Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome back to following the Gong, a podcast for Schreier Scholars, bringing you mentoring on demand from scholar alumni. I'm your host, Sean Gohen. And our guest today, joining us virtually from outside of Philly, are attorneys Joe Kernan and Victor Vaccara.
Joe is class of 1986, and Victor is class of 2021.
Joe. Victor, welcome aboard.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Thanks, Sean.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Always great to have two of our awesome supporters joining us.
Joe, you're specifically, as you can see in your background, joining us from our Penn State Brandywine campus today, which is really cool, but I want to start at the beginning with your Penn State origin story about how you first came to Penn State University park as a student.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Sure.
I was thinking about this. I think my path is probably a lot different than most current or recent recent graduates. As late as 11th grade, I had no plans to go to college. I was going to be a professional baseball player or work in a factory or a, you know, a store somewhere until a guidance counselor pretty firmly told me I needed to apply to college.
She picked them.
She said, you know, based on your grades, let's make Bucknell your reach, Dickinson your middle, Penn State, your safety.
Did what I was told. Applied to all three. Didn't visit them or go to anything like that. Waited till the spring, got into all three and only then hopped in the car with my mother, went to visit Bucknell.
Those kids were too fancy and rich for me. I didn't think I'd be comfortable there.
Went to Dickinson.
No disrespect to people who enjoy Dickinson, but Carlisle and the campus didn't do it for me. Then we pulled into Happy Valley on a sunny day and I just loved it. And it was a no brainer.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Yeah. No disrespect to either Bucknell or Dickinson. Not every school is for every person. Right. And if you're watching this, Penn State was clearly the school for you or hopefully as if you're an applicant.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Well, that's right. It's all about fit. I mean, I went through with my daughters when they were picking their colleges. They couldn't have been more different.
And, you know, 40,000 students between the ages of 18 and 22 in all those facilities, that really spoke to me. And it was a good fit for me.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Absolutely. And we'll dive into kind of even just the different size campuses within Penn State in a moment. But, Joe, you talked about rolling up into Happy Valley on a beautiful day.
What was it like being here as a student in the early days of the Scholars Program? How did you find your Way from you said you wanted to be a baseball player or potentially not even go to college, to being a University scholar.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: Honors college. Coming out of high school, I certainly didn't have the SATs or the grades to be invited into it, but I got a 4.0 my freshman year. Received a letter in the summer inviting me to join the University Scholars Program.
And I read it, and it sounded like a whole lot of extra work, and I threw it away.
Got a 4.0 my second year. Letter came in the mail that summer after sophomore year, and I wisely asked my mother what she thought, and she said, you're being lazy. If you don't do it, you say you're a serious student. You should do it. So I did it, and it was one of the best decisions ever made.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: It's amazing how parents can be such a great support network at times. Like, really just, like, giving you a nice kick in the butt there, Joe, of like, why would you step out on this opportunity?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Exactly. Sometimes you need that.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Now, Victor, what about you? So you are a alum of Penn State Brandywine. How did you end up being a Schreier Scholar at that campus that Joe is actually sitting on as we record this?
[00:03:43] Speaker C: There you go. Yeah, I was gonna say some things never changed. You know, Similarly, I went to guidance counselors instead of, you know, one safety, one reach, one sort of in the middle. I did three reach, three in the middle, three safety. Ended up with the slate of schools that I applied to tour all over the place. I feel like, especially given all the information, all the articles you can read, podcasts you can listen to about going to college these days, I was just endlessly reading, trying to learn as much as I could. I ended up touring Penn State Brandywine, I think, three times.
One time, you know, meeting with the athletics department. Another time reading with the local honors college. At another time, just doing a general accepted student day. And after talking to all the different people, I found that the relationships I could foster in that campus community would be sort of an insurmountable benefit that I could have at Penn State. You get all these benefits of having sort of local connections, smaller class sizes and all that, but the resources of this large, you know, national. But in the end, you know, with all their abroad connections to International University at this point. So that was really appealing to me. And it's so funny, Joe, I didn't even know you had applied to the University Scholars Program as a student. I did essentially the same exact thing. So after my semester, I got in the freshman Chancellor's Award, which was for a student that had a 4.0 GPA. I decided to take that along with sort of the extracurriculars. I was a part of applying to Schreier, and that's how I was accepting myself. So I started in the Schreyer Honors program as a sophomore and then ended up going through the whole process up until graduation.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah, so you were smarter than me. You did it one year earlier. Good job.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Well, I think it's safe bet that everybody who's on this call right now recording this episode and everybody watching is pretty smart. So all rather, we're doing great here. Now, Victor, as our very first guest on this show, who's a Brandywine grad, finally have tick that one off on the checkbox. Can you share some perspectives on life as an Nittany lion outside of Philadelphia, as we like to say up here at University Park?
[00:05:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it's really fascinating because sort of the assumption would be that if you aren't at University park, you know, how can you possibly feel as connected with the greater Penn State community? But as the first one in my family to go to Penn State, it was really sort of family, friends, whether they be, you know, my friend's parents or my friends ended up going to Penn State as well, who really helped play a massive role in making me feel connected to the university as a whole. So at Penn State Brandywine, we had certain programs, like taking buses up to university parks. I still had season tickets to the football games my first and second year. So I was definitely making my fair share of trips up to University Park. But really, I think among the local benefits that I had at being at Penn State Brandywine would be sort of the access to the local companies that you could work for. So during my sophomore year, I had gone to a career fair in the fall, and then starting that winter into the spring, I was interning at a company while working at Penn State. So I was doing about 20 hours of work a week at a company that was in King of Prussia, so about 25 minutes from campus. And I was able to sort of connect with Penn State alum that worked there as well, because they were the ones that came to the career fair, but also, you know, take all my business classes and everything as a student. So you get sort of that benefit of being connected with the greater university, still going up, connecting with alumni, that sort of thing. But all these benefits of being in this very corporate heavy area just outside of Philadelphia. I mean, it's one of the biggest cities not Just in the country, but in the world. So really nice added benefit while still getting that access to the Penn State community.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Victor, can you talk about sort of those like internships and pre professional experiences because you're very close in age to our current students.
What.
How did that inform your academic and professional journey and what sort of lessons or experiences did you get that might be helpful for scholars as they're considering their summer internship opportunities?
[00:07:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess I would tie it all back to just being involved.
That's just not within your campus community, but sort of within the broader graduated and alumni community. So just starting on campus, I mean off the bat, I was able to work during my spring semester of my freshman year as a line ambassador and as a peer tutor. So this gave me the opportunity to sort of have peer to peer connections, learning those communication skills. And then as a line ambassador, of course, you know, you learn how to walk backwards while talking. Not sure if that helps in the workplace, but it felt like a great.
