Interview with Tommy Kantrowitz, Hamilton College

Interviewer: Well, super excited to have you, and next up, we have Tommy Kantrowitz joining from Hamilton College. You are an Econ major, with a minor in physics, it’s an interesting combo actually. I haven’t seen that yet. You just finished your college soccer career, and then you’re going to graduate this spring which is probably really fun but another big transition. Scary and exciting all mixed in.

So now we’re here just to learn about your journey, and again, huge thank you for joining. And we’ll just start with kind of how you ended up at Hamilton if that sounds good to you.

Tommy: Yeah, perfect. So I’m a student-athlete. I think my journey is a little different than most. I started with recruiting my junior year because I was a student-athlete and I had an idea pretty early that I wanted to go to a small school. I went to a small high school, of a class around like 120 kids, and I knew I didn’t want to go to a huge school, and the NESCACs kind of seemed like a good fit. My sister, actually, also went to Hamilton, so pretty early I knew about Hamilton. I knew of the NESCACs, but because of my sister, I actually really didn’t want to go to Hamilton. So, I was put in touch with the coach, in say like December, my junior year, and I was like, ‘I’m going to go to Hamilton.’ But I kind of put it pretty low down my list because I was at the same school as my sister in high school, and I didn’t really want to be the little brother again for better or for worse. So, it’s pretty low on my list, but then COVID hit, and that kind of screwed everything up with recruiting, especially coaches couldn’t see you and that kind of made everything a little harder, so I went through college applications, as normal just applying regular decision and that spring, I finally got the chance to visit my sister, she took me around, I got back in touch with the soccer coach, and first, I think the visit was, was a big thing for me, I think the community, a lot of people asked me questions, why I wanted to be here, they were interested in my story and how I was feeling, I didn’t really find anywhere else, and then on the soccer piece, the coaches really wanted me, they, they made a very, good pitch, in terms of why they wanted me on the team, how they saw I could fit so I saw the fit from a soccer level and I loved my tour of the place and I feel like I got a good insight because of my sister and I knew how I was going to be a part of the team and how you know everything worked and how awesome it was. I really got that feeling I always tell people on tours [Tommy was a tour guide] I wish it was because of you know the academics or a program or anything was really like a gut feeling I got on campus I didn’t get anywhere else and I’m really happy I made that choice.

Interviewer: That’s awesome. I think that’s really relatable sometimes people get to college campuses and have just driven however many hours with their parents and are just like, ‘There’s no way I can go here’ and your parents are just like, ‘Oh man, that’s brutal. We just drove so far,’ and that definitely happened to me at certain schools.

But real quick, just to clarify: So you said you were the one who initially reached out to the soccer coaches or did they recruit you first? How did that conversation go?

Tommy: Yeah, so with recruiting, my high school coach played at a NESCAC, so he’s pretty in the know with everything. I sent a bunch of emails probably my sophomore spring, but then basically, you play at a showcase eventually, whether that’s a junior fall, is my junior, like winter in Florida, and a bunch of coaches are there; sometimes, you reach out to the soccer coaches, and they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, we want this kid.’ I reached out to them before, but it’s kind of hard to do. I don’t honestly remember if I reached out first or he did, but basically you play and then if you’re good, you get a bunch of emails afterwards. So, I got an email afterwards; I don’t remember if I was in contact before, but the contact before is at most like, ‘Hey, my name is Tommy, I play for XYZ, I’ll be playing here,’ and if they like you, they reach out because they’ll see you, so they probably initiated it all.

Interviewer: Okay, nice. What position did you play?

Tommy: I played center mid in high school and for club switched in college but that’s kind of how it works for most kids.

Interviewer: Oh that’s very cool. And then, I just love the sports space. We had a tennis player from Colby on here recenntly, and I love the baseball stuff because I love baseball and played baseball.

But, is it normal to travel that much for high school soccer? Or was that just like a league you were in or was it outside of your high school?

Tommy: Oh yeah, that was club, okay so for high school generally, for soccer, I don’t know how it works for other people in other sports, but recruiting is almost all through your club team. I got some looks out of high school, I had a lot of film from high school, but the traveling and the showcases that’s all outside of high school for a club, which is pretty normal there are always these massive tournaments in Florida and Virginia and that sort of thing, which was weird for my grade because most of them got canceled because of COVID. But that Florida one is just hundreds of club teams come so all out of high school.

