What are Brown students doing after graduation? What aren't they doing. From trying out investment banking in New York to attempting to break into the entertainment industry in Los Angeles, they are globe-trotting to jobs, graduate school, fellowships and other experiences. Here's a look at some of their plans.
A little bit of the luck of the Irish is what Amanda Kracen, 22, of Sycamore, Ill., is hoping for after graduation. Kracen and classmate Melissa Lioz are planning to open an ice cream shop in Dublin, Ireland, and go into business for themselves.
Kracen spotted the need as an exchange student during her junior year. The Irish were quite fond of ice cream, she noticed, but the only product available to them was pre-packaged individual bars. There wasn't an homemade ice cream shop to be found anywhere in the city, but there was definitely a desire for one. When Ben & Jerry's pints were introduced into the grocery stores, people loved the upscale creamy concoction, said Kracen.
If all goes according to plan, Kracen anticipates she'll move to Dublin in September and open the store with Lioz on April 1, 1999. They have already met with a banker, lawyer and real estate agents in Ireland and each step is another step closer to that goal.
A sociology concentrator, Kracen had considered getting a job directly after graduation, even interviewed at several companies for consulting or public relations positions, but the opportunity to capitalize on a good idea for a business took precedence.
"We should probably get jobs for two years and then do this, but the way we see it, somebody is going to do it soon and at least we can be one of the early players," said Kracen. "My dream situation in five years would be three stores in Dublin and then I'd come back here to do my master's."
By planes, trains, bikes and on foot Travis Bryan will wend his way around Europe after Commencement. Bryan, 22, is getting a plane ticket from his parents for graduation. After he drives home to Seattle from Providence, that is the last they will see of him for at nine months or more.
Bryan will start his trip in Paris, working at a bagel shop owned by an American he met as an exchange student junior year, then will proceed to a vineyard in the southern region of France to pick grapes, and to Italy to tune his ear to the new language while tutoring students in English. There may be a few bar-tending stints at local watering holes. There is definitely a friend to visit in Switzerland, a friend in Greece, and fellow alumnus Geoff Gottlieb in Ireland.
Along the way there will be stops at major research institutions for Bryan, who majored in international relations, because part of the reason for the trip is trying to determine his place in the world.
Oh, there had been job interviews with consulting firms for Bryan. But there also were his parents urging him to go to places instead of starting on the career track - that was the path they had taken -- and he agreed.
"I know that I would have been miserable [taking a job]. I know that after a few months I would find myself looking out the window just a little too often," said Bryan. "I want to try to put myself in as many different environments as possible and see what fits."
Eventually, Bryan said he sees himself getting a master's in international affairs, owning a business, teaching, or maybe none of those: "My vision is a little blurry right now."
Goodbye Brown, hello University College-Dublin. Geoffrey Gottlieb, 21, of Rockville, Md., is heading to graduate school for a master's in economics after collecting his diploma in political science on College Hill.
Moving abroad was his most important goal after graduation, said Gottlieb. As the son of a university professor who traveled annually to Europe with his family for speaking engagements, Gottlieb looks forward to being on foreign soil again.
Ireland is his favorite country, and a great place to study economics because it has the fastest growing economy in Europe, he said. Gottlieb received a fellowship for his study which will allow him to roam Ireland talking to community groups about American public affairs issues while he is going to graduate school.
In the long run, he is interested in a job in the public sector, perhaps working for the U.S. government on Third World development issues, said Gottlieb. Now, "I want to be abroad and learning a lot about the job environment before I make decisions about places I've never been," he said.
The experience at new university will likely be a lot different than Brown. While his time was very structured around the swim team during his four years here and especially as captain for the past two years, that will be gone from his schedule at University College-Dublin.
He will have to devote much more time to his studies, and the new subject of economics, as well as learning about the people and country. "I'm planning on learning a different way of life," said Gottlieb.
After four years of listening to her mother ask what Amanda Kudler planned to do with a degree in Old World archaeology, she has an answer: be a consultant. Kudler, 21, of Manchester, N.H., will start a job at Andersen Consulting in a suburb of Boston at the end of June as a technology consultant.
