Paris Wallace '05 organized the seminar, recruiting the 35 alumni and two professors who presented at the seminar or participated in a panel.
"They were all volunteers, except one, and their commitment and dedication really impressed me. People came from as far as San Francisco, and they were really excited about it," Wallace said.
The seminar was divided into eight sections related to business. The sections included recent economic trends, resume writing and interviewing, venture capital, banking and finance, management, consulting, marketing and advertising and law and business.
Matthew Gordon '03 said that the variety was impressive. "It was a pretty good general introduction to a lot of different areas of business ... at Amherst, we aren't exposed to real world careers, so this was an introduction to a lot of options," said Gordon.
"I thought it was really well-run," said Nikolina Ionova '05, who said she was inspired by the marketing part of the seminar and is now interested in pursuing that as a career.
Other students also considered the seminar a useful guide. "It helped me to realize that I want to be an advertising executive," said Kathy Liu '06. "My father has always wanted me to go into business; now I actually know something about the field, and I think that the experience was invaluable."
Wallace recruited speakers and panelists with experience in each section. They included Alan Webber '70, the founding editor of Fast Company, Matthew Grinnell '91, a vice president of Lehman Brothers, Douglas Jacobs '69, Executive Vice President of Fleet Bank and Dan Rube '88, Deputy General Counsel of the National Basketball Association.
Kevin Gaston '05 said it was particularly helpful to have alumni presenters. "Especially with the really young alumni, you could ask them what they did [at Amherst], how they got their job," he said.
Gordon also stressed the importance of alumni presenters. "The alumni seemed very happy to be back ... they spent a lot of time talking to individual students."
Participants took classes in the morning and listened to panelists and lecturers from various industries in the afternoon. They were provided with a reading schedule and syllabus that included one required text, "The Ten-Day MBA" by Steven Silbiger. Participants also read a packet of biographies that provided presenters' background information, along with other printed and online supplementary material.
"I thought it was really well done ... there were lots of presenters, and the book we used was really good," said Gaston. "It was good to see was business is and what business people do."
Wallace said the idea of the seminar began to form when an interviewer pointed out that he had not taken any finance or accounting classes and asked how he could compete with candidates who had more undergraduate experience.
Wallace advertised the seminar at the College at the end of last semester, and also opened the program to students at Mt. Holyoke, Smith and Hampshire Colleges. Eighty students from the College participated, as well as approximately 60 from Mt. Holyoke and Smith. Wallace received more applications than he could accept due to limited seating. Candidates had to submit a resume and a short personal statement. "I wanted people to take the program fairly seriously," said Wallace, regarding the reasoning behind the application process.
"I think people got a general sense of the business landscape," said Wallace, adding that members of the administration have asked him to organize the seminar again next year. "If the student body expresses interest I might do it again," he said.