But you also get this opportunity to talk with people of a wide variety of age groups. And those communication skills, I feel like have been fostered and developed and have been very necessary in each of the subsequent internships I was able to do. And even now in postgraduate life.
[00:08:26] Speaker B: Excellent. Yeah, I think walking backwards is definitely a skill because if you can do that, then you can probably navigate any environment, right?
[00:08:32] Speaker C: Yeah. I started walking backwards as a line ambassador and then I was running backwards, you know, as a basketball player back on defense with the local team or the varsity team rather.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So you. So you were an athlete at Penn State Brandywine. Can you talk about that?
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Yeah, those memories at practice, you know, I long for those now that I'm in the workplace. So if the opportunity to go just play basketball from 4 to 7pm or tennis from 4 to 7pm after I'm done my classes. And that's all I'm thinking about for that time period. Those memories with coaches, with other student athletes, with the administrators of our athletics program.
You just can't replace those really. And it's just not the same after graduation.
It was a good opportunity to also meet people that were in different majors and different programs. Yeah, I was a business major. We had some people that were chemical engineering majors. We had some people that were doing two plus two. So they would go up to University park and when I would go visit a University park, I would go see them and it would be like, oh, this great catching up moment. But there were also plenty of students that stayed all four years and Played sports all four years and getting to kind of develop your craft, especially as a tennis player.
Because I thought to myself, once I graduated high school, I'm just not going to be doing this with the same level of regularity. But ultimately I was able to develop a lot as an athlete. All I was at Penn State branding line, while also still getting to obviously have the athletic benefit or the academic benefits rather, being at such a large research university.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: Awesome. Now you mentioned majors. So, Victor, Joe, you came from different academic disciplines and I want to talk about your respective paths to law school. But before we do that, I really want to talk about your honors thesis experiences and how that influenced your decisions and career. So we'll talk about law school next, but this question is all about the thesis. So Joe, you are up first. Sure.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: And it actually bleeds into law school. So got the idea for the honors thesis in a graduate level class that I took junior year. Another one of the benefits of the honors program was a sociology of work class.
And I took it with one of my best friends, Lou d', Ambrosio, who's in the business school.
And we did a lot of reading about what people want out of their work experience, management practices, worker management relations.
And we petitioned the school to allow us to do the thesis together. A business school person and a liberal arts person.
And our initial thesis was based on a book that we had read that talked about there's a new breed of worker. And that is in the latter half of the 20th century, American workers no longer were motivated only by money.
They needed to feel important, they needed to feel fulfilled. They wanted to pursue their passions. So the initial thought was, let's research that and talk about the implications for management strategies and whatnot. And through our early research, we thought we discovered that in fact that wasn't true at all. That even the early reasons showed that workers always wanted these ego needs. They wanted to feel like that they had a say in the workplace, that they were important, they were being treated well. But because of the legal landscape in the early days, you know, no OSHA, no work protections, no employee handbooks, no 800 numbers, you wouldn't dare speak up. And only when there are all these changes did people feel more comfortable. And so we flip it on its head. And the whole point of the thesis was there is no new breed of worker. All human beings want these experiences and fulfillment out of work. It's only because of various changes in society and the law and whatnot that allowed it to manifest itself. And so, and so that's that was our thesis and as we'll I'm sure talk about, actually informed a lot of the rest of my career.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: That's really cool. And it's funny because a lot of those topics are still the discourse here in. You know, it's funny you think these are new, but nothing's really new under the sun, is it, Joe?
[00:12:36] Speaker A: They're really not new. And if you go back to these early readings, you see interviews and diaries that people wanted those things that they didn't dare speak up. You would get bounced out. There was no protections. And so I think it's a universal human need. And the most the two biggest decisions you make in your life is your mate and your career. And I think people always want to be fulfilled in their careers.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. And if you want Lou's perspective on that thesis and how it influenced his career in business, when you're done watching or listening to this episode, go back and check out episode 50 with Lou D'. Ambrosio. It's an audio only one, but you can go check it out and hear his perspective of how that influenced his career. Climbing the corporate ladder on the business side. And then obviously we'll get into your law career in a minute, Joe. But Victor, I want to hear about your thesis experience.
Jordan's very fresh, still in your brain.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: And no faster than mine anyhow.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: A little bit.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: You said it, Joe.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: You know, how. How has that influenced particularly your law school experience and your early career here and then also particularly if there was any relation to your study abroad experiences with your thesis.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: Yes. So I guess I'm going to talk directly about that connection with my study abroad experience first, because it's actually the same professor that I did my Shrier thesis with. She was my primary advisor. I actually did a research project with her as a sophomore during a study abroad experience. It was actually an honors study abroad, independent study sort of deal.
So I had worked with her, then I had a really great experience and I decided, hey, why not, you know, double dip and do this experience with the Shrier thesis too. So I ended up talking about. So I was an accounting major. I talked about this concept of career plateau in the accounting profession. Sort of, you know, why is there the stereotype to be a large.
Not sure if the word is burnout, but more so the retention rate isn't as high as maybe it would be in other industries.
Is this a product of burnout? Is this a product of career plateau? Is this a product of, I don't know, issues with upward mobility in the Workplace. So ultimately, that was what I discussed in my Shrier thesis.
And the way it connects to my career now is I'm actually at an accounting firm, one of the accounting firms I talk about in my Shrier thesis. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see what my research sort of pan out with in my own independent experience. But it's funny, Joe, that connection with this concept of organizational psychology probably should have cited your thesis. I was writing mine, maybe taking a look at that book too, because I feel like there's a lot of play between the two.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: That's awesome, Victor.
Now I want to ask each of you because a really important decision.
So a past guest, Paul Stewie, said, first career decision you make is, do I want to be a doctor, yes or no? So you both said no to that. Then you decided, I want to be a lawyer. I want to go into this kind of this white collar space.
And then the next most important decision is, where are you going to law school? So, Joe, walk us through what your points of view were on, like how you decided to go from Penn State University Scholars to the law school that you picked. And what was your thought process on selecting the right one for you?
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Sure. So the thought process of even choosing lawyer over, and it wouldn't have been doctor, it would have been organizational psychologists. This is where I was headed.
Came from two classes. I had a junior year, two basic law classes. Loved them.
Unlike my college application where I was ordered to apply to three schools and didn't pick to. Didn't pick them. I thought, wow, I'm doing really well here. I could probably get into a really good school.
So I applied to the top 10 schools and I got into eight of them.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Not bad. That's batting.800, right, Joe?
[00:16:24] Speaker A: It was so fun, you know, since I didn't have that experience applying to college.
And my thinking was, if you're in that top 10, 12, it probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference in terms of where you're going to end up.
