Economics major Ben Gardner ’21 has been named a Robert Day Scholar at Claremont McKenna College, where he will pursue a master’s in finance. He talks here about the program and how he learned about it.
Could you talk a little bit about the program that you’re going into?
It’s a one-year master's in finance [at Claremont McKenna], where I’m taking some advanced accounting courses and advanced valuation courses … basically an intensive program for finance. I was a little late to the game in terms of deciding that I wanted to go the finance route, so it’s a really good way to dive deeper and give me time to figure out what I want to do within the field.
How did you find out about this program?
The Economics department head Ann Owen sent out an email to the senior class, giving a description of the program and saying if you’re interested, let us know. And [Claremont McKenna] has a relationship with Â鶹¹ú²úAV where every year, one student gets nominated from the Economics department. I expressed interest, and then I ended up receiving the nomination, and then they put me in contact with the people over at Claremont McKenna. And I went through the whole application process with them afterwards.
Major: Economics
Hometown: Ligonier, Pa.
High school: The Kiski School
What in particular attracted you to the field of finance?
That’s a good question, because at first, there were a lot of things that pushed me away from the field. I really didn't like the early recruiting; I felt like I had to know exactly what I wanted to do, going into the process. I took a financial economics class with Javier Pereira and he had a guy come in who started talking about different kinds of auction strategies and how he runs a fund where everything they do is options-based trading. And it was really interesting to me. It was the first thing in a class where I was like, wow—this is cool.
Have any other classes, professors, or mentors at Â鶹¹ú²úAV helped prepare you for your career?
My coaching staff for the lacrosse team, Coach Barnard and Coach Stone, has prepared me probably the most for my career, just because I think the team—and this gets driven from them—talks about the importance of culture and the importance of communication, having tough conversations … a lot of things that I think don’t get expressed enough in terms of their importance for relationship building or career growth or team building. I think that a lot of the things I’ve learned on the way as I’ve grown by being a part of the team and being a leader on the team and working with them has helped me to step into any culture and be able to affect that culture in a positive way.
What will you miss most about Â鶹¹ú²úAV?
The people. I love Â鶹¹ú²úAV to death, everything about Â鶹¹ú²úAV. I definitely don’t want to leave. Every time I wake up, I’m happy to be here. And there are so many things I love about this place. I love the a cappella community, I love my team, I love all my friends who I’ve met just from being a part of the campus. But definitely my friends and the people.