The Business Life

by: Albert Jacob

As the second half of the fall semester nears, undergraduates across the country are beginning their search for summer employment. Business students traditionally look to secure an internship with a firm in fields such as accounting, finance, and marketing. Their most basic intention is to learn firsthand what goes on in the so-called business world in order to better prepare themselves to enter it upon graduation. Many view their summer pursuits as a twelve week interview, with the hope of receiving a graduate job offer upon completion. At the very least, students who involve themselves in this process gain a leg up in their search for a full time job.

Finance majors at Sy Syms are offered a wide array of opportunity. Each student receives a packet of about forty pages in length filled with potential suitors. There are more than a handful of tracts to choose from, ranging from investment banking to bond sales to equity derivatives. Every viable corporation in the world has a finance department. The most powerful companies are located in Manhattan. For a twenty year old looking for good summer experience, the prospects are definitely positive.

When I first contemplated summer employment last year, I had one thought in mind. I wanted to work at a large investment bank. I planned to interview with the top firms. I had taken a number of finance courses and felt reasonably comfortable with subject matter. I imagine that most accounting majors have similar trains of thought. There was, however, one minor problem with my summer plans. I wasn’t exactly sure what investment bankers do for a living. While it wasn’t difficult for me to explain the Capital Asset Pricing Model and other theoretical finance topics, I wasn’t sure of what the jobs themselves entail. I began to think more about what the purpose of my potential finance internship was. I learned about a number of opportunities in the field. I attended lectures and spoke with employees. Somewhere along the way, I decided that before I was to become a card carrying member of the business world I would try something else.

Through a few connections and lots of persistence, I obtained an in internship in the court system. I worked for the honorable Judge Edward R. Schwartz, of the Superior Court of Essex County, a New Jersey state court located in Newark. By working in a civil court judiciary, I would be exposed to many sides of the legal system. I would meet lawyers, law students, judges and clerks. I was prepared for a brief foray into the legal world, as September would signal my return to school and so too, my fledgling business career.

On my first day at work, Judge Schwartz was deciding upon the proper fashion in which a specific minor should receive the payment of a financial remedy he had won in court. As the result of an injury he had incurred at the age of six months, this minor was due a large sum of money on his eighteenth birthday. Until that time, however, the money was to remain untouched. The attorneys of the injured party had written up a plan to store the money in an interest earning annuity, with the first payment to be received on the boy’s eighteenth birthday. The Judge asked me to explain the benefit of such an annuity. I provided him with a basic description of the proposed interest-bearing annuity as opposed to one lump sum interest payment. He asked me to prove my statements with numbers and draw a cash flow chart that he could show the lawyers. While this is a simple task for anyone who passed Investment Analysis, the Judge was quite impressed with the work I produced. While I envisioned the legal profession to be totally removed from all business application, I would learn that the space between the two worlds was quite small.

Throughout the summer, I shook the hands of over one hundred lawyers. I discovered that every lawyer who gives off even a hint of success must be a businessman as well. Every law firm I came into contact with had one clear goal, the maximization of wealth. A partner from a large New York firm explained this concept to me at lunch one day. He told me that there is a parking lot under his office building in midtown Manhattan that holds seven cars. The firm has over fifty partners and every year they can enter a lottery drawing for one of the seven spots. I asked him who won the year’s lottery, and he responded; “The seven partners who bring in the most business win the year’s lottery.”

Beyond my rich introduction to the legal system itself, I was exposed to every day business life. I was able to look at and appreciate business from a different angle, while developing real life skills. In the courthouse I witnessed professionalism, responsibility, and devotion to one’s job, firsthand. While I wasn’t employed as a business intern, my job description fit the bill.

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