Penn State sophomore takes on challenges
Lauren Novick manages to be all business. Although she is only asophomore, she is ready to graduate soon from Pennsylvania StateUniversity.
She has five minors including prelaw, environmental studies,legalities of environments, economics, and comparative literature.
A professional business fraternity and a service group have helped her makenew friends. She has managed this while taking almost 30 credit hours,working, and even starting an internship.
“I just wanted to do everything I could in the time I was there,” Laurensaid.
Novick manages to keep up her busy schedule by limiting the amount of timeshe sleeps. Starting classes early in the morning, the Aspinwall nativebegins her part-time job about nine o’clock at night.
The young woman is an escort at the University Park campus. Whenever anyone wants towalk around the campus at night, escorts like Lauren provide safety.
Sometimes she ends her safety patrol at 3 a.m.
“I’ve learned to go on two to three hours of sleep a night,” she said.
One of the reasons that keeps her working like the Energizer Bunny is theenjoyment she gets from her courses and the goals she has set for herself.
Lauren’s goal is to become an investment banker. She found her futurethanks to the help of a professor. She said she often questioned how — andmore importantly why — things were being done in her accounting class. Shesees a future managing mergers and acquisitions and bringing togethercompanies and buyers.
An investment banker has “a lot of roles, that’s why I like it a lot. It’salways changing.”
The college student has a number of classroom experiences which have givenher practice trading stocks, and she has done well in the simulations.
“(The school) sets it up so you can affect your grade with how you trade.”
In February, Lauren started an internship organizing a business in theLower Valley. Called Tuition Painters, the 20-year-old is building abusiness from the base. She did have a little help. She went to a weekendseminar in Washington D.C. which told her how to merchandise and gave her abinder of information. Also, the company gave a mind-grabbing telephonenumber 1-800-PAY FOR COLLEGE.
The training provided Lauren with work that she comes home each weekend toperform. At first she concentrated on recruiting the painters. She hasthe summer to do estimates and other managing.
“I may use the time to get more jobs for painters and increaseproduction,” Lauren said.
With good management, Lauren is keeping her options open for the summerand for the future. She must study abroad as part of the Penn Statecurriculum, so she is considering Singapore or Cape Town. And she mightspend time in the Peace Corps.
Whatever her future, Lauren Novick will manage it and manage well. Additional Information:
Lauren Novick