Students Meet Alumni and Explore Careers in San Francisco
By Rebecca GoldfineBowdoin students lured by the thought of living and working in San Francisco headed to the city over spring break to participate in West Trek, one of Career Exploration and Development's (CXD) annual job-focused excursions.
This year, West Trek was reimagined. Instead of traveling in one large group, students divided into smaller teams to explore finance, sustainability, social impact, technology, data and insights, or “non-tech tech careers” (jobs in tech companies that cover an array of functional roles such as marketing, design, and customer success). Each mini trek had between four and seven students.
CXD offered the mini treks after hearing from students that they valued the chance to have meaningful interactions with alumni or company representatives, which tend to arise more naturally in smaller gatherings.
Asher Savel ’26, an environmental studies and government major from San Antonio, Texas, joined the sustainability trek to visit a new city and meet people working in urban planning, the area he's most interested in. “I'm always looking to grow my network and my long-term relationships with professionals,” he explained. “In terms of meeting people who do the thing I want to do or things adjacent to what I want to do, the trip helped a lot.”
His group made stops at places like the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Transbay Joint Powers Authority, Earthjustice, and WRT, an urban architecture and landscape firm.
Each March, during the first week of spring break, CXD leads a trip for a select group of students to explore a city—traditionally San Francisco, New York, or Boston—to get a glimpse into their working and living environments. For two long, busy days, students visit companies and attend networking events, talks, and panels, meeting alumni and making new connections.
These trips are entirely funded for aided students. For those not receiving financial aid, everything except transportation to the hotel—airfare and taxi—is covered. Additionally, students receive a daily stipend to pay for breakfast and other incidental costs.
This fall, when CXD opened the West Trek applications, it asked students to name their preferred industry and ideal employer, and what they would ask someone who worked there. “Based on student feedback, we created six different paths for them,” CXD Director of Employer Engagement Dawn Gerding explained.
Gerding, who led the West Trek's data and insights track, said the mini treks ended up having additional benefits. “They allowed students the time, space, and platform to shine, and to show how mature, prepared, thoughtful, and curious they are,” she said. “I think the small groups also helped the alumni feel more engaged, since they really got to sit down and have an hour-long conversation, as opposed to leading a tour.”
Gerding added that the many companies included in the different itineraries enabled CXD to widen its reach in San Francisco. “We multiplied our stops this year, so we multiplied the potential cultivation of new employers for Bowdoin students,” she said. In total, more than fifty alumni welcomed the students over the course of the trip.
CXD Assistant Director of Employer Engagement Kimberly Buonaiuto, who led the trek dubbed “non-tech tech trek,” said it was clear that recruiters and alumni were impressed with the questions asked by students. Her group visited companies like Notion, Patreon, Plaid Technology, and Sigma.
“The students make it easy to leave a good impression!” Buonaiuto said. “You could tell they were thinking carefully about what people were doing within the larger tech sphere and how the liberal arts intersect with that work.”
CXD Associate Director Demetrius Rysz, who advises students interested in business, had the same experience on his finance track. “The students clearly did their research. The alumni seemed to be pretty moved by it.”
“As a senior, it's often hard and overwhelming to navigate the job search process. I wanted to use West Trek as an opportunity to regain confidence and hope in my career plans by interacting with Bowdoin alumni, who, just like me, have gone through the same education and job search experience and successfully come out on the other end.”
—Aurélie Nishimwe ’26
Rysz's students visited IndieBio/SOSV, Vista Equity Partners, Generate Capital, Silicon Valley Bank, Stifel, and JP Morgan. Joining the entire group, they also visited Salesforce and Orrick.
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West Trek students also convened as a full group throughout the trip, meeting with alumni at the companies Salesforce and Orrick, where they heard from alumni involved in a number of key technological developments over the past decades.
Trustee Mitch Zuklie ’91 and trustee emeritus Dave Brown ’79 spoke on a panel at Orrick. Zuklie later hosted a dinner for the Bowdoin visitors, with several notable San Francisco alumni: Sajjad Jaffer ’95, Andy Nakahata P’29, Matt Neidlinger ’06, Dean Preston ’91, Sarah Siwak ’13, and Brandon Sweeney ’89.
Students also attended an evening mixer on the waterfront with alumni from across the Bay Area and from different lines of work. President Safa Zaki gave remarks.