Where are you going to be happy? Where are you going to enjoy yourself and work hard and do your best? And so it came down to University of Pennsylvania, nyu. I had never set foot in New York City before. Things were different back then. Had a close friend who was one year ahead of me, and she was at nyu. And I thought it would be really exciting to live in Greenwich Village for three years. And so to go from Happy Valley to Greenwich Village, that would be a lot of fun. And to live in New York City.
So that's how I chose NYU Law School.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Excellent. And obviously law school and technology have changed, but what advice do you give to, like, our current scholars or young alumni who are in law school right now to make the most of their experience and be successful no matter whether they go to nyu, Penn, Penn State or any other great law school?
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the advice really has to come in college. And I'm doing a fair amount of law school counseling of college students.
And it's. Law school is expensive. It's like a super, super expensive trade school.
So you think, you think long and hard about where you go, all things being equal, go to the best school you can go to.
So highest grade you can get undergrad, study and crush the LSAT and go to the best school you can. Footnote to that is if your career goal is to be a public defender or spend your career in public interest and you don't have someone else paying for law school, then a top 10 law school might not be a wise choice.
And so it is a bit of a sliding scale there. And what your undergraduate loan debt is and how you're paying for law school has to be part of the conversation. But all that being equal, if that's not a concern, then I think you get yourself into the highest ranked law school you can in a place and with sort of a vibe and personality, because they have different vibes and personalities that's going to fit with you so you can be happy and relatively relaxed and thrive.
And for some people, that's an urban environment. For others, it's out at Ann Arbor, at University of Michigan and, and on.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Down the line, or even here in State College or in Carlisle, or even.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Here in State College or Carlisle. And I think your question, which I didn't answer, was advice for folks in law school in terms of a career choice.
And we're talking about mentoring and guidance and career advice. And absolutely, if you haven't already through your undergraduate experience, you need to be working with the folks in your placement office, but more importantly, folks that are 3, 5, 10, 15 years older than you, already working in various places where you think you might want to go. Find someone who either shares your undergraduate school or your law school, whether on LinkedIn or otherwise, and initiate a mentoring relationship.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Excellent advice. And in no small part, that's why both of you are here today as potential mentors for our prospective law lawyer scholars.
And so speaking of those prospective lawyers, Victor, walk us through how you went from being in a business degree to deciding to go to law school. What Was your thought process, how you made that decision and where you ultimately selected. Ongoing.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Sure. I think one of the first experiences.
So outside of the opportunity to meet Joe, you know, during my undergraduate experience, I think one of the tie ins that I found while I was at Penn State was, was actually through my experiences as a peer tutor and a line ambassador, I felt that I really enjoyed sort of that building a relationship with somebody, client relationship, if you want to call it like mentorship, sort of, you know, peer tutor to peer relationship. And I felt that being a lawyer ties extremely well with that sort of concept where, you know, you end up with a slate of different clients that come to you with different questions. They're very generally very thought provoking, an opportunity to critically think about something, work with your other co counsel on those matters and ultimately minister to their needs. So I think that being a business student who sought to sort of build a career like that, I felt like being a business lawyer was the perfect place for me.
So I ended up applying to a bunch of different law schools, took the lsat, busted my butt to get the highest GPA possible. And sort of tying back to that point that Joe made about law school decision, I think among the considerations for me was what city did I want to work in. And having been at Penn State Brandywine, just outside of Philadelphia, I had many opportunities to go into Philadelphia, meet people, get a little bit of a taste of what it would like to be working there. And that was ultimately how I came to the decision to attend Temple Law, along with the fact that between my GPA and Alsat Square, I was able to obtain a full ride there.
So those two considerations, the cost consideration and the city I want to work in, ultimately informed my decision to pursue business law at Temple Law.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Awesome. And yeah, we have no shortage of Shrier alumni who are also Temple Law alumni. So there's definitely a bit of a pipeline there, it seems like.
[00:21:34] Speaker C: Yeah, it's so funny you mentioned that, actually. Yeah. While I was looking at schools while I was up state, I actually reached out to Lisa from the SH Honors College. And once I was accepted to Temple Law, I said, hey, Lisa, do you know any Shrier alums who ended up going to Temple Law and work in Philadelphia? And she actually gave me a list of Schreier alums who work pursuing the exact same track that I was pursuing. And I ended up grabbing coffee with a couple of them. So by all means, Schreier Scholars, Penn State students reach out to the people at the university because they have a good taste of what's going on with the alumni outside?
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And we have, you know, there's the Penn State network and then there's the Schreyer network, and it's so cross disciplinary.
So definitely great advice there, Victor, to talk to us here in the college or, you know, whether it's at Penn State Brandywine, Smeal College of Business, College of Liberal Arts, wherever you find yourself, make sure you talk to us.
So I think it's pretty obvious that if you're in law school, you want good grades. That definitely impacts at least the front end of your career. So we're going to just call that like an assumption here. But there's additional activities, Victor, like law journals, multimedia programs, competitions, just clubs that you can have.
Can you talk about why you decided to pursue some of those opportunities when you were at Temple on top of an already very rigorous academic workload that keeps you busy all day long?
[00:22:58] Speaker C: Yeah, I think much like the benefits from being connected with faculty, with clubs and organizations that you get at a place like Penn State, I think those same benefits and then some are magnified any law school experience.
So competitions, I think, were one of the main things that I ended up pursuing while I was at Temple Law, and I think that competitive drive that was fostered as a student athlete at Penn State Brandywine. I needed an outlet like that in law school. So I ended up finding all sorts of different competitions, case studies, that type of thing to pursue. And I think the best one that I ended up pursuing was the ABA Tax Competition. So that Law Student Tax Challenge was run by the larger aba, but really their tax session and their Young Lawyers Division. So as a competitor alone, I was able to go meet recent law school alumni who were working in a field of interest, you know, tax law for me, and ultimately apply some of the skills I learned in the classroom to some real life client problems and then present my research and findings to law firm partners in D.C. and I ultimately ended up winning first place with the partner that I had from Temple Law who was competing with me. So that opportunity to network with a bunch of young lawyers, draw my skills to law firm partners, and apply those skills, I think has parlayed really well for me in the workplace now. And I would just recommend to anyone, whether you're an undergraduate student, law student, or even in the workforce right now, just to find as many ways to get involved in whatever outlets sort of best suit your interests and skill sets.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Awesome. Joe, do you give similar advice when you're talking with mentees and kind of engaging in Those opportunities, Absolutely.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: When I'm talking to college student mentees, I say I do as I say, not as I did.
I was singularly focused on studying and working out. And so I was pretty narrow in my focus in undergrad and unfortunately didn't take advantage of all that Penn State has to offer. But certainly I learned my lesson as I got older, and I was much more engaged in law school.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: And you're definitely involved now as an alumni. But I do want to talk about your early career, Joe.