Kudler signed up for her concentration in archaeology because she loved the subject, but always considered it more of a hobby than a career choice. Brown's curriculum allowed her to take courses in many different areas, and it was a computer science class on educational software in the second semester of her junior year that captured her interest.
Her interest grew when she worked as a teaching assistant for a computer science course and as a technology assistant for the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, based at Brown. But instead of going directly into a career involving educational software, Kudler wanted to take advantage of the consulting position for a technology firm to test her interest in the subject as a job.
After a few years, said Kudler, she may go to graduate school.
The joy of being a consultant is that you don't need to know a lot in any one subject area going in. A consultant must mainly be self-motivated, independent and know how to can take control of a situation, she said, adding "that's what Brown does."
The experience of Carrie Beckner, 22, of Mount Vernon, Wash., reinforces the idea that a strong job candidate is one that is self-motivated and demonstrates the ability to learn.
Beckner concentrated in psychology and international relations at Brown, but is headed into the field of economics as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan in New York City starting in October.
Although 95 percent of those hired by the company this year apparently have degrees in economics, Beckner said she is not daunted. In the eyes of her employer, Beckner said, her strength is the wide variety she has been involved in throughout recent years was her strength in the eyes of those hiring.
She has done psychological research in the sleep laboratory at Brown, worked in public relations, interned in the White House, studied in Portugal, and will work in the mayor's office in her hometown this summer before heading to New York.
The company, recognizing that Beckner is testing her interest, has enrolled her in a three-year program after which she can decide whether to stay with the company, try something else within the company, or leave.
"At this point I don't even know enough about investment banking to say I'm going to love it or hate it," said Beckner. After her trial period she will know much more about the career. "Then, I'm really going to decide what I want to do."
With a concentration in history, Benjamin Moser hopes his own is written like this: Moser went to Peru to become an author after graduating from Brown. Moser, 21, of Houston, plans to head to Peru to write about its leader.
It is a story that will take 300 to 400 pages to tell. It is a story that will take a year of continuous work to write. It will take many interviews with those who know Alberto Fujimori and, if all goes right, an interview with the dictator himself.
"My plan is to show up and begin work immediately," said Moser, who has learned a lot about the subject while editing the Brown Journal of World Affairs for the past four years. "I am trying to go for it while I still can ... before I go to grad school or get a job."
Moser started researching his political biography in January by interviewing a former secretary general of the United Nations from Peru, and he currently seeks funds for his prolonged stay in Peru.
If all goes well, Moser will head there in September.
What's all the interest in Fujimori? Elected president of Peru by a democratic system in 1990, Fujimori is now a dictator and one of the last remaining in Latin America, said Moser.
"My parents think I'm crazy but they're kind of used to this from me," said Moser. "I just wanted to do something different."
Sandwiched between college and graduate school, Linda Sharaby is looking forward to a fellowship for the break it provides in academics. Sharaby, 21, of Long Island, N.Y., will head out the Van Wickle Gates to a one-year fellowship with the Carnegie Endowment Foundation for International Peace in Washington, D.C.
"I definitely didn't want to get started in a job that I would have to devote three to four years to, and I definitely would like to go back to school in a few years," said Sharaby. "The fellowship seemed like a perfect opportunity."
It is both a one-year break between college and graduate school and an opportunity to decide what exactly she wants to study when she gets to the next destination, whether that be law, journalism or something else, she said.
There seem to be many paths available to Sharaby, who concentrated in political science and international relations, and whose extracurricular activities steered toward journalism with internships at the Associated Press, BBC and a staff position at the Brown Daily Herald.
The fellowship combines all of those interests. She will be working on the editorial staff of a quarterly journal titled Foreign Policy. The position will allow her edit articles on the subject that fascinates her most: international politics.
"It's stuff I've been learning about for the past four years," said Sharaby, adding "I hope this will help me decide" about graduate school and career plans.