Finance and Accounting Majors
"When asked where is the most magical place on earth,' my answer is always Disney World because it can't be beat. With that being said, the Eberly College of Business and IT is certainly a very close second. After seeing the experiences I have had, friends that I have met, and the knowledge that I have acquired, I believe most people would agree with me.
"I was born and raised in Franklin, Pa., a nice rural town in Venango County. When I was young, my aunt began working at West Virginia University. I would visit multiple times per year. During my senior year of high school, I was convinced that I would be attending WVU, particularly after I visited the campus. However, my mother was not convinced. She told me I should check out a few more schools before deciding. I eventually toured IUP and fell in love by the time I left that day. I never thought I would find a school that I liked more than WVU and if it wasn't for my mom, I wouldn't have!
"Excluding the beautiful campus, what I liked most about IUP was the clean slate it gave me. I was a shy kid coming into college. I did not know anyone and I hoped that would be what finally would bring me out of my shell. Although I was shy at first, I still wanted to make a name for myself and leave my mark. Looking back on it now, I feel as though I achieved both.
"When I think about the experiences I have had at IUP, I consider myself very lucky. A lot of them were the result of the amazing opportunities that Eberly has provided me. My favorite was being able to compete in the ACG Cup. The ACG Cup is an MBA competition with four undergraduates that were able to give Carnegie Mellon and Pitt a run for their money. Throughout the competition I gained a lot of knowledge, met many people, and helped build Eberly's name.
"The activity that I would like to have featured is the Student Finance Association. I joined SFA at the beginning of my sophomore year. In my early days of SFA, I benefited from the older finance students as it was the first time that I was with people that were as excited about finance as me. I now have the opportunity to help incoming students just as upperclassmen helped me as a freshman.
"When elected president in my junior year, attendance was lower. My goal was to fix that. I thought if SFA's name was out there that more people would join. The strategy worked, but not as well as I had hoped. I continued as president in my senior and thought about what I would want to see as a freshman and decided to put together panels that highlighted the different areas of finance.
"During my tenure as SFA president, I arranged six panels of guest speakers that discussed private equity, risk management, active management, commercial banking, and CFO/acquisitions. I was able to create the panels through the networking at my internship with Stewart Capital Advisors, a subsidiary of S&T Bank, and the connections that I made at Eberly events.
"SFA has helped me make friends that I will have for life. I am so happy that my mother suggested that I check out more colleges because if she hadn't, I wouldn't have attended IUP and be where I am today."
After graduation, Josh moved to Columbia, South Carolina and joined the state Retirement System Investment Commission as a junior analyst on the investment team.