Interviewer: Gotcha okay. And then yeah it makes sense, it’s kind of a hub for college coaches. I did a couple camps, it wasn’t as formal and it wasn’t like as many games as what you’re describing, but as long as you set yourself up to be in the right places and play well enough, you can get some interest. The other point you brought up was the outreach you did yourself, and I just think it’s a really underutilized thing where you start doing that cold outreach and it’s not always easy especially if you’re a high school kid and you’re trying to figure out how to get recruited and where you might be interested in going. But it sounds like a really good idea to be as thorough as possible when connecting with teams and schools.

So you connect with the coaches and have the huge advantage of your sister going to Hamilton already. Did you guys overlap at all or did she graduate before you got there?

Tommy: Yeah, she was two years above me. So we overlapped half and half. She went abroad my freshman fall, so she wasn’t there but that was honestly kind of nice because I got to come in and kind of make my own, make the place my own, and when she came back it was just nice to have even more new stuff that she introduced me to. But some good overlap and she rowed crew as well, so she played a sport and kind of had that experience with the D3 athletics as well.

Interviewer: Yeah, for sure it’s a lot of fun and still really competitive, that’s cool, that’s good timing. And so I noticed you went abroad too, I probably say it every time I talk to students; I regret not doing that in undergrad so I’m excited to hear about it.

So you commit to Hamilton and you get there, what’s what was the onboarding process like academically and then athletically?

Tommy: Yeah, so Hamilton’s is a pretty unique onboarding process; we’re on campus for about a day, kind of settling in and everything. But then we go on these orientation trips for three or four days off-campus immediately, so your first week isn’t like onboarding and meetings and classes and everything. You’re off-campus and there are around 10 people in each group. I did what’s called an Adirondack Adventure, where I did a hiking canoeing trip with eight other kids. It was a pretty cool way just to meet people, get integrated in a way, and you kind of come back with 10 people you already know on campus. There are three different options, but the Adirondack Adventure is really fun. And then we come back and then there’s another week basically for the freshmen where no one else is on campus, no, there’s like two more days where there’s no one else on campus with meetings and stuff. Then the athletes come back probably a week of pre-season with all the other meetings and stuff and then classes start so it was definitely really busy as a freshman i remember my schedule got messed up because I had something that conflicted with game times which I didn’t think about so things like that so it was definitely busy and like they just kind of run you to meetings which is important. Every school seems to do that with athletic compliance meetings and what not so it was a busy week. Then academically, the first week for everyone’s syllabus week, they let you ramp up and then you get into the swing of things. I think a lot of people ask me too, like how do you manage sports and athletics, and it’s also like everyone who’s playing a sport in college has had to do this their whole life, so it’s not necessarily new taking classes while also playing soccer in the afternoons, which I think at first you know it wasn’t like a big shock that all of a sudden you’re busy. Like I was busy my whole life and I’ve worked on it with my peers, so yeah it was busy onboarding but they made a lot of fun out of it too.

Interviewer: Yeah, I mean you should almost expect is and feel prepared because you sign up to train your whole life to get to this level and play. So, yeah it makes sense. But it’s still a big transition, and the schedule is so different than high school as we’ve seen with the day to day structure with having breaks between class and maybe you try to shoot in for the trainer or some kind of meeting.

I think a lot of people kind of misconstrue the D3 experience compared to D2 or, or like community college or D1. In a lot of ways all college sports are a similar commitment. Is there a lot of academic support in the beginning because you’re jumping right into the season?

Tommy: Yeah, I mean, I think Hamilton does a fantastic job in terms of support academics and they’re very much academics first. They have us all talk to our teachers in the first week about like, ‘I’m on the soccer team, I’m going to miss these classes.’ Get into office hours, meet them to get that side of support. I think being on a team is a huge form of support in terms of the older kids really talking about going to office hours, going to TA hours, there’s XYZ versions of support and then Hamilton itself has a lot of different programs, we have different centers for tutoring and like writing and math and that sort of thing. Our professors are required to have TA hours, and there’s a lot of stuff like that for academic support, so yeah it was huge immediately off the jump, like you’re here to play soccer but you’re here to learn. Here are the ways you can do that and they really, they really pushed us to kind of form those bonds with our professors so we could succeed, so yeah, ton of support.

