Author Archives: Donica Williams

Student Spotlight: Gracie Chambers

Date
Posted by
Comments0
Student Spotlight: Gracie Chambers

BHP sophomore Gracie Chambers is a marketing major from Ft. Worth, TX. Gracie characterizes herself as a creative, with an entrepreneurial spirit. She’s interested in pursuing a career in technology, user experience design and fashion.

Coming from a high school of 82 graduates, she was looking for the complete opposite in a college experience – a large university with a winning football team! She was hoping to attend an out-of-state school, but she knew she must consider UT first. After visiting UT though, she fell in love with the campus, McCombs, and the city of Austin. The university had everything she could dream of in a college. The BHP program, with its small cohort, made her transition from a small high school to a large university ideal.

Gracie learned a great deal about business even before entering McCombs. In high school, she started her own clothing line advertising the “city pride” of Fort Worth. “I learned a lot from owning my own business,” she says. “One of the biggest things I learned was how to work with people older than me.  I learned to stand my ground, even though I was younger. I also learned how to manage people.”

Gracie admits that balancing her school work and her business was very difficult. She feels she could have taken the business to a different level, expanding into other cities, but she prioritized school and friends over the business. Due to the demands of her course load, she made the difficult decision to sell her company her freshman year. “I reached out to a few potential buyers who I thought might be interested. I put together a booklet with all of the products, and information about the company, and ended up receiving an offer from a store that sold my products.”

Selling the business was very educational for Gracie who learned all the steps firsthand, including evaluating financial statements, calculating the worth of her business, working with lawyers, negotiating with the buyer and settling taxes.

With the business sold, her focus turned back to academics. While being at McCombs has definitely been a new challenge for Chambers, the BHP community has been a highly supportive. “In BHP, I’ve made awesome friends who encourage me to keep doing my best in whatever I want to do,” she says. Gracie is also a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, and is planning to join their executive team.

Student Spotlight: Katherine Magee

Date
Posted by
Comments0
Student Spotlight: Katherine Magee

BHP Senior Katherine Magee originally came into UT as an engineering major, but she soon realized that her interests lay elsewhere. “I discovered that I was more interested in solving strategic problems than I was in solving technical problems,” Magee said. This led her to McCombs, and to BHP. She was admitted to BHP through the sophomore transfer process, and quickly felt at home in the BHP community.

In addition to her involvement in the BHP community, Magee has been involved in organizations that have allowed her to find innovative solutions for problems both inside and outside of UT. She was particularly passionate about her work with Central Texas Model UN, the BHP Steering Committee, and the Senate of College Councils (SCC).  She has enjoyed volunteering at Model United Nations conferences around the world to help teach high school students about international affairs.  Her focus in the SCC has been on improving UT’s curriculum, and working to design a new technology education program at UT that would give students increased exposure to technology in their classes. Through the BHP Steering Committee, Magee has also worked to improved the BHP curriculum and increase the level of student feedback on BHP courses.

Magee also found time for two internships, working at the Capitol, Upland Software, and for Bain & Company. Her sophomore year, she served as a legislative intern at the Texas State Capitol. Though she enjoyed being involved in public policy and interacting with constituents, the experience helped her realize she did not want to pursue politics. That summer, she had the chance to work at Upland Software, which taught her bout the technology and SaaS industries. The following summer, she interned with Bain & Company, where she helped develop business initiatives for a trailer axle manufacturer and worked on a results delivery project for a quick service restaurant. She enjoyed the internship immensely and will return there as an Associate Consultant after graduation.

“If you had told me as a freshman that I would be working for Bain after graduation, I would have been very surprised!” Magee said. She is thrilled to be working for Bain, and she credits McCombs for helping her turn her interests into relevant and exciting experiences. “I’m thankful for the community McCombs has given me, and the professors and classes I’ve had that have encouraged me to try new things, which ultimately led me to this job and career path!”

 

 

Student Spotlight: Don Dao

Date
Posted by
Comments0
Student Spotlight: Don Dao

Don Dao

BHP Sophomore Don Dao was raised a longhorn; his entire family went to UT. Even with this upbringing, he envisioned himself leaving Texas for college, but after being admitted to BHP, he ultimately decided to stay in Texas and attend UT Austin.  Don loved how BHP provides the resources of a small centralized program, with  a tight-knit community and great professors.

He is happy he ended up in Austin and is enjoying the city’s strong entrepreneurial spirit. He has been involved in the Austin start-up scene, and has been able to network through the business school community and the Austin community to get his start-ups off the ground.  He believes the entrepreneurial route allows individuals to pave their own way and fosters innovation.

Don and four other UT students are following their own innovative path, having created a start-up called Condecca. Condecca is a recruiting platform that connects college students with employers for short-term internships, short-term projects, and contract work. Don and his partners found that many students struggled with securing a good internship as an underclassman when they had no previous job experience.  “It’s a niche in the recruiting market that we’ve seen. This platform will allow students to build up their resumes, get recommendations,  and get experience that they would not otherwise have access to if they didn’t already have work experience,” he said. He hopes to eliminate the paradox of having to have experience in order to get experience.

Don has also interned with a Houston-based business technology company and is planning on interning in risk consulting this semester. In addition to his passion for business, he also stays active in two charities, the Mona Foundation and Sunflower Mission. He has helped build schools in several countries through Sunflower Mission and serves as a liaison between Mona Foundation and the Texas Wranglers, for which he serves as Vice President. 

“Giving food, water and clothes only lasts so long. Giving the people there an education as a means to escape poverty and give back to their community, has proven to be one of the most effective ways to raise entire communities out of poverty,” he said.

Don will continue to pursue his startup interests, but in the meantime, he is seeking to intern for a consulting firm or a boutique investment bank this upcoming summer. He hopes to run his own consulting or VC business one day.

Student Spotlight: Bethany Rolan

Date
Posted by
Comments0
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

Date
Posted by
Comments0
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.”