Julia Abramova admits she was shy in high school classes - not raising her hand or speaking up in class. One teacher had faith in her and prodded her to be an officer in the student organization SkillsUSA, which lead her to serve as its national secondary president her senior year.

She traveled around the country meeting with politicians, business leaders and other students to spread awareness of SkillsUSA, a career and technical education program that fosters real-world job experience, teaching her practical issues such as leadership and employability skills.

While at Richmond, she has worked with SkillsUSA at the state-level as an officer trainer. She travels around the state to train other officers about goal setting, teamwork and public speaking. She also has been invited to speak at events and lead workshops and training at leadership conferences.

Julia has gained valuable networking experience. The president of Caterpillar Logistics Services in Illinois served on the board of SkillsUSA and helped Julia land a summer internship with the company doing global marketing and sales support.

The president asked Julia to present to Caterpillar’s executive board of twelve vice presidents about her involvement with SkillsUSA and how the organization can help provide skilled, professional workers to organizations such as Caterpillar.

Regarding her first exposure to working in the corporate world, “It was an eye-opener. I wasn’t expecting [to do] the things I was doing in my position. I’m definitely ready to start.” In fact, she has accepted an offer with Geico in their San Diego office. She’ll join their “Emerging Leaders Program,” a management rotational program.

She expects to learn a lot about an enterprise, for example, how one business unit affects the rest of the company. Although a marketing and management concentration at the Robins School, she is not sure which “track” of business she will pursue. The program will expose her to different options. “Marketing is definitely something I want to experience at the corporate level. The good thing is that I get the choice to go into what I want.”

Julia began college at American University as an international relations major, hoping to become an interpreter. Born in Belarus, Julia’s first language is Russian. She transferred to the Robins School as a sophomore. “I wanted more of a challenge and to switch to a business major. The reputation of the business school was a huge draw for me,” Julia says.

The Robins School Professional Development Program arranges the mentoring program, which has benefited Julia as a mentee. She has met several times with the chief information officer of Dominion Resources. “She has been a great mentor – just hearing her experiences and how she sees things,” observes Julia.

Conversely, she is employed as a student consultant for the Professional Development Program - holding office hours each week and meeting with other business students to discuss items such as their senior portfolio.

Politics as a career does not appeal to Julia, however, she enjoyed serving as senator and vice president of administration in her two-year involvement with the Robins School student government. Her desire to create a sense of community within the business school lead her to organize a community service project called “Operation Shoebox.” Throughout the business school, they collected nonperishable items and toiletries and compiled them in shoeboxes to send to soldiers serving overseas.

Julia has come a long way since her shy days of high school. With all of the leadership and training skills she has gained during college, she must wonder, “What if I had raised my hand in class?"

A team of students from the University of Richmond has won the 2007 Ethics Bowl sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges.

The annual two-day bowl pits teams from the 15 VFIC colleges in a competition arguing positions on hypothetical issues. This year teams debated ethical medical dilemmas.

"Every team that participated was impressive," said Tim Duffee, MBA’02, team coach, and adjunct professor in the university's School of Continuing Studies. "It was a perfect venue to display to civic and business leaders throughout the region the caliber of individual, both in character and intellect, being produced by the foundation's member schools."

Richmond's team won the competition following a final round debate against runner-up Mary Baldwin College. Nearly 50 business and community leaders from throughout Virginia critiqued team arguments. Retired journalist Roger Mudd also was a judge.

"I couldn't be more proud of our team," said Duffee. He said their ability to think under pressure and apply practical, morally sound decisions to some very complex ethical issues "was unparalleled. They proved to be champions in every sense of the word."

The two-day event was held Feb. 11-12 at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. The winning Richmond team included: Erin O'Leary, a senior International Business and French major, from Littleton, Mass.; Kathryn Sigismund, a senior finance major from Grand Junction, Colo.; M.K. Tantum, a senior marketing major from Knoxville, Tenn.; and Evan Zaletel, a senior leadership studies major from Westlake, Ohio.

Two Robins School students taking independent study courses under the supervision of Dr. Candace Deans had the opportunity to attend leading technology conferences last fall.

Brian Frumberg, a senior majoring in Finance, attended the Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT in Boston September 27-28. The conference brings together world leaders to discuss technological innovations that create opportunities and fuel economic growth. Speakers at this year’s event included Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and Jonathan Miller, CEO of AOL. Thirty-five young innovators’ were honored at the conference for their innovative technology inventions.

Lee Mitchell, a senior majoring in Finance and Management, attended the Lux Executive Summit on Commercializing Nanotechnology held in Boston October 16-17. The conference focuses on the business and finance issues of Nanotechnology. Speakers include senior executives from large corporations and start-up companies. Lux Executive Summit is the world’s pre-eminent nanotechnology event.

Both students are working on related research projects with Dr. Deans.

Most business students know that the Career Development Center hosts hundreds of employers on campus for career fairs and interviews for internships. 

However, many may not know that Richmond is a member of the University Career Action Network (UCAN).  UCAN is a partnership of select universities throughout the country.  Member universities are Boston College, Brown, William & Mary, Duke, Emory, Pepperdine, Princeton, Southern Methodist, Swarthmore, Tulane, University of Denver, Notre Dame, Richmond, University of SanFrancisco, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Williams, and Yale. 

The UCAN Internship Exchange is one of the largest internship resources on the web, with thousands of internships available only to students at member universities.  Internships are currently offered in 48 states, as well as hundreds internationally.  Thousands are available in the northeast and nearly 800 on the West Coast. 

In 2006, the total number of internships obtained through the network was over 6,000.  Most internships are during the summer, though many are available for spring and fall semesters.  The states with the most internship opportunities are Massachusetts, California, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.  For more information, please visit http://cdc.richmond.edu:591/ucan/.