Brennan Smith enrolled in the Global Studies program thinking he wanted to become a politician or diplomat. He hoped to combine his love of Spanish with his desire to have a positive impact on the world through a political lens.
After considering the ways that the private sector influences politics and seeking advice from a Spanish professor, he pivoted his degree to include Spanish for Business – a program that combined traditional business classes with advanced Spanish classes.
Throughout his undergraduate experience, Smith participated in several honor societies, as well as the International Club.
“I feel like those things helped to round me out as a person. Living in Vermont, you can have such a small, narrow worldview … I feel like I was able to expand on that,” Smith said.
After graduating, Smith worked with Castleton’s Career Services Office to help him find a job in his desired field. He soon began working at an executive recruiting firm in Rutland, Vermont. After several months in that role, he sought a more challenging position and started work at Ernst & Young as an analyst in the Financial Crimes and Money Laundering Unit.
“It's a lot more of what I was looking for; it got my foot in the door for the finance industry and I feel like I'm doing a bit of good in the world. I’m stopping financial crimes to an extent, and I’m doing a little investigation. Whenever I get a case that feels like there’s something's fishy here, I get very investigative,” he said.
Smith believes that the communication skills he fostered on the Castleton campus have helped him to succeed in his current role.
“Talking with your peers to get a new point of perspective, I think Castleton leans into that — getting not only a new perspective but a global perspective. That's something I thought the Social Sciences Department did well,” he said.
Working as an analyst isn’t without its challenges. Smith spends a lot of time considering how the choices he makes impacts stakeholders.
“Our AI system will bring up something that to a computer seems fishy. Then you have to go in and do some due diligence and make sure that the computer's either right, and you say, ‘Listen, this is fishy, we have to escalate it,’ or it's not. Because it's just a computer, it doesn't have that human touch. So I think covering all the bases, we have to look at it from the perspective of what risks are posed to the bank, our client,” he said.
Smith recommends Castleton students pursue networking opportunities, taking advantage of peers, professors, and alumni.
“Foster relationships with the professors because there might be a research project down the line, or there might be an internship that they heard of from some other guy that they used to work with 40 years ago. Those things could change lives and you don't want to miss out on those opportunities because you were in your bedroom on Netflix,” he said.