How the Class of 2024 Landed Dream Jobs in Their Field – Newsroom | University of St. Thomas

Justina Palmer ’24 knows she pulled off an almost unimaginable career jump right out of the gate. Just days after walking across the commencement stage at the University of St. Thomas, she walked right into a dream job.

Palmer started in June as a venture capital fellow at Traction Capital, one of the country’s leading venture capital and private equity firms. Venture capital, private equity and business acquisition are three industries that are notoriously tough for new grads to break into.

“It’s a big blessing to jump into this space right out of college,” Palmer said. “For most people it takes a long time to get here. I’ve been able to jump straight in because of my time at St. Thomas.”

Palmer is just one of the many Tommie grads already learning the ropes at brand-new dream jobs. From aerospace software engineers to reinsurance specialists, Tommies are leveraging their time on campus to kick-start careers – in dream roles – that they’ve wanted for years.

To snag her dream role, Palmer credits an experiential course called Venture Capital and Deal Analysis offered at the Opus College of Business. The course features projects designed alongside start-up investors in the business community. At the end of the course, two students, including Palmer, were offered fellowship roles at venture capital companies in the Twin Cities.

“It was a unique opportunity to work on real-world projects and look inside these different business portfolios,” Palmer said. “The course showed me that venture capital isn’t something that should be reserved for Ivy League grads. Through some amazing partnerships in the business community, St. Thomas gave me the resources and the chance to build confidence and understanding in this space.”

Other Tommies have been working toward their dream job for a decade or more. After graduating in May with his doctorate in counseling psychology (PsyD) from the Morrison Family College of Health, Dante Williams ’24 accepted a position as a psychologist at the African American Child Wellness Institute in Plymouth, Minnesota.

The field of doctorate psychology, in general, has long been dominated by white women. Williams, a Black man, worked against that stereotype to achieve his goal of making a difference serving families and young people in the African American community.

As a liberation psychologist, Williams specializes in studying how the past has shaped the present to improve lives. His doctoral dissertation focused on the challenges of vulnerability in African American men.

“I’m really excited to work with my community, to help them manage symptoms, manage depression and have conversations about emotional intelligence and vulnerability,” Williams said.

Williams completed his doctoral internship at the Center for Well-Being at St. Thomas, where he worked with students from across campus, studying the impacts of COVID-19 and anxiety. He did it all as a single parent and while working a full-time job.

“I’m so grateful to the St. Thomas program and the supports they gave me and the flexibility to make this dream a reality,” Williams said. “Hopefully other people can feel inspired by what I’ve done and see that anything is possible despite where you come from.”

With the help of the St. Thomas Career Development Center, 71% of Tommies complete at least one internship while enrolled. Internships allow students to explore careers in a way that makes sense for them, and often play a key role in unlocking a dream job right out of college.

Nathan LoPresto ’24 interned at Collins Aerospace as a software engineer throughout his senior year. The company liked his work ethic and critical thinking skills and extended an offer of full-time employment this spring.

“I was very fortunate to be able to have such a deep experience with the company before deciding to accept,” LoPresto said. “Not only that, but I could keep wearing all my merchandise as well.”

LoPresto, now with his computer engineering degree in hand, works on avionics equipment for commercial and military applications. He’s charged with writing FAA-compliant code for angle attack sensors, ice protection and stall protection equipment.

Engineering faculty at St. Thomas – who had experience designing software for the aerospace industry – got LoPresto interested in pursuing the field as a career.

“The hands-on learning and experienced faculty me feel comfortable with leading development on my own,” LoPresto said. “Today, while a lot of knowledge is new and learned on the job, I definitely feel like I am using my education every day.”

A very purple alumni network

Ninety-seven percent of University of St. Thomas graduates are employed or in graduate school within six months of earning their degrees. This year’s graduates are already in the middle of pilot training with the U.S. Air Force, providing care to patients in emergency rooms, and preparing their first elementary school classrooms.

With more than 100,000 Tommies across the country in countless industries, often it’s that purple alumni network that opens doors to dream jobs. Aon Inc in Bloomington, Minnesota, a reinsurance company, has been hiring Tommie economics majors for years. This spring Aon hired the economic department’s faculty-voted “outstanding senior,” Kate Gustafson ’24.

“I quickly realized there was a huge pipeline of Tommie economics grads at Aon,” Gustafson said. “We set up quite a few coffee chats and I’ve been able to learn so much about the industry as a whole.”

Gustafson is starting her time at Aon as an accounting advocate, working with clients to access risk, reduce loss and manage capital to improve a company’s operational performance. Earlier this summer she attended specialized workshops to prepare for the new role, but she credits St. Thomas with making it possible.

“St. Thomas gave me a really strong working knowledge of economics and political systems, but it’s not all about the numbers,” Gustafson said. “My professors helped me to think with rigor and, in the end, they built me into a stronger, more resilient person so that I could take on the world in front of me.”