Interviewer: So it adds to the busyness, but then you kind of get used to it quick, yeah, it’s probably better to be busy, so you’re not guessing or lacking consistency in your schedule. I definitely remember those moments just being glad I had a plan for the day.

So looking at some of your academics so econ seems like you established that interest early, I’d love to hear how you ended up just choosing econ and physics because it’s an interesting combination.

Tommy: Yeah so physics was a favorite class I took in high school. I took honors my junior year and I was like I’m going to do this in college and I loved it, so I didn’t necessarily want to be a physicist or want to be an engineer, but I love physics, so I knew I wanted to take that. I actually came in wanting to major in physics first, I also took econ my senior year of high school and it kind of lingered like I loved numbers, so I thought I was a math guy, so econ, math, and physics were kind of the three that thought i worked out. I didn’t end up taking econ my freshman fall just because I was like, I don’t know, it didn’t work out but I took math, like I took AP math in high school so I took like multivariable my freshman year kind of thought those three were in the works. I soon realized I’m not a math guy, and that definitely didn’t work out, so I took econ freshman spring and kind of had the idea of double majoring between economics and physics just because of two things I like, two things I was good at, and then kind of put together how many requirements it actually takes. I realized particle physics and like the fourth, fifth, sixth level classes were really above my pay grade and not necessarily as much of what I was interested in. So I dropped physics to a minor and I thought Econ kind of more aligned with where I wanted to go career-wise, so it all kind of worked out and I’ve still taken five classes for the minor. I’ve taken, I think seven physics classes so I just really like it, but I didn’t really stay on the required classes track and more took like the cool fun ones I loved. And as you said like it is a unique combination to have and it’s been helpful to talk about in interviews and stuff because not a lot of kids are doing those things – they’re doing Econ/Gov, Econ/Math, so I thought it was it was a cool thing to have.

Interviewer: Yeah definitely – I took a like an intro math class freshman year and the first day the professor was like okay we’re just going to review what you should have done your entire last year, senior year of high school, I had no idea what anything was that he wrote down. Wow, I was so lost. Now I’m not huge on math, so even lower level than what you’re talking about and the fact that that was an intro math class and there were first years taking like advanced classes that first term of their first year, I was like, ‘I’m definitely going a different direction.’ So yeah, it’s clarity; it’s trying different things out. But what you took is still a great combination. And you mentioned interviews, what did econ and physics lead to for job opportunities? You know, internship-wise, extracurricular wise?

Tommy: Yeah, so I guess first, Hamilton’s open curriculum and liberal arts, so really what they harp on is it’s not too important what your major in, what you really see, so yeah, I have an econ major, so that did kind of lead to a lot of opportunities outside of the classroom towards business, kind of that side, but it doesn’t matter as much, it’s a really cool thing about the liberal arts, especially an open curriculum at Hamilton, so I think that’s a big part of it. I have friends who are Bio majors who want to go into sports. It’s really cool because you can talk about in interviews. Yeah, I did this because I like it in school but I have another interest, but econ was kind of the natural major to me that was easy to talk about in business and stuff. And then in terms of internships I think it was really hard to find a sophomore year internship. I started networking and I was like I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, I’m going to do this, there were so many options. I started networking about my sophomore winter, that’s when I had my meetings with my career advisors and starting networking. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, so a lot of my early networking was like, ‘hey, what do you do? how did you get into it? does this even sound interesting?’ and I ended up going to Tuck Bridge my sophomore summer, which was super helpful. I heard about a lot of kids at Hamilton go to that program and one of my best friends was going, and it seemed like a natural step. And it was actually from there I got the AlphaSights internship, and I was like, ‘oh, my god, I’m going to go to AlphaSights because companies come to Tuck Bridge and do the interviews, and like the resume drop day and it was actually, there was my first found AlphaSights interview, and I made it all the way through. It wasn’t like I wanted to go to AlphaSights, just kind of; they came, it worked out, they seemed fun, and nothing else along the path worked out. I eventually realized I was interested in the wealth management consulting sort of route, but junior year internships are just they’re hard to get even when you do so much to build your resume. AlphaSights ended up being the opportuity, which honestly was possible because of Tuck Bridge. It was a great experience but it also showed me another thing I didn’t necessarily want to do. It was a really cool company and I had a great time, it just wasn’t what I wanted to do after graduating and then I started the whole networking or not started again but I had continued it all and then worked pretty hard this summer and this fall to get a job in consulting which I decided was my end goal. And being an economist, I decided consulting made a lot of sense.

