “People are the whole point,” she says, explaining that engaging with others deeply and developing strong relationships have been the most rewarding part of college. “BHP and Orange Jackets have changed me as a person and are what I will remember most about college. Every project, initiative, and event I have helped complete on campus has been enabled by incredible people.” She wholeheartedly believes that informal mentoring from older students was instrumental in her gaining an understanding of the unique career paths she could take, which is why she is always happy to go to lunch or grab coffee with underclassmen!

Daniel Miyares: Student Spotlight

Daniel_MiyaresMaryland native Daniel Miyares has always had his heart set on the south. When he visited UT as a high school student, he fell in love with Austin’s great people, fun activities, and pleasant weather. He applied to BHP not knowing the magnitude of opportunities, benefits, and connections it has to offer. Once he began his freshman year, he quickly realized BHP was “pretty spectacular in terms of, not only the rankings, but the opportunities BHP provides on campus and post graduation.” He is a BHP and MIS major and will graduate in May 2019.

Daniel came to UT knowing that he wanted to get involved in the start-up community and create his own business, but as he started to define his college experience, a passion for social entrepreneurship and social responsibility developed. He is currently interning at a social enterprise in Austin, Care2Rock. The company will soon be pitching to a start-up incubator, and he is helping them prepare. Care2Rock is a small office, with only two full-time employees, and is in the early stages of development. Care2Rock is launching an online music tutoring platform that will positively impact the foster care community nationwide. During the course of his internship, he has identified a referral program to help them grow and expand their customer acquisition efforts, assisted in optimizing their operations, and supported other business efforts.

Daniel also interned for ZeeMee, a venture-backed startup based in Mountain View, CA, which provides an online platform for students to express themselves in a social-media friendly, three-dimensional way throughout the college and job application processes. ZeeMee is currently partnered with more than 200 colleges, from the University of Oklahoma to Carnegie Mellon, to Morehouse, who allow students to submit their pages as part of their application. Daniel worked with their outreach and their operations teams, and spent most of the last school year coordinating their internship program. Daniel characterizes ZeeMee as “an ideal of a successful startup because of their mutual respect for each other, unrelenting drive, and fun-loving attitude.”

On campus, Daniel is heavily involved in the UT Longhorn Entrepreneurship Agency. Daniel was also part of the Launchpad program, a branch of Freshmen Founders, last year as a freshman, and is now directing the program. The Launchpad program works with aspiring first-year students who are excited about entrepreneurship, but don’t know how to start. The Freshman Founders Program offers a semester long, immersive introduction to the UT and the Austin startup community. The program is a sequence of entrepreneurial seminars, workshops, and events meant to allow participants to network with the Austin startup community, and aimed at teaching them about on-campus resources available for student entrepreneurs. The organization also connects students with mentors. Daniel says he has been blown away by what students have done this year in the launch pad program.

Daniel attributes much of his success to the community of high-caliber students he has bonded with in BHP. “They are not only highly intelligent and have founded their own companies, but they have great personalities and we can share laughs.”