While University of Miami graduates tend to fare well in the workforce, many Hurricane alumni are facing shocking realities in the world outside of Coral Gables.
“People just don’t get it,” said 2015 graduate Todd Matthews about his current job as a sales manager in Portland, Oregon. “No one here understands that it’s all about the U.”
Matthews is one of many alumni who have had difficulties transitioning into a non-UM life.
Rachel Stone, a 2014 graduate, has had similar issues during her job hunt.
“Employers are usually impressed with my resume, but the interview process is always difficult,” Stone said. “Sometimes I will tell interviewers that I went to college at the U and they’ll ask me, ‘The U of what?’ How ridiculous is that? ‘The U’ obviously refers to a medium-sized private school in South Florida. What else could it refer to? One of the other 5,300 colleges or universities in the United States?”
Stone’s frustration lies beyond the lack of awareness of the central importance of UM. She stated that a lack of respect for the U has hindered her ability to utilize the skills that she has acquired at Miami.
“How am I supposed to use my UM education to become an innovative and global leader if people don’t understand that it’s all about the U? Sometimes people are so closed-minded,” Stone said.
Alexander Rice, an associate at Goldman Sachs, has a different view on the situation. “I’ve interviewed multiple University of Miami graduates and some of them have taken personal offense to some of the questions I ask them,” Rice said. “In response to a question about working through adversity, a UM alum simply referred to sitting through an entire afternoon game at Sun Life Stadium. Recently I had a young woman throw a book at me when I said that I literally have never heard of a guy named Brad Kaaya. She kept yelling at me to stop talking about her future husband like that.”
Rice later pointed to a scar on the back of his neck and said, “I asked if she went to the one in Ohio.”
Conner Barrett is a freshman majoring in political science. The quotations used in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real entities is purely coincidental.