Interviewer: Yeah for sure, I think it’s fun to mention the Bridge Program because a lot of great things that come out of that experience, and even if it’s not an opportunity that everyone gets to have, just the networking piece you mentioned is going to lead to opportunities.

And programs like Bridge or meeting people through internships is the best way to address the elephant in the room of higher education: how can you go from Econ at Hamilton or any major at any college, to job opportunities? So, that’s exactly what you just touched on and students want to hear about, like okay how’d you get an interview? What was the process like? And how’d you kind of decide on consulting?

So I guess, I guess that was one thing that just came to mind as you were talking is um so you ended on consulting and there’s a very, wouldn’t say formal but there’s a pretty set process for going through the process um what was that like? How many rounds of interviews did you have? Was that something where it felt like really natural to you or did you have to apply and interview at a lot of different places?

Tommy: Yeah, so in terms of deciding I’ll start there like, I decided that through networking, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I feel like so many kids around me came in, they’re like I’m going into investment banking, you know? And I felt so indecisive. Eventually I decided what I want to do through talking to people and just hearing how they talked about the field and like going to meetings and along the way, just kind of figuring it out through conversations. And you can then decide how to interview and which places to network at is really through or which places to apply to is all through networking. Hamilton doesn’t have the biggest pool of consulting alumni, so I basically looked at LinkedIn, consulting Hamilton alums and talked to as many people as I could. you find out pretty quickly in the interview process it’s case working and you want to be able to talk about XYZ, so I asked them how do you case and they told me, ‘You know, read this book, use this thing.’ And I found others I have two friends who are also doing consulting and I cased with them. That was the advice I got from everyone it’s the advice I would give, is practice with friends and  definitely apply to a ton of places. I mean even the job market now is I tried to do consulting or something investment related my Junior summer too, and I didn’t get anything. There’s a one consulting place where a ton of people Hamilton people go to, so that was the main place I was focused on which was L.E.K. I did the case there it was two rounds, two cases; first round, three cases; second round and then didn’t get it unfortunately so I went through it all again. I think I applied to like way too many places, 40-50 places. But my senior fall, I think I got about 10 interviews. But the first place I got an interview, it was the place I’m going to work at now, it’s executive compensation consulting so the interview process was a little different, still a case but not like the Bain case that everyone hears about, it was more just like a word problem where you didn’t really need to prep for it, it was just how you think. And luckily I got the offer there, and I really liked them, so I’m going there. And then after I got the job as everything happens, I got like 10 more interviews; I was like, okay, I didn’t need to be so stressed but applied to a ton of places basically would find a place, find a Hamilton person, talk to them, apply and that’s how you do it. But yeah, it’s a ton of out-of-school work you have to do, you have to network, you have to prep, you have to, you know, go to people, write your resume and write your cover letters, and yeah, it’s a grind, but that’s basically every school, you have to leverage what you have and do your work.

Interviewer: Yeah, the job offers are sexy, the process not so much. 50 applications, give or take is a good effort. I think we had a panelist at Bridge actually that said he applied to over 200 jobs going out of undergrad, which is a funny story.

Tommy: Well it depends, it depends on if you ask, is it just like did you write a cover letter and tailor it like maybe it was 30 to 40 tailored and like 200 total where you just clicked the apply button. I don’t remember because how many days do people spend just scrolling through handshake hitting apply? I mean everyone gets in those days where you’re like I don’t know what I’m going to do and you just apply to everything.

