Quality Education
Life-Long Learning
The rain hasn’t begun yet in Seattle, but Raxhit Patel is ready for it. After seven years in the Mid-South, this young man traded in his Olive Branch address for one in Washington – where he knew not a soul.
Why go halfway across the country to start a new life? After an impressive internship, Amazon offered Raxhit a great job so, two months after graduation, he began as a Financial Analyst with the shipping mogul. “I’m a little fish in a big pond,” he says. “Most of the people I started with have five years of accounting experience. It’s hard for Amazon to hire students right out of college.” But they hired him.
He credits a series of exceptional internships for giving him the skills Amazon was looking for: leadership, curiosity, potential.
But Raxhit wasn’t always the go-getter he is now. In high school he says he tended to procrastinate, that he “was more laid back and willing to let other people take the lead.” The motivation was simply due dates and grades without a lot of internal drive. “The changes came from doing different internships,” he explains. Of course, there’s still always a due date, but when I was interning it just felt like more of an important responsibility. Now I’m going to jump in and do it. Any project.”
His first internship at CBRE was a year-long paid internship, followed by paid positions at Amazon in the summer before his senior year and the Merston Group during tax season. Putting into practice the knowledge he had gleaned from professors empowered him with a new sense of purpose. “Dr. Weske was key, and “Dr.” Morgret – he knows tax code off the top of his head! And Dr. Marshall went a little off script and talked a good bit about Alteryx.” As it turns out, that knowledge of Alteryx helped Raxhit land his job at Amazon.
Still relatively new to the corporate world, this CBU alumnus is learning his way around. Although he’s gone to the office a couple of times, it’s fairly deserted because nearly everyone still works from home. But he takes great pride in what he does: analyzing processes, streamlining and automating them. Most companies take twenty days to close out each month’s data, but Amazon has a goal of two days. Raxhit says what we are all thinking: “That’s a lot of data, so it’s an ambitious goal.”
He’s up for the challenge though. From the start, he has shown the drive and the leadership skills he learned at CBU and in his internships. “The team I joined here was understaffed, and I had no clue what to do when I joined. I had to catch up. It was really a big responsibility. But I did it.”
Raxhit loves what he does. As he works through the company’s two-year training program, he’s learning a great deal that will serve him both in this job and in other positions. Currently in a marketing rotation, he’s realized “how much money people make just by advertising.” Unsure of what the next training rotation will be, he’s looking forward to choosing the third, an intensive year-long practicum. He smiles and says that taking this job is “one of the best choices I’ve made. It’s not easy learning. It’s not easy to keep up. We have to be motivated from inside or the train will go over us.” But he also knows he was well prepared: “CBU set the foundation. University of Memphis offers accounting too, but I chose CBU because of the curriculum options. It gave me all the basics.” In fact, it gave him the tools not only to impress his manager in a meeting after last month’s close but also to earn their finance company’s trust.
He’s also finding his way around Seattle. “Moving to a different city straight out of college was a little nerve wracking, but I’m expanding my network,” getting together with coworkers to hang out and explore downtown. Naturally, he compares his new home to his old: “I’m a vegetarian and Memphis spots are barbecue heavy, but I’m finding many places here where I can eat great food.” And he’s enjoying the weather so far. “It’s a lot the same as home, but not so hot. Most new construction projects don’t even have air conditioning. I’m learning a whole different way of living.”
Raxhit looks forward to passing on his blessings. “Enter to Learn, Leave to Serve: it’s a part of CBU, and now it’s a part of me, to help as many as I can. For now, I guess I can offer back my skills, take the things that I can do and make another contribution to someone else. But I don’t always know exactly how yet. I’m still learning.”
Learning. Always learning. That’s what has made Raxhit Patel a CBU success.