Arrows Connect Career Night 2023

On January 3, St. Sebastian’s alumni gathered via Zoom for our annual Arrows Connect Career Night.  Alex Cook ’91 hosted this year’s panel including Raffi Barsamian ’17, Dan Shapiro ’09, Tyler Smith ’09, Charlie Tangerini ’08, and Ben Thai ’12.  Spanning a diverse lineup of careers, the panelists offered insights on their own career search as well as the transitions they made to reach their current responsibilities.  Raffi Barsamian emphasized the importance of pursuing an environment that matches your personality and strengths leading him to his position at tech startup, Office Hours.  In Dan Shapiro’s pursuit of a civil engineering degree, he discovered the path to making broad societal impact through his work on major environmental projects at Brown and Caldwell.  Tyler Smith’s investment experience shifted from public markets to private markets when he made a move from Eaton Vance to HarbourVest.  Charlie Tangerini detailed his dynamic consulting role at EY, a field that undergrads often don’t fully appreciate.  Ben Thai’s experience in biotech and clinical trials has led him to his current position at Arcturus Therapeutics which combines his biology and public health background with his Vietnamese heritage and language skills.  Alex Cook led a lively Q&A session with the participants.  The panelists were unanimous in encouraging our alumni to keep an open mind on their career path as it is very likely to include twists and turns that they will not anticipate.  They all emphasized the importance of establishing a strong network of relationships, particularly throughout the St. Sebastian’s community.  Ben Thai had the quote of the night, “Network or no work!”  The Alumni Office encouraged all attendees to include St. Sebastian’s in the education section of their LinkedIn account and join St. Sebastian’s own professional networking platform, ArrowsConnect.org.

Thank you, Raffi, Dan, Tyler, Charlie, Ben, and Alex!