June 2006
Outgoing Richmond College president and former JSGA
senator Braxton Bragg graduated on May 14, 2006, with a list of
impressive academic and service honors to his credit, including
membership in Mortar Board, Omicron Delta Kappa and Who’s Who Among
Students. He also graduated with a solid job offer, thanks to his
Jepson internship.
Bragg, who double majored in leadership studies and
business, found his Jepson internship on e-Recruiting, a searchable
database of job and internship postings maintained by the
Career
Development Center. The posting for an accounting intern with
Beers &
Cutler, a business-consulting and accounting firm, appealed to him
because of the job itself and the firm’s location in McLean, Va.,
just outside Washington, D.C.
“I’m interested in politics and business,” Bragg
said, “and I thought I would like to be exposed to what D.C. had to
offer. I also found that because Beers & Cutler is a relatively small
firm, interns are really thrown into things and get a great deal of
exposure as well as extensive interaction with managers.”
One of Bragg’s primary responsibilities as an intern
involved amending the tax returns for a multi-state firm. He also
worked with a number of smaller firms to ensure their smooth operation
and compliance to accounting standards.
Although Bragg always worked with a more experienced
partner, he did have a considerable amount of independence in terms of
drafting the reports he sent to his supervisors, he said. His
supervisors would review and correct the reports before sending them
back to Bragg, giving him the chance to learn from his mistakes. “I
learned that a misplaced comma can be very expensive,” Bragg said.
His business major proved relevant to his internship
in that it gave him a general understanding of business as well as
much-needed technical training in accounting, Bragg said. But he cited
his leadership studies major, especially his coursework in group
dynamics and critical thinking, for helping him to gain a better
overall understanding of the corporate culture of Beers & Cutler.
“I relied on things I had learned at Jepson in my
interactions with staff all the way up to the firm’s partners,” Bragg
said. “My Jepson education made me a more impressive candidate to my
manager and the partner who oversaw my work. It also made me more
appreciative of the firm’s strong culture and its great sense of
community.”
Bragg impressed his supervisors so much that they
offered him a permanent job, which he has accepted. He has already
made plans to rent a townhouse in the D.C. area with two fellow
University of Richmond graduates, leadership studies major Susan
Vaughan, who will be working for the consulting firm Accenture, and
business major Andrew Velde, who will be working for the real-estate
and money-management firm of Jones Lang LaSalle.
But before beginning his job with Beers & Cutler on
August 8, Bragg plans to finish one last part of his liberal arts
education. He always regretted that he never had the chance to study
abroad while he was a college student, Bragg said, so he decided to
backpack through Europe this summer. “I’ll fly into London on June 4
and back from Madrid on July 6,” Bragg said. “I’ll have a whole month
to figure out how to get from London to Madrid.” |