Rosa Freitas

By Catherine Goodyear, Staff Writer

After four long years at Manhattan College, it’s time for the senior class of 2016 to graduate and move on to bigger and better parts of their lives. Rosa Freitas, a business management major with a minor in marketing, is going to be using her acquired skills in her everyday life at Think Construction.

Think Construction is a construction company that works on multiple buildings around Manhattan and a great first step for her career. What started out as an internship became her full time job when they asked her to stay with the company as their office assistant.

“I work with the administrative side of the company mostly with payroll, bills, insurance, forms and other paperwork,” Freitas said. “I found the paid internship through Jasper link and the girl who previously had my position was also from here.”

After graduation, Freitas is going to Spain for two weeks to visit family as a graduation gift, then starting to work full time.

“Construction is just one of the many fields I wanted to go into but beyond construction I eventually want to go into project management or human relations. I frequently get the opportunity to work with the owner which is great for experience,” she said.

Think’s office in Manhattan is a small one, with five or six people working at a time. Now that Freitas is a larger part of this team, she will be given more hours and her wage will be switched from hourly to salary.

“The longer I am there, the more my boss will add on for me to handle. It started with simple billing and processing insurance documents or human relation documents for new employees. Now I will continue running reports for the company but also check information to make sure they match with the subcontractors. It also varies from project to project in the city,” she said.

Along with her internship, Freitas kept busy throughout her four years at MC. She was a member of Alpha Upsilon Pi Sorority and moved her way up through the chain from member to charity head to pledge educator.

Along with being a part of the sorority, Freitas was also a founding member of Management Club, treasurer for a year for the Entrepreneurship Club, and a member of Marketing Club.

Being a part of this many extra circulars helped Freitas develop well-rounded skills that helped not only with herself but with her job.

“All of my clubs taught me how to manage my time and I met a bunch of different incredibly diverse people and groups and I enjoyed getting to know them. Since I held so many different positions while in my sorority, I feel as though I developed different leadership skills and interpersonal skills,” she said.

Getting involved in college can really help build a resume and give students a jump-start into a future career.

“I will miss my friends and the teachers and staff the most when I graduate. I will miss the relationships that I made with people I know I can trust very deeply,” Freitas said. “They are people I can count on and will always be there for me. They were a part of my life in college and will always be a part of my life from now on.”

 

Linda Shehata

By Meredith Bryant, Staff Writer

Lynbrook, Long Island native Linda Shehata, is a senior finance major with a minor in marketing here at MC. She will be graduating in just a few weeks and is hopeful for her future after college.

“After college I’ll be moving back home with my parents and I’ll hopefully get a job in a finance firm and save up to live in an apartment in the city one day,” Shehata said.

With finance being in her blood, Shehata came into MC four years ago as a business student.

“My dad and mom are both in business. My mom is in accounting and my dad is in finance. So I figured they like it and I’m their child so might as well do it,” Shehata said.

At the end of her freshman year, she declared a concentration in finance. In addition to her parents influencing her decision to pursue a degree in finance, Professor Annabi here at MC also solidified Shehata’s decision.

“She’s a really good teacher. I have her this semester and I had her a year or two ago. She really cares about people learning the material and if you don’t get it, she is willing to take the time to help you. So she definitely made an impact on me,” Shehata said.

Last summer, Shehata interned with Pfizer in their Global Health and Value Department. Specially, she spoke about how through this internship she was able to advance her skills.

“I learned so many more things so now I know everything [with Excel] and it is helping me a lot in a bunch of my classes this semester. So definitely Excel and learning to work with a team, so it helped me,” Shehata said.

Moving forward, Shehata had some advice for future finance majors.

“I think it’s one of those majors that you have to love it. You can’t be half way about it. If you really love numbers and you’re interested in investing then definitely go for it because it’s really interesting. There is so much you can do with it. You could go work at a bank or you could just work in a finance department of a makeup company,” Shehata said.