In This Issue:
Welcome
As the semester winds down, it’s time to decide what to do this summer. Are you thinking about getting work experience for your resume or perhaps trying to find an internship close to Erie or your own hometown? Internships are a great way to get your foot in the door of a company you might want to continue a career with or just in the field that you’re interested in pursuing. Here are some common types of internships for economics majors: financial analyst, customer services rep, data analyst in market research organizations, public relations assistant, and any type of assistant for actuaries or an insurance company. Don’t forget that the Academic and Career Planning Center (ACPC) can help you in that endeavor! Whatever path you choose this summer, make sure you show off those skills you’ve been learning in your econ classes. Have a great rest of the semester!
—Dr. Kerry Adzima, Associate Professor of Economics
Faculty Spotlight
Dr. Mark Owens, Assistant Professor of Economics
What do you most want economics students to learn?
I want economics students to learn how to approach questions and problems in a systematic manner. Start with the facts at hand and analyze the situation facing decision makers in a logical way in order to draw informed conclusions.
What is an interesting research project you have worked on?
I worked on a study of racial discrimination on the part of eBay buyers. My coauthors and I sold products on eBay for about a year under different racially distinctive seller names. We found patterns consistent with buyers exhibiting own-race bias toward inexperienced sellers, but no bias toward experienced sellers.
What’s the proudest moment of your career?
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be an adviser and dissertation chair for many Ph.D. students. It was an honor to place a doctoral hood on graduates at commencement when they finally completed their Ph.D. after years of hard work.
Student Spotlight
Hannah Carlino ’19
Business Economics and Marketing
Hannah intends to graduate in December with a dual major. She is the current president of the Society of Undergraduate Economics and the American Marketing Association chapter at Penn State Behrend. She has interned with Thermo Fisher Scientific as a finance leadership development intern and has a summer internship with Target in retail management.
What’s been your proudest moment at Behrend?
My proudest moment was when I received five awards at the Penn State Behrend Honors and Awards Ceremony recently, including the Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key Award, the Marketing Award, the Business Economics Award, the Evan Pugh Scholar Award, and the Black School of Business Writing Award.
What has most surprised you about the study of economics?
I am constantly engaged in the material I learn in all my economics courses. What has surprised me most is how I have learned to apply economic theory to my everyday life. I constantly find myself relating (or trying to relate) nearly everything back to economic theory.
Why did you choose Business Economics? What attracted you to it?
From my first class in ECON 102 Introductory Microeconomics Analysis and Policy, I felt as if I instinctually connected to the study of economics. I have a mind that easily can comprehend the theories and applications of it, as well as how they were derived. After my first few classes, especially ECON 302 Intermediate Microeconomics Analysis, I knew I made the right choice in pursuing it as a major.
Alumni Spotlight
Roberto Croce ’04, Ph.D., Managing Director, Senior Portfolio Manager at Mellon
Economics
What is one of the most interesting/unique aspects of your job?
Financial markets are constantly changing, and strategies that worked in the past don’t necessarily keep working. In addition, financial data is very noisy. Trying to develop new strategies that work in a changing world with only very noisy information to base decisions on is an interesting and fun problem to work on. There are infinite different ways to attack it, so we are always learning and working on something new.
What do you miss most about being a Behrend student?
I miss being around huge numbers of friends. There were a lot of us—we usually hung out on the steps of Niagara Hall.
There are now 25 hours in a day! How do you spend your extra hour?
I have fun hobbies that I really don’t get to do enough: golf, scuba diving, driving fast cars on a track. But that’s because I spend all my free time with my adorable 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter, and they would probably take the extra hour too.
Max Morrow ’18, Analyst at Structured Credit Finance
B.S., Finance and B.S., Mathematics , Economics Minor
What is one of the most interesting/unique aspects of your job?
What I enjoy the most about my current position is working with international clients daily to structure their capital needs.
What would you tell your college self if you could go back in time?
I would tell my college self to work every day on increasing levels of discipline because the real world only gets a lot more intense.
Which Behrend course has helped you the most in your career?
I would say that FIN 451 Intermediate Financial Management helped the most because the material learned is most closely related to the work and critical thinking needed daily.
Updates and Events
Club Updates
The Society of Undergraduate Economists is currently run by four executive board members, President Hannah Carlino, Vice President Stephen Hiles, Treasurer Kyle Kaliszewski, and Secretary Lukas Shore. The e-board team highly encourages Economics and Business Economics majors or minors to join the club through BehrendSync. This semester, SUE has successfully hosted another Spring Business Trip to New York City. The trip visited Bloomberg, Pimco, Ernst and Young, North Six Agency, Viacom, and Grubhub.
The Economics and Liberty Lecture Series
On February 27, the series presented “Trillion Dollar Deficits: How the National Debt Symbolizes Our Broken Political System.” The presentation discussed America’s perilous fiscal and political situation. Paul Stebbins, a founding member of the Fix US initiative with the Campaign to Fix the Debt, explained how our debt and federal budget have come to symbolize the brokenness of the U.S. political system.