So in preparation for this, you shared that your early days of a lawyer was kind of like a yo yo type of experience.
Right. You started at a big firm, you left, and then you decided to settle in at a firm called DLA Piper in Philadelphia. So can you walk us through those early days, navigating big Law, as it's called, and how you've leveraged that experience in all these mentorship experiences that you're. That you're providing as a mentor? Sure.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: I mean, my experience was certainly anything but a straight line. I mean, if you look back at it now, 32 years in a major firm, retired at age 60, you know, boy, that seemed like it was pretty easy and uniform, but it really wasn't. So my honors thesis motivated me to want to practice labor law on the side of employees. And so I went to law school with the plan to represent labor unions, represent individual workers in cases against their employers. I spent my second summer at a large Philadelphia firm in their labor department.
And large firms don't represent labor unions. They fight labor unions and they defend discrimination cases. And I loved it. I loved the work, I love the people. I love the money. I had big student loans. So I started my career as a management side labor lawyer. But after two years, it then was a large firm, about 300 lawyers.
I felt burned out, wasn't enjoying it, and decided I'll go back to my roots, quit the firm, joined a solo practitioner out in the suburbs representing plaintiffs individuals. And it was a disaster. He was literally a fraud. And that'd be a whole other podcast. So after four or five months, I realized that was a mistake. I went back to my honors advisor, Lori Perman, who was thrilled that I was coming back into the fold and encouraged me to go appointment, apply for PhD program in an organization of psychology, be a good social scientist. That's what she wanted me to do instead of go to law school. Fortunately, I went back to one of my advisors at my first firm, coincidentally also named Laurie.
And he said, you know, we have former partner who's now a headhunter. Why don't you go talk to him?
Talk to him. And found DLA Piper and stayed for 32 years.
So anything but a straight line.
And one thing I actually forgot to mention, even law school itself, I was so unhappy after the first semester, I wanted to quit and my mother stepped up again and said, no, no, no, one more semester. If you want to quit after spring, fine, stick it out. One more semester. So there were many sort of hurdles along the way, twists and turns and getting advice from others, and sometimes happened to weigh between conflicting advice and Laurie Perman telling me to be a good social scientist and Lori Cockburn saying, be a lawyer and then picking what's best for you.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Well, and Joe, I'm going to go off strip here.
Isn't it fair to say, like a lot of the social science research skills that you were developing in those organizational psychology classes probably are things that you've used as an attorney working in labor law, right?
[00:28:20] Speaker A: 100%. And so my practice drifted away from labor law toward general commercial litigation, although I always had probably 20 or 30% of my practice in the employment law area. But it certainly informed my interest in and I think, skills in interacting with clients, interacting with colleagues, junior colleagues.
I got heavily involved in hiring because I've always loved the employer employee relationship and wanting to work with young people and young lawyers. And so, yeah, the study in that class and in my honors classes focused on work sort of led to sort of those interests and in part the type of law I practiced, but in large part the way I practiced it and the people that I dealt.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Awesome. So you talked about you're in these hiring positions and looking at your resume or your CV when you shared it. Joe, you've had a lot of leadership roles at DLA before you retired, including being a managing partner. Not just a partner, but a managing partner. So how do you go about as an early career attorney like Victor, is to set yourself up for success down the road. Once you kind of get past that, like grind it out, associate phase and move your way up the ladder.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah. The single best thing you could do is hone your craft and be excellent at what you do, make yourself important to the clients and to the partners and don't worry about being the one running anything.
I would say in the early years, observe those that are in leadership positions, learn from them, get to know them and make it a goal if you want to. But I would spend the formative years being the best at what you're doing, developing all of your skills and relationships, and you'll develop leadership skills along the way if you want them. It's not for everybody. There are wildly successful law partners who don't have an interest in devoting that time to being in charge of hiring or having to deal with a dispute among staff or how much are we going to spend on the holiday party administrative things? It's not for everybody. But if it is something you're interested in, grow into it. And I frankly wouldn't spend much time thinking about it in the early years.
But as you get. As you grow into the firm and start spending time with those folks that are leadership positions, you sort of happen organically.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Excellent.
And a final part that I want to talk about right now in that vein, Joe, is something that I think will resonate no matter whether you're a seasoned partner or Schreyer scholar who's still navigating classes and clubs, is time management.
So you said yes to all these leadership opportunities at dla.
What strategies did you use, knowing that you're responsible for billable hours and all these commitments that you're saying yes to on top of your main responsibilities?
That.
What strategies did you use that a current student might be able to implement now here at Penn State?
[00:31:18] Speaker A: Well, a couple of things. One goes back to one of my early mentors at my first firm who told me to be myself. And when it came to how many hours I was comfortable working, how many weekends I was comfortable sacrificing, and, you know, practice the way you want to practice and see if it fits the firm.
And so I always did that.
Never sacrifice health for wealth.
You have to have an exercise program. You have to eat right. You have to get enough sleep. You know, it's sort of along the lines of a pay yourself first that you get from financial advisors. You got to pay yourself first when it comes to your health and your wellness.
And if you make that a habit and then, you know, manage your time, you can. You can build the necessary hours, find time for management, but always keep an eye on sort of the whole big picture.
That regular exercise program is going to be great for relaxation.
I tell young people all the time, a healthy mind needs a healthy body. And it's. I do think that's a very big part of my success and I think a lot of people's success.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Great advice, Joe.
Now, we've talked big law, and obviously we've had many episodes where you can get some additional opinions on kind of how to navigate early careers in law, especially at big law firms. But, Victor, you took what I'm going to call a not quite the first thing that comes to mind kind of path for attorneys. And you're like you said, at the accounting firm of Deloitte, which is one of the big consulting and accounting firms.
And I want to ask how did you decide on that path and can you tell us about the hiring process that you went through for that versus kind of the big law, you know, kind of process boutique firms that Joe's firm and other students who are going that more traditional route, if you will take on?
[00:33:09] Speaker C: Sure. I would say that there's actually more similarity than you would think.
So in the big four setting, a lot of them have their lawyers concentrated in their Washington national tax or national tax offices in D.C. or up in New York, because that's where a lot of the sort of intersections between tax and the law might intersect with one another. But at local offices like the Philadelphia office for Deloitte, we actually have a very large international tax practice. And our practice consists of, I'd say like 60% or 2/3 lawyers, 40% to 1/3 CPAs. So more than you would think.
Actually, in my intern group, we had three JD students and two CPA track students in our cohort for the international tax program that summer. So I guess the way the internship program would work is sort of the fall of my second year of law school. So I guess this was fall 2022.