Interviewer: Yeah you have those moments you’re just like I’m done writing cover letters I’m just going to click apply and just send my resume. So in the last few minutes I’d love to hear more about Hamilton as a place to live.

Whether a high school student or current college student is considering the school, what are the highlights, what’s it like living in the area?

Tommy: Yeah it might be a little cliché, but I think the people are the best part. I hope every school says that and I know a lot of schools do, but I think the community, is just one of the best things. There are so many different things you can get involved in and everyone is so nice and willing to engage in things, and I think that’s really one of the best parts. For a small school, there’s just so much going on that really, whatever you’re interested, you can find your group. I play sports obviously my team was a big part but there’s a small portion of Greek life if you want to get involved, there are a billion club teams pre-professional clubs, clubs that put on events for students. I mean, there’s just so much going on it’s hard not to get involved in something or do something, which is I think a really cool part of the place, and I really think that whatever your people are, you can find them, and that’s a really cool part of the community. And if you don’t have people, they host parties; they host concerts; there’s Greek life to go meet people; there’s a lot of different ways to get involved from that way to do something, which is which is really cool I think.

Interviewer: A big positive, yeah, that’s great. And like you’re saying, kind of testing out every single area whether it’s athletic, academic, social, it’s hard to walk around a small campus and not run into people that you’ve met somewhere.

One last question just on community and the place, what’s the best place on campus and off campus to hang out?

Tommy: Good question I saw this I was thinking about what to say – so we have a pub on campus which I think is one of the best parts and has really risen in popularity but it was just donated like a year ago so there’s lunch during the week and really good food and then at night it’s a little bar so if you’re over 21 you can grab a drink on the weekends it’s really turned into kind of like the final place you hang out after you do a mixer party or whatever. Everyone ends up at the pub which is cool, but also it’s a really cool place to hang out and I think it’s a really cool place to hang out. On Tuesdays they host trivia, on Thursdays there’s like senior-only night when there’s sports games, like our men’s hockey team are in the elite eight right now. Everyone goes and watches their games when they’re off campus, like in the pub, so that’s become a huge place and yeah, probably one of the favorite off-campus spots. So I guess to preface, Hamilton is a pretty small isolated campus, so most of what people do are on campus. It’s not like you’re going out in Utica and New Harford; there aren’t a ton of good restaurants in Utica. But there’s right downtown, like a two-minute drive, like a 20-minute walk, there’s Utica Coffee, which is a coffee shop everyone goes to, like every day. It’s a super great place when it gets nice out there’s like a gazebo and a big field in front of it to hang out, so that’s probably the number one off-campus spot I think most people would say very cool that I think.

Interviewer: More and more we just see students are considering amenities and facilities in the school and I think it’s good. I love highlighting them, and that was one of the things I think everyone jokes about this – like every friend group in college says they would start a bar or a diner on campus with their friends and just have everyone hang out there, so that’s really cool. We didn’t have that, but yeah, just to round it out for the sake of time, the last one is just a very general broad question you probably saw it,

…but just your advice for making the most of undergrad because I know students want return on investment, they want to do things, have new experiences um, but they also wanted to lead somewhere. So what’s your biggest tip for success in undergrad?

Tommy: I think my tip I’m figuring out is like do as much as you can; I’ve tried to take that more now that I’m done with sports, and I have so much time. So I’m just trying to do whatever, and I think that’s advice I would give to myself coming in and anyone else at colleges-they have so many more things than you think about, whether that’s like cross-country skiing trails at Hamilton or a billion different clubs or gyms or anything like that. Try and get involved as much as possible, that lets you meet people which can always lead anywhere, but it’s also makes you have fun instead of always grinding and thinking ‘you know you have to do certain things.I really found like I didn’t even know Hamilton had all these things in the last month that I’ve been starting to do so I’d really say try and take advantage of everything your school has to offer because it’ll always be more than you think and will lead to you knowing so many good things, whether that’s fun meeting people, things down the line, get involved in as much as you can, make yourself busy.

Interviewer: Yeah, it’s great advice and I think it’s a good note to end on. And just one more big thank you for your time. I think this is an awesome conversation, so thanks so much.

Tommy: Yeah, of course, thanks for having me. it was so much fun to talk about everything.