The Open Book Test Podcast with Alison Levey

This is episode 26, which is the halfway point of Year One for this podcast, and I have some thoughts. How many of us have sat in a meeting or watched a terrible movie and thought, "there's two hours I'll never get back?" I'm going to guess all of us in one fashion or another. So I'm taking ten minutes this week to share how my view of the content has changed a bit, why the episodes have gotten a bit l...

Sofia likes the road less travelled. She's not one for the predetermined path no matter how attractive it might seem to others. That little bit of the rebel within led her to choose a major in Marketing which she felt gave her wide ranging options and didn't pin her down too early. But one chance meeting of the Marketing Club led to an enthusiastic pursuit of employment with Nielsen where she's learned a great deal a...

Juan José Daboub wanted nothing more as a sophomore at ND than to major in finance and  become a successful investment banker. By the time he was a senior, that wish list had altered slightly but he spent two exciting years at Goldman Sachs before transitioning to BCG as a strategy consultant.  A true extrovert, Juan José built relationships everywhere he went and credits active participation in a variety of corporate sponsored cas...

Business Analytics (BAN) was a brand new option when Lauren transferred into Mendoza at the start of her sophomore year. There were no upperclassmen to ask about the coursework or job prospects so it was a bit of a leap of faith. Still, Lauren liked the BAN pitch, and felt it would give her a breadth of knowledge and skills that included bits of all the majors and played to her strengths. And, having spent her first year in the Col...

Where to begin? When I met Eugene Staples, I knew immediately that he was a high energy, highly entertaining young man with many talents, ideas and dreams. I did not imagine that he'd pursue degrees in Marketing, Film, and Religion and create his own brand, Genie Deez, that is both a person and a multi-media company. And all before his 30th birthday. We talk about early struggles  and why he's drawn to constant learning i...

It was her roommate's positive engineering internship and an invite to a great tailgate that put GE Healthcare on Madison's radar. But it was her curiosity and enthusiasm that got her in front of the right person to be considered for the Financial Management Program (FMP) and  gave her two years rotating through a wide variety of options in the world of corporate finance at the start of her career. As a strong student who...

Today we are talking about the benefit of the deep dive...but maybe not in the way you think.


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Find more on Alison @ https://linktr.ee/alisonlevey and please send any compliments, criticisms, suggestions or observations to me at openbooktestpodcast@gmail.com. If you've g...

When he graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in Management Consulting, Tony didn't envision a journey through real estate to healthcare and, ultimately, his own start-up. But his natural inclination to jump at opportunities has put him in some interesting spaces and places. And whether he's standing in a NY high rise or a church parking lot in full PPE administering Covid tests, Tony feels well prepared to tackle the c...

Jamie's athletic side has always been a big part of her life whether she was playing, coaching or caring for athletes as a sports trainer. So maybe it shouldn't have surprised any of us when Jamie decided junior year to switch everything up so she could coach and teach back at her old high school. It was not an easy transition but training to be a teacher taught her at least as much about herself as it did about math and ...

Prior to starting grad school, Demetrius Murphy looked like he'd followed a fairly traditional path from a Management Consulting major to Advisory Services at PwC. But at no point was his path conventional. Rather, the right word might be contextual. Demetrius always viewed his dreams and options through the context of his whole life, not just his school or work life. And, as is often the case, the threads for where he is now ...

Annie is happily eating her words from college when she swore she'd never get an MBA, although she did add a quick caveat for HBS, which is where she happily landed in the fall of 2019. A 2015 Mendoza grad with a degree in Finance, Annie considered a variety of finance and consulting roles before landing at HBSC and then Golub Capital.  She's back on the job market with another graduation this May, but she's focused ...

Raise your hand if a well-meaning adult has ever told you that the secret to success was simply to follow your passion.  I talk in this episode about why that's my least favorite piece of advice. It's really not all that helpful since it's decidedly not specific and often, it only serves to create additional anxiety. And if you don't believe me, I love what Liz Gilbert  (author of Eat, Pray, Love and City of Gir...

Like so many of our guests, Jake Bebar didn't know what he wanted to major in when he started college.  He actively tried a lot of different things, including jumping out of business at one point, before realizing that business can be a true force for good. He chose Management Consulting as a major and landed, almost by accident, in the healthcare industry, despite no healthcare background,  specific knowledge, or, frankly, in...

As he entered college, Steven was looking for a major that would both challenge him and set him on a path toward a fruitful career. He interned in corporate finance and as an equity research analyst before determining that consulting was the collaborative, team based environment in which he would thrive. He learned that succeeding isn’t the same as thriving, however, and was always taking stock of where he was and, more importantly...

Colleen Spelder came to ND for all the reasons that matter most but with no firm idea where to put her considerable energy in terms of an actual major. She ultimately picked Information Technology Management (ITM) and took those hard skills, upon graduation in 2015, into a rotational development program at Abbott. The company slogan is Life. To the Fullest. and that could be Colleen's personal motto as well.  Those first two y...

Notre Dame was Cam's first choice for college but, in a trend that would continue, the choice was somewhat made for him due to a lack of other options. So, although his path was often defined by NOT getting exactly what he thought he wanted, he ultimately found something that kept his attention and curiosity so much that he decide to pursue it all the way to a PhD in Business Information Technology. This is not something a lot...

A recurring theme from the January episodes is the idea of understanding your "why." This month's guests would agree that they didn't have a clear picture of their whole future, but they understood why they were making the choices they did at the time. So today, I share a little bit more of my background and how it led me to this place where I feel passionately about helping the next gen figure it out - at least...

Brittany Sanok graduated from Notre Dame in 2016 with majors in English and Economics — so what is she doing on a business focused podcast?  Turns out, students from all majors end up working in, wait for it, businesses. She just took one of the many and varied paths into a career, with Huron Consulting in her case. Brittany actually started as a business major, but made a shift sophomore year when the curriculum didn’t really spea...

Kristina chose the very popular Finance major but then surprised everyone with a career path that was anything but typical when she graduated in 2013 and went into sales at General Mills. A self-described people person who bubbles over with genuine curiosity, Kristina asked a lot of questions of everyone she met and really listened to the answers. Her on campus jobs with the Career Center and as a campus ambassador for General Mill...