Shout out applications to the big four. And I came to the conclusion to do that because I had seen that a lot of tax lawyers that I knew had experience working at a big four, you know, PwC, EY, KPMG and Deloitte. So I sort of just, you know, follow the path that's already been charted before. So I sent my applications out to those places, heard back in December from Deloitte, got my interview and I interned there with my international tax group in the summer of 2023.
So to compare to a big law setting, most big law entry level attorneys would be a summer associate during that same time period. So honestly, very similar in that regard where, you know, assuming the internship program went well and team enjoyed working with you and you enjoyed being there, you would get a return offer that August, you know, I got it the last day of my internship program, accepted a couple of weeks later. And then here I am now starting, I guess I started six months after graduation at Deloitte.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Awesome.
So you're still in the early days, so not too much to say about the job so far. You're still learning, but I do Want to kind of pivot a little bit here because I kind of buried the lead. And Victor, you alluded to this earlier, but how did you two meet? Because it's never an accident that I have a panel style episode here. So how did you know? Where did you first interact and how did this mentorship start off?
[00:35:21] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess I could kick off with some of that. So in terms of, you know, staying involved, communicating with your professors, that sort of theme that I pitched earlier, this was very much so connected with that. So I had told basically everyone I could at Penn State Brandywine, hey, I'm really interested in law school. I think I want to be a lawyer. No one in my family was a lawyer. No extended family members were lawyers. Quite frankly, not many Filipino Americans that I've come to meet over the years are lawyers. So I would love to be connected with Penn State alums, Penn State Brandywine alums, et cetera, that pursued law. I'd say, okay, you know, I'll let you know if I think of someone. And then early in the pandemic, I would say, this is probably March, April 2020. I got an email from one of our career services people saying, hey, you know, we just had a Penn State alum, you know, connect with us recently. He's a lawyer. I instantly thought of you. How about I connect you to. What do you think of that? I was like, sure, I'm inside 247 especially.
There's wide open for that conversation. So we ended up meeting online, Joe and I. He introduced me to a few attorneys at his firm so I could learn more about, you know, the law schools. I was interested in the different pathways I could pick.
And, yeah, honestly, we've been connected ever since then. It's been incredible, honestly, extremely beneficial to my career, just in all stages. I think it's such a funny full circle moment being here right now. I talked to Joe before I even took the L side around when I was taking it the first time. I'd send him my score, say, hey, you know, maybe I'll take it again, send them my scores again, send them a list of schools, personal statements, resumes, all that sort of stuff. So it's been extremely helpful so far in my career.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been great fun for me.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: That is a really cool opportunity there. And Joe, thank you for kind of teeing all this up, everything you've done for Victor. And I know you've mentored many, many other scholars and Penn State students over the years, so really appreciate that.
That being said, I know you're both very involved locally in the Philadelphia area in different activities, and then also here at Penn State, both at the Brandywine campus at University Park.
Why do you both, despite. Obviously, Joe, you're retired now, but even. But so pretend you're still an active attorney. And Victor, you know, you're just trying to get your career established, but you're both making time for your communities.
Why do you prioritize that when you could be focused on other things?
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Victor, you want to kick it off?
[00:37:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I could kick that off.
I would say that especially being a recent graduate, my experience at Penn State was incredible. The study abroad, the, the mentorship, the tutoring services, the in class experience, the out of class experiences, if you want to be that general with it, was incredible. But I think as a student and as a recent alum, you could sort of see, oh, this is where, you know, Penn State could be a little bit stronger in different areas or oh, this was an area where I got mentorship. I would love it if someone would have said that to me maybe a year earlier. And I think that's really informed my desire to give back. You know, Penn State has talked about for years now being a university with the largest alumni network. And I think one of the core benefits of that alumni network is you get so many people who have gone through Penn State and said, hey, you know, this is an area that I would love to give back or reinvest in, or this was really great for me. I would love for another student to hear about that opportunity or I would love to foster that opportunity even more. So I think Penn State is as strong as it is, not just because of, obviously the prowess of the university, the talent of the professors, the students that go there, but also because of the alumni's desire and ability to reinvest into the university and keep it going for X amount of years going forward.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And one thing I would add, and I think this holds true for either young alums or mid career alums that don't have the free time that I do, or retired alums who do now have some more free time.
As you know, Sean, I've been involved in University park for many years with the honors, college and otherwise, but it's inconvenient. It was three hours away and I would get these invitations in the mail for a wonderful panel discussion on a Tuesday evening and I could never go.
And it was like out of the blue in 2019 when someone suggested I get involved at Penn State Brandywine, where I did not go. I was Four years at University park and it's been, it's been spectacular. It's 15 minutes from my house. So what I would say is especially those like Victor and Mid career, they're juggling a lot of things. Get involved in your local campus, the Commonwealth campuses. It's a wonderful system. They tend to have the, the most financial need students. They tend to have most first generation students. Your money and your time goes a long way and it's convenient when you're super busy. And so I'd love to know what the statistics are in terms of the average distance that any Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania person is from a Commonwealth campus. But even if you didn't go there, go there and offer to speak on a panel, offer to mentor some students, if you're in the position to donate some money. Donate some money.
It's a wonderful way to give back and you'll be able to fit it into your busy life.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that statistic, Joe, is something like 90% of Pennsylvanians live within 30 minutes of a campus, something to that effect.
So I'm sure, I'm sure our Office of Government Relations could clarify that for me in the comments.
It's about something like that, though.
Now I want to go back to something you just said, Joe.
In terms of the philanthropy, you've been a gracious supporter of the college, the College of Liberal Arts here, and also Penn State Brandywine. And so first, on behalf of all of us, thank you for that. That's incredible.
And then second, again, kind of like, why is it so important for alumni to give back?
You know, whether it's $10, like Mr. Schreier's first gift to Penn State when he was a young alum himself, or it's, you know, the 10 million, $25 million gifts that you're seeing in the news. Why is it so important to do?
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Well, two things. One thing I think about, Joe Paterno used to tell his graduating athletes to pay back their scholarships once they started making money in football. So it was easy for me because school was so cheap. But think about whether you can pay back any scholarship or grant they ever got from Penn State.
Number two, also, if you're like me, you know, Penn State changed my life.
Who knows what would have happened if I didn't come to Penn State. So it's very meaningful to my life and it makes me want to give back. Number three, you know, I live near Swarthmore College. I don't have the statistics on what their endowment is per student, but it's astronomical. And the Penn State mission to educate the students of this commonwealth, even though the raw number is probably very large, much greater, greater financial need.
And whether it's, you know, sponsoring an internship, which is something my wife and I did here at Brandywine, or the emergency fund, which is. It's really interesting. And a lot of people don't even think about that. There are students who they get to middle of semester and they may have to drop out.
