Persistence lands Liberal Arts international student a full-time job

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The third time was the charm for Liberal Arts senior Sarthak Vij. After applying and being rejected for an internship with Pathstone Partners two years in a row, Vij took a leap of faith and applied for a full-time position this past fall with the same company. To his shock, he received an offer.

After he graduates this May, the economics and mathematics major will start his position as an associate consultant with Pathstone Partners, a health care consulting firm in Chicago, roughly 8,000 miles from his home in India.  

“It’s a small consulting firm, and that is something that I enjoy —­ having ownership and individuality,” Vij said. “I can expect that I will have ownership of my work coupled with a lot of flexibility and learning opportunities.”

Vij’s persistence has paid off in more ways than one during his time as a Penn State student. He approached student involvement with the same determination, creating a channelization strategy to help him narrow down his extracurricular activities.

Vij joined numerous organizations his first year, including the University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA), the Association for India’s Development, the Economics Association, the Penn State Cricket Club and a few others. He narrowed those down to three clubs during his second year and took on leadership roles. In his third year, he served on a committee in the Office of Student Conduct, was a member of the Penn State Student Fee Board, founded and served as president of the Penn State Economics Think Tank and worked part-time as a technology teaching assistant. Now, in his senior year, he’s focusing on being a technology teaching assistant.

“I narrowed things down to what I loved the most,” Vij said. “I have less energy as a senior, and I want to put more effort into academics and career goals.”

During his first year, Vij joined the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Council (LAUC), which serves as representatives of all undergraduate students in the College of the Liberal Arts, creates programs and hosts events to foster the experience of Liberal Arts students. The following year, Vij became the president of LAUC.

One of the events that LAUC helped create in August 2019 was Meet the Dean, an opportunity for students in the College of the Liberal Arts to hear from and meet Clarence Lang, Susan Welch Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts, during his first few months on the job.

Through his involvement with LAUC, Vij got to know Lang. The two have kept in touch through email and lunch meetings.

“We talk about academics, the college and my full-time job in Chicago, which is also Dean Lang’s hometown — he’s been a great mentor,” Vij said.

Lang came to the University during the same summer that Vij became president of LAUC.

“That got us connected really well because I always gave honest feedback to Dean Lang, and he always gave honest feedback to me,” Vij said. “We touched base on lots of things and how we can improve. I would also take his experience and advice and put that in my strategy of applying my career and professional goals.”

"Sarthak embodies many of the best qualities of Penn State Liberal Arts students," Lang said. "He is intellectually curious, well-rounded in terms of his activities, emotionally intelligent and empathetic to others and, above all, hardworking and driven to succeed. I can't wait to see all of the fantastic things he will accomplish out in the world — he's already off to an incredibly strong start."

When classes went remote in the spring of 2020, which was Vij’s third year, he got a job as a technology teaching assistant through IT Learning and Development, which provides technology tool training to the Penn State community. Even though the job was different from his two majors, Vij decided to give it a try.

As a technology teaching assistant, he provides remote assistance for both Zoom and Canvas during classes. The great feedback he received from faculty members helped get him promoted. Now, in his senior year, he does data work to ensure that the system works smoothly.

“For example, as a student, you submit your time availability, and the faculty submits their class schedule. The matching of schedules is a big task,” Vij said. “I was able to increase the efficiency to a great extent. This is one of the skills that I will carry into my job.”

During the summer of 2020, Vij’s internship was canceled due to the ongoing pandemic, and he had to stay in India for about six months. It was then that he saw a new business opportunity. He noticed that charging electric vehicles was a problem in the United States because it’s a relatively new concept and there are not enough charging stations for the increase in demand. He created ElMiles with his friend Manan Gupta, a Penn State senior majoring in computer engineering. The idea for the company was to develop an app that could help people locate EV charging stations.

Through Happy Valley LaunchBox’s Idea TestLab, the pair received funding to complete problem and solution analysis and revenue modeling. This helped them determine that the company they created was not really needed given the existing efforts being done by larger car companies.

“It was something that was in my head that translated into an idea, that translated into a project. But then in the customer discovery process, they told us it was probably not needed. That’s how we realized it was time to shut down. It was a good one-year journey. I got to learn a lot and adopt a lot of skills.”

This past summer, Vij worked as a technology strategy intern in the Division of Development and Alumni Relations at Penn State. Thanks to funding through the Virginia Todd Chapel Executive Internship Program in the College of the Liberal Arts, Vij received a stipend of $5,000 to support his internship experience.

The Chapel Executive Internship Program supports internship experiences for Liberal Arts students who achieve academic success and who seek top-level career development opportunities in the business/private sector. The program was established by Virginia "Jinnie" Todd Chapel, a 1965 English alumna, and her husband, John, with leadership gifts creating a $2 million endowment.

The internship required Vij to step out of his comfort zone, but it helped him gain new abilities.

“Here I am already doing two jobs that are different from my majors, which helps me accumulate a range of skills — liberal arts, tech, and sciences combined all together,” he said.

His coursework in the College of the Liberal Arts has also given him the opportunity to use these skills in a new way that can be applied to real-world settings. While taking ECON 454 Economics of Mergers with Joris Pinkse, professor of economics, Vij learned a lot about the health care system. At the end of the course, the students were asked to write a paper about a merger that had been blocked by the government.

“Little did I know that I would be consulting for a health care firm, and that report really came in handy because when I was talking to them [Pathstone Partners]; they knew the names of these hospitals since it was a major merger that was blocked,” Vij said. “That class helped me somewhere that I wouldn’t have expected.”

In addition to his classes, Vij has benefited from the student support system in the College of the Liberal Arts. One of the people who helped Vij the most was Susan Knell, director of the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network. The two have met several times to talk about Vij’s academics, professional life and overall goals. Knell also helped Vij shape his résumé.

“She helped me lay the groundwork,” Vij said. “I would ask her questions regarding professional life but also very personal. For example, ‘How do you manage your social life and your senior year together?’ It gets difficult to manage everything, and I would ask her how to do it.”

“Sarthak provides a great example of how using all of the resources available through the Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network can lead to a positive outcome,” Knell said. “He was determined, persistent and professional in his search for opportunities and in his commitment to building his Penn State network, and we were happy to guide and support him in that process. We're all so pleased to celebrate his success and hope his story will inspire and motivate other students.”

Vij credits his success to reaching out to people and letting them know of his interest to help. In August 2020, Vij was invited by Liberal Arts Academic Advising to speak to students at the college’s annual International Student Welcome event.

“Let them know that you are interested in helping out, and if the opportunity comes your way, you’ll be at the top of the list because instead of them searching for you, you already reached out to them,” Vij said.

Vij’s last piece of advice to students is to utilize the resources that exist in the college.

“If you see a scholarship, apply for it,” he said.

The Liberal Arts Career Enrichment Network is a resource for Liberal Arts students who are seeking opportunities to engage in career-related, international, and professional development activities. Students can meet with a career coach to discuss internships, education abroad, research, the Liberal Arts Alumni Mentor Program and more. Through donor support, the Career Enrichment Network is able to provide Liberal Arts students with funding to participate in many of these experiences.