One of the students on the finance track, economics major and psychology minor Luke Purinton ’28, said the trek gave him confidence in his liberal arts education. He heard from employers and alumni working in the industry that Bowdoin prepares students to think critically, write effectively, and to move into positions of responsibility. “The broad education we've amassed not only gives us a strong foundation across disciplines but also equips us with the soft skills to work well on a team,” Purinton said.
Aurélie Nishimwe ’26, a psychology major and cinema studies minor, joined the social impact trek as it aligned with her aspirations in education, filmmaking, and making a difference. Nishimwe recounted a conversation her group had with a CEO about his preference for hiring people with a liberal arts degree versus a more industry-oriented one like marketing. “The CEO answered that with a liberal arts education, students are taught how to learn, and most careers require this willingness and ability to learn new things every day,” she said.
Shannon Kim ’28, an environmental studies and sociology major, joined the non-tech tech trek because she's interested in pursuing a career in innovation and design, possibly as a brand strategist, program manager, or architect. She said that San Francisco, as an epicenter of design, seems like a great place to land.
“I'm looking forward to working towards life in San Francisco by taking small steps to advance my knowledge of the industries out there,” she said. “My main hope is to continue nurturing the relationships we made in SF and continue to get excited about what life looks like post-grad.”
“Knowing that I want to end up working in the Bay, I consider myself so lucky to have a family of contacts in San Francisco that I can reach out to when I come back!”
—Shannon Kim ’28
More than fifty alumni supported West Trek this year. CXD would like to thank the following alumni for hosting West Trek students at their companies:
- Adam Van de Water ’95, executive director, Transbay Joint Powers Authority
- Lauren Withey ’06, staff scientist, Earthjustice
- Omar Alam ’01, vice president and associate general counsel, Salesforce
- Jed Repko ’00, partner and co-head of San Francisco office, Joele Frank
- Tony Stais ’87, managing director, Stifel
- Jenna Goldman ’03, head of commercial and new business, Plaid
- Matthew Nathan ’97, senior director of institutional development, WestEd
- Elisabeth Voigt ’00, chief of staff, Public Advocates
- Megan Welsh ’16, machine learning engineering manager, Apple
- Dante Moussapour ’19, growth strategist, Google
- Solomon Aborbie ’22, corporate customer engineer, Google
- Clare McInerney ’18, strategic partner development manager, Google
- Cathleen Nurse ’13, senior account executive, Google
- Parikshit Sharma ’17, partner, IndieBio / SOSV
- Will deBruynKops ’20, senior software engineer with WhatsApp
- Kate Fosburgh ’22, projects and grants specialist, Metropolitan Transportation Commission
- Leah Kahn ’15, trust & safety operations, Notion
- Zak Kokosa ’19, investor, Salesforce Ventures
- Fred Bierhaus ’90, principal MTS, Salesforce
- Jarrod Powell ’10, senior software engineer, Salesforce
- Franklin Reis ’14, senior vice president, Vista Equity Partners
- Matthew Nathan ’97, senior director of institutional development, WestEd
- Lexe Le ’25, software engineer, Atlassian
- Danielle Simon ’25, software engineer, Atlassian
- Ashley Jazbec ’24, credit risk analyst, JP Morgan
- Virgina Drake ’08, senior director of communications & public affairs, Bully Pulpit International
- Claudia Paz ’08, marketing director, Genentech
- Colin Waycott ’16, senior manager, analytics & insights, Genentech
- Andrew Hughes ’05, managing director, Generate Capital
- Maile Winterbottom ’25, account associate, Joele Frank
- Jack Butler ’22, senior account executive, Joele Frank
- Sonia Manssen ’15, customer success manager, Juicebox
- Patrick O'Connell ’22, software engineer, Juicebox
- Claire Traum ’21, go-to-market & insights, Lyra Health
- Dan Goldstein ’00, staff UX researcher, Patreon
- Jenna Goldman ’03, head of commercial & new business, Plaid Technology
- Matt Cowger ’03, engineering manager, Sigma Computing
- Chris Cameron ’15, director, Silicon Valley Bank
- Pete Edmunds ’14, partnership sales director, Voltus
- Josh George ’20, data analytics manager, Weights & Biases
- Ken Okawa ’18, software engineer, Workday
- Thomas Namara ’19, planner and project manager, WRT