There are so many ways that you can give back. And so, yeah, start small if you need to start small or just show up and be a mentor or speak on a panel. It doesn't have to be money. It can be your time.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Yep. Time, talent, treasure, testimonial. And I think you're. Between the two of you, you're knocking all four out of the park. So thank you for that. And Victor, we'll give you a year and then we'll start having some fun conversations with you.
Now, I want to pivot it back to law and the finance and everything. Accounting, people skills. So this is a question I want you both to answer. What stills. Whether that's people stills, technical stills, or something else that. Maybe I'm not phrasing this correctly, but what should scholars be working on? Now, if they're interested in career paths that are even remotely similar to either of yours, whether that's working at Deloitte Big Law or even Public Interest Law, like you referenced, Joe, or even in education and mentorship and employee onboarding and training.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Well, I'll take that first. I think a strong work ethic goes without saying. So it didn't even bother to say that attention to detail, which was one of my dings in my first review at my first firm, you know, hyper attention to detail, very strong reading, writing, communication skills, and calm under pressure. I was a litigator, but any, any type of pursuit in the law, there's going to be intensity. And you need to learn how to be confident, cool under pressure.
If you're in a large organization like Deloitte or a dla, there's gonna be a lot of internal competition. You have to avoid being jealous, being envious to be the best person that you can be. You know, have your. Have your best day, have your best year, and don't get sucked into any kind of really sort of jealousy that they can occur in, know, very high performing, intense organizations.
[00:44:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say to piggyback off of all of that, I think a lot of those skills, sort of that Joe talked about and those traits can be fostered with and developed even further with an appreciation for multiple perspectives.
I think in the law, for example, in reading, you know, all these different court opinions, inevitably. Right. Not everything is a 90 victory or a 90 split where the judges land on something. Sometimes it's a 5, 4, and you'll get, you know, a majority opinion, a concurring opinion, a dissenting opinion, another concurring opinion, agreeing part, but the sending part. And I think an appreciation of all those different perspectives and willingness to open your eyes and see, oh, there's more than one way to look at an issue or more than one way to examine sort of a client's problem can be fostered through things like studying abroad, through taking a wide variety of classes, you know, not just in correlating what you're interested in, but maybe branch out a little bit. So I think that interest can be fostered even first at the undergraduate level, parlayed in law school, and then obviously beyond. It'll help you understand sort of your co workers a little bit better, the different clients. You'll have that type of thing.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: Awesome. And Victor, I bet even just reading a 9, 0 opinion, maybe there's different rationales for. Oh, yeah, and learning how to think. How is your opposition and litigation going to think and present their argument? You know, it's like a chess match. Right.
And then, Victor, specifically, since you're like starting your career, you're actively in the accounting space, how is AI starting to impact your work and helping you and maybe hindering you as a budding lawyer?
[00:45:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say, first of all, we get all sorts of messages and editorials and whatnot about AI on almost a regular basis. At Deloitte, we have our own proprietary artificial intelligence software too, that we can use.
For me personally, I've noticed that the way that I research is different than the way even the senior associates on my team research the managers and the senior managers, if they want to learn about a new sort of revenue ruling that was passed. The way we all get to that revenue ruling and the way we read commentary about it, I've noticed, is already different. And I'm sure the people that come in, once I'm a senior, those new associates, I'm sure, will be using artificial intelligence and leveraging it, you know, way better than I am currently. So I would say I usually would maybe use it to kind of kickstart some research. But ultimately I end up falling back into the same exact research strategies that I use, you know, as a law student and as a Penn State student. And I think the Key to understanding its application in the workspace is just trying to stay up to date as much as possible. You know, you only have so much time between, you know, when I'm expected to bill and my expectations outside the workplace to sort of upskill, you know, by 10, 15, 20 hours in artificial intelligence. But if I could get a little bit better, you know, week over week, I would say that's the biggest recommendation I would have for people going forward.
[00:47:12] Speaker B: Good stuff.
Now, this question is for both of you. I am not a lawyer. I'm not an accountant. I definitely didn't enjoy my accounting class in my MBA program. I'm more of a qualitative person.
So that means there's a lot of things I did not think to ask either of you today. So what are some things that we should have talked about or questions, particularly Joe, that that you might get from your mentees or Victor, maybe you were asking in law school.
That would be really helpful before we move into our lightning round with our reflective questions at the end.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Oh, I'll go. Because I've probably done a lot more interviewing than you have, Victor. And it's interesting, the questions I get. There's. There must be a script out there, but. But one of them is, you know, why I chose the firm. I won't deal with that. But why did you stay here so long? What was it about it that caused you to stay?
That without sounding like they're realizing I've been there forever.
And I talk about sort of the local environment, what drives my happiness every day. Getting off that elevator with a smile on a Monday to make sure you're going to be in a place where you enjoy working with the people.
Because a lot of the firms, the money's the same, the clients are the same, a lot of the things are the same. But are the people that you're working with, are they fun, funny, hardworking, supportive? Is it going to be a good fit for you and be the kind of person. This is less to do with the organization than, I think probably the way I am. Kind of developed an ability to look on the bright side and see the glass half full and realize that if there's a challenge, in one of my cases of the challenge around the office, walking down the street in a huff to another firm is not going to likely be the answer. And just to sort of think it through and have an ability to be appreciative of what you have, you know, this fabulous job and these clients and these colleagues and not take that lightly. And it allows you to, you know, through your career and even in your personal life to weather some difficulties if you develop that ability to be grateful and look at what you do have and not obsess over what you don't have.
[00:49:35] Speaker C: I'm going to a comment that Joe made earlier in that it's not a straight line, even just if you look at the microcosm of being a Penn State student. So I applied to Penn State actually as a finance major. And then before I started I switched to engineering. Thought I was going to go to University park for aerospace engineering. Then I decided I wanted to stay at Penn State Brandywine. I switched to their multidisciplinary engineering program. Then I decided I didn't want to do engineering anymore again. So I ended up switching to accounting after that. So even within that sort of two year period, it's not a straight line. But, you know, despite all the major changes, I still made it out in four years and I'm here now and I ended up at an accounting firm. So everything happens for a reason.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So these last few questions here for the both of you, each, I want each of you to answer these. And this is really just trying to reflect and wrap up our conversation over the next few minutes.
So first, a chance for each of you to brag. What would you each say is your biggest success to date?
[00:50:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, I guess being accepted to and pursuing law school, I feel like it's definitely one of them. I feel like it's mildly a cop out though, so I'm going to bring up a more specific example.
So once I got to Temple Law, this was just out of the pandemic or really still in the pandemic, fall of 2021, and a lot of student organizations were sort of falling apart because of, you know, we can't meet in person, being virtual for a full year. And you know, as a Penn State student, being a part of student organizations was one of my favorite things.
