One year after walking across the Commencement stage, these three alumni are charting their own paths to success.
Washington University prepares its graduates for bright futures. As of December 2013, 83 percent of our Class of 2013 graduates were either employed or attending graduate school. Just one year after graduation, these three scholarship recipients are putting their degrees — and their ambitions — to good use.
Julian Nicks, BSBA ’13
One year post-graduation, mathematics and finance major Julian Nicks is enjoying his new life in the Windy City — except for the brutal Chicago winter he recently endured. “I wasn’t exactly raving about Chicago during the colder months,” he laughs, but he loves everything else about his new home base in Lincoln Park.
Nicks works as an associate consultant at Bain & Company, a position he landed through a Wash. U. job fair prior to his graduation last May. Nicks describes his work at Bain as advising organizations on strategy, marketing, organization design, operations, IT and M&A. “We help business leaders solve problems. A company CEO might come to us and ask, ‘How should we strategically enter new markets if we want to double our revenue in three to five years?’ My team and I help craft a strategy after researching the market and analyzing a lot of data,” Nicks says.
Nicks also has an interest in the field of education, which is why he was thrilled to receive his first assignment — a pro bono case working with a national charter school network to improve their strategy for college access in the Chicago region. “It was thought-provoking work that intersected with my interests and, of course, a really good cause,” Nicks says. His role involved research to identify the main drivers for college dropouts. Nicks and his team then developed programming strategy and data collection and student tracking systems for the charter network.
Born and raised in University City, Mo., Nicks had never lived outside of St. Louis, except for out-of-town internships. One perk of his current job is paid time off between projects, which has allowed him to travel to visit college friends in Minneapolis, New York City and D.C. As the former president of student government, Nicks has close alumni friends scattered across the country — and he doesn’t plan to lose touch with them.
Katherine Olvera, BFA ’13
In her first year since graduating, Katherine Olvera has been a part of the fashion world both at home and abroad. After earning her bachelor’s degree in fashion design, Olvera returned to her hometown of Dallas to accept a paid internship in the women’s apparel division of Fossil, Inc. The apparel company asked her to stay on after her internship ended — a rarity in the fashion industry. She gladly accepted, but delayed the opportunity by three months to study textiles in Paris.
Olvera was awarded an artist’s residency at Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris at graduation. There, she spent time researching the creative use of novel textiles by French designers. Olvera also discovered a budding interest in photography while she captured the unique patterns and visual images of the city. She is now in the process of editing her photos and binding them into handmade books.
“One of the things I noticed most was the styling and aesthetics of Parisians and Europeans, compared to Americans. Europeans don’t have many items in their closets, but the clothes they do have are chosen well, and they know how to wear them in a beautiful way,” Olvera says.
After returning to Dallas, Olvera was thrilled to move into a full-time role as an assistant designer in women’s leathers for Fossil, where she will be designing handbags and wallets. She plans on staying in corporate design to learn the basics of manufacturing and the business of fashion. Olvera gives much of the credit for her rewarding first post-college year to Jen Meyer, assistant director of career development at Washington U.
“She was helpful with résumé-building and networking, and she was proactive in setting up a road show for fashion design students to go to New York and meet key people in several fashion companies,” Olvera says.
Eric Hamblett, AB ’13
Eric Hamblett is one of those people who makes connections and generates ideas — good ideas — wherever he goes.
One of his business ventures is Bazaarboy, an event management company that offers event marketing, ticketing and registration solutions, where Hamblett serves as CEO. He and his co-founders created Bazaarboy while undergraduates. However, after assessing user needs and feedback, they relaunched the company in November 2013, this time with a focus on event campaign management.
“I learned as a student that you have to target one thing and do it well, even though your vision may be much bigger,” he says.
As Hamblett was looking for office space for Bazaarboy, he stumbled onto his latest role: managing director of TechArtista. Described as a “collaborative working environment,” TechArtista is a once-abandoned advertising agency in the Central West End that now houses modern offices, studios and dedicated desk spaces, along with several posh amenities like a gym, rooftop deck and event space.
“Our goal is to create an ecosystem with potentially high-growth startups sharing workspace with freelance creative types who support those startups,” Hamblett says.
Hamblett spent the majority of his childhood overseas in places such as Cameroon, Greece, Morocco and France. He earned a bachelor’s degree in international and area studies, but according to Hamblett, his choice of major is secondary.
“The special thing about Wash. U. for me was its multidisciplinary approach,” he says. “I had one major, but I was able to hit the entire swath of academia offered. That’s how I was able to spark ideas and find expertise to build my company.”