So I had joined Temple Law's Sports Law Society as a first year student. We had maybe one event that year. And over the course of my three years, I tried to be as much or as involved in that as possible. Poured into it as much as I can. And my senior year we ended up sending, or I guess my 3L year rather, we sent students to four different competitions, you know, locally, as close as Villanova, as far as Tulane University down in New Orleans. We had speaker panels in both the fall and the spring. And now after I graduated, our law journal symposium was actually based around sports law so we've been from basically sort of a. Is this club even going to exist at Temple Law anymore? To now one of the premium, in my opinion, organizations at Temple Law. So that was just one thing that I was really happy about in my Temple Law experience.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: I guess for me, it would be after the first two rough experiences and sort of swinging and missing twice, spending 32 years in a very high stress, intense environment and developing an ability to roll with the punches and deal with setbacks, deal with the pressure and the challenges, and truly feel like I was happy and fulfilled virtually the entire time.
Never the highest paid lawyer in the office, never the hardest working. But I think I developed an ability to be one of the most satisfied and fulfilled.
Go back to some of the lessons I learned doing my thesis.
And so I guess that that's what I'm most proud of, who have had a happy and fulfilling career in what can. Can be a very, very stressful and difficult environment.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen a lawyer speak as glowingly, Joe. So I think you did something right.
On the flip side of that question, though, to the two of you, what is a big transformational learning moment or mistake that you've made in your career? Career. And most importantly for our scholars watching or listening, what did you learn from that and integrate moving forward?
[00:53:06] Speaker A: I'll take this one because this is one I just remembered this morning.
I was a young partner, probably.
It's probably 2003, 2004, and I had this routine at the end of the day where my train. I would take the train every day. I could turn off my computer exactly 10 minutes before my train time. It took a long time for computers to power down. Put my computer in my bag and sort of, you know, hustle to the elevator and get to the lobby and practically jog through the lobby and two blocks and get to the platform, you know, within about 30 seconds of when the train would come. And I did that for years. And one night we're working late, and one of the associates said to me, he said, I see jogging down the street at night, what are you doing? I said, well, this is great, Joe. And I explained I got this great routine and I could get there just in time. He looked at me like I was from outer space and said, why do you do that to yourself, your partner?
Why don't you turn off your computer 15 minutes early? And it was like a lightning bolt.
Why am I doing that?
And so since that time, just give yourself a little bit of a break and Look, I was ambitious. I'm still ambitious. I respect ambition, but I've never forgot that. And I do try to use that to get a little bit of a break, try not to be so rushed.
And another takeaway from that story is you can learn from people younger than you. You learn from your mentees. And so those opportunities to learn are really all around you, if you're open to them.
[00:54:41] Speaker B: Joe, what's the best thing that you've learned from Victoria?
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Boy?
Well, I learned that I love being a mentor of young college students because it was, you know, but I just dove into it in 2019.
But it. It reaffirmed my. My belief that being highly organized and focused, have you have success in life.
And I also, what I learned a lot from Victor is the.
The great benefits of going to a Commonwealth campus. Because right around that time I met you, Victor, I was just learning about the Commonwealth campus. It's shame on me. I live near one, and it's like that old Temple commercial. It could have gone anywhere. They chose Temple. And knowing Victor, he could have spent four years at Happy Valley. Why didn't he do that? He wanted to play college basketball and tennis, wanted to be close to home.
And so I've learned more about your.
Your profile of your Penn State student you choose as a Commonwealth campus. And we have wonderful students that have all kind of stories, like Victor.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Awesome.
Now, Victor, I'm going to pose that same question back to you after you answer what your biggest transformational learning moment or mistake was.
[00:56:00] Speaker C: I would say a transformational learning moment for me came both while I was at Comcast, and it was reaffirmed once I interned at Deloitte. So I interned at Comcast after my first year of law school.
And I've always had this tendency, especially, you know, working in person again, you know, for the first time and who knows how long. At that point, I wanted to take on every single opportunity. I want to tell every single, you know, senior attorney, oh, I could do a project for you, too. I could do this for you. I could do that for you. And incidentally, everyone had work for me to do.
Somehow I found myself working at night as an intern, and while I was making, you know, people, I was like, you know, this was kind of a lot. I have to be really conscious of sort of my own bandwidth and opportunity to take on work, because like Joe had said earlier, it's not just about doing the work, it's also being excellent at what you do. And that was reaffirmed to me by my sort of Mentor slash manager at Comcast at one point when she noticed, you know, this is a lot that you're taking on right now. Let's make sure that we're performing, you know, at our highest ability on all these different assignments. So while, you know, I would always advocate for people to be involved, work for as many people as possible once they start working, just be conscious of how many projects and how many opportunities are taking on, because these are all very busy people, and at some points, they will all find something for you to do eventually. It seems like you sort of have a calm moment while you're working under.
[00:57:18] Speaker B: Promise over deliver instead of the other way around.
[00:57:20] Speaker C: Yeah, you definitely do not want to over promise deliver to people.
You want to summarize it with that point.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: Now, Victor, what's the best thing that you've learned from Joe as his mentee?
[00:57:32] Speaker C: It's hard to pinpoint a singular best item. I think the value of a mentor figure is definitely one of them. Just the impact that it can have both. You know, at this point, Joe and I have had conversations over the phone. We've met in person. We've met over food. And at the end of the day, all those conversations, I've been able to read something that I tie back to something that I share with another person. Sort of that breadth of just how impactful mentorship could be is not just on the individual, but on, you know, the other people that I could touch. With the same sort of advice that Joe has given me, I would also kind of reaffirm the point that mentors are people. So, you know, on one hand, it can be extremely intimidating for someone who's 20, 21 years old to approach someone who's had sort of the breadth of a career that Joe has had. But at the end of the day, you know, we end up talking about Penn State football. We end up talking about what our families are doing, you know, places we've traveled. Like, at the end of the day, we're all people.
So we should all remember that as we approach this sort of mentorship. Mentor mentee relationships.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: So in that vein, of those relationships, Joe, you've referenced, you've mentored many students. Victor, you've referenced other mentors from your internships or law school, from your time at Brandywine. What is one singular piece of advice that each of you would give to somebody to make sure that they have a successful mentoring relationship?
[00:58:48] Speaker C: I would say come prepared for the conversations that you have, because the first point I would have said was, remember that mentors are human so my second bullet point would be that you should come prepared to the conversations at the end of the day, especially in a career like working in the big four, working at a law firm, you know, everyone is very busy and getting, you know, 30 minutes of their time, an hour of their time is hugely important, both for them, because there's obviously, you know, that's time they're taken away from their work, away from their family and friends, etc. But also for you, you know, learning the value of your time, you know, from the jump. Because at the end of the day, you know, once you end up working meetings, etcetera, you know, you want to come to those situations prepared. So you could treat that mentor mentee relationship very similarly. You should come with some questions. Inevitably, you know you're going to veer off topic. Maybe you end up talking about Penn State football or traveled recently. But I would just come prepared with something you want to talk about, you know, the moment you get there.
[00:59:46] Speaker A: That's really good, Victor. I hadn't thought of that. Yes. So as a mentee, be prepared, be responsive.
Have multiple mentors, sort of end career mentor, maybe someone five years older than you. So look for multiple mentors in terms of age.
Maybe the fit doesn't work for the mentor that's assigned to you. My first law firm assigned me someone I liked him, wasn't perfect. I found someone down the hall and he didn't know it, but I started being friendly with him. He was the same age, six years older than me. And I ended up learning a lot more from him. And without using the word mentor, he effectively was seek out different points of view. As I mentioned, I got conflicting points of view about what I should do with my life. So two awesome mentors suggested completely different directions, but they both made great points. And then I made my own decision. So get different points of view.
[01:00:41] Speaker B: Excellent.
Now, there's been a lot of name dropping in this episode.
Now, besides maybe Mama Kernan, are there any other folks from your time at Penn State, whether that's thesis advisors or friends or faculty or coaches, that both of you want to give shout outs to?
[01:00:57] Speaker C: I could definitely run the gamut pretty quick, but a few ahead of time.
I would say just the entirety of the business faculty at Penn State Brandywine. But I remember my first business professor was Professor Christina o', Lear, or rather my first accounting professor, I should say.
She kind of reaffirmed my interest in accounting, made it extremely appealing to me. And Professor Stanton was someone who I had done a few honors, independent studies With. So I would say the two of them. But also the advisor for my Schreier Signature Signature Travel program was Professor Kevin Furlong. Professor in Geosciences has absolutely nothing to do with anything that I do right now. But I just had a really great time pursuing that program because, you know, as a Commonwealth student, I didn't know a single person that was going on that program to Thailand. And I spent three and a half weeks there. That was the longest I'd ever been away from home. But Professor Kevin Furlong just made it an incredibly welcoming environment to me. He was always up for conversation as someone who was participating in the class portion of the program virtually before we traveled to Thailand. He made me feel included and incorporated, very responsive to email. So he made that Schreier experience for me very memorable.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'd have to say Jim Eisenstein and Larry Spence in the Political Science department.
That's another wonderful thing about Schreier. I have friends who went to massive state universities and not in honors program and never developed relationships with professors, but I developed a relationship with two professors that got invited to their retirement parties.
Lori Perman in the sociality department, who Lou and I took that class with.
And of course, Louis d', Ambrosio, who I met our junior year in the old University Scholars Lounge at the Willard building and became good friends and of course, did the thesis together.
[01:02:45] Speaker B: Excellent. And there's a bit of a history lesson for you that we used to be in Willard before moving to Atherton and Simmons, if you didn't already know that.
Now we're wrapping up our time, what is the one final piece of advice you would leave for scholars, especially those interested in law? What Kit? What? Or you know, what? Something that we can drop on Instagram or a YouTube short. That's your little bit of wisdom here at the end.
[01:03:08] Speaker A: Victor, lead it off.
[01:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I would say read as much as possible, write as much as possible. Obviously, as a Shrier student, you have no shortage of that in the thesis process.
But once I was a law student, I think every. And maybe this is partially my fault, but every semester in my 2L and my 3L year, I wrote at least one piece or one paper rather as long as my thesis. So if you get that reading and writing practice early as a Penn State student, it'll be, you know, very transferable to experience as a law student. I would also say to study abroad.
I've learned now that I'm@Deloitte, PTO is very valuable and also could be very sparing so traveling as often as you can, you know, save up that money, put it in the piggy bank, participate in one of these Penn State or Shrier study abroad programs, because they have all sorts of either short programs that would just travel over a break, a May master like I did, or a full semester. I would just travel as much as you can.
[01:04:05] Speaker B: And don't forget, we have funding available. So come talk to us if you want to do one of those programs and you're worried about finances.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: Good plug.
I would say get advice from practicing lawyers in a field you might be interested in. Law school is very expensive. You don't have to go.
We need good lawyers. You always need more good lawyers. But it's a very expensive choice and there's lots of people out there. Go on LinkedIn. Find someone from Penn State who went to Penn State, who's now a lawyer. I can guarantee you they'll almost always respond. Get on Zoom, have a cup of coffee, learn about it before you make that decision.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: And there are no shortage of Schreier alumni that are in law that you can tap into as well, specifically within the broader Penn State community. Joe, now you mentioned LinkedIn. Is that the best way to reach out to either or both of you if somebody watching or listening wants to connect and really dive deeper into these topics than we had time for today?
[01:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so.
Easy to find on there. Message me and then I'll get right back.
[01:05:07] Speaker C: I would agree with that. Same here.
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Excellent. And now for the hardest hitting question of the day and possibly your entire legal careers.
If you were a flavor of Penn State Berkey Creamery ice cream, which would each of you be? And most importantly, I need to hear really strong oral argument. Why would you be that flavor?
[01:05:29] Speaker A: Well, I love being outside.
Even before I retired, I spent as much time outside as I could. Go on hiking and camping trips every year, do a lot of local hiking.
So I think I am the arboretum breeze.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Ooh, good choice.
[01:05:46] Speaker C: I'm gonna have to try that flavor. I've never heard of it.
Sounds awesome though.
For me, I would go with chocolate chip cookie dough. People eat chocolate chip cookies any sort of environment.
You know, Easter holiday season, now that we're in, maybe even Thanksgiving as a dessert, I feel like I enjoy being in a wide variety of environments. Chocolate chip cookies are served in a wide variety of environments. So there you go. That's my best I could do.
[01:06:11] Speaker B: Versatile. Victor, the chocolate chip cookie dough.
Awesome. Two excellent flavors. Chocolate chip cookie dough is one of my personal favorites. So you all get Bonus points for some excellent flavor choices.
Joe, Victor, thank you both so much for joining us here on following the Gong and sharing your insights. Before I let each of you have the last word, this wouldn't be a YouTube video if I didn't tell you that you need to like subscribe. Leave us a comment, all those good things. If you're engaging with us on the audio version on Spotify or Apple podcasts, make sure you're following or whatever the verb of the week is on those and leave a rating. And with that, I'm going to let each of you have the final word here. So Victor, I'll start with you and then Joe, you can see us out.
[01:06:54] Speaker C: Thank you Sean for having us here today. Thank you Joe for inviting me to be a co podcast participant with you. This has been an awesome experience. I just love being involved with Shrier as much as I can be, so this is great. Thank you guys.
[01:07:07] Speaker A: Yes, thank you. My first ever podcast and I can't imagine someone better to do it with than Victor. Sorry we couldn't be up at Happy Valley today, but look forward to seeing you in the spring.
