Name: Livia Dinu
Hometown: Bucharest, Romania
Current city: Boston, MA
Current occupation: Strategy Consultant

Major at Vassar: Economics (minors in Mathematics and Political Science)
Vassar Graduation Year: 2010
Vassar Dorm: Strong
Clubs/Orgs/activities that you were a part of at Vassar: Vassar Haiti Project, Strong House Team, Aikido, VISA

What is your fondest memory of Vassar?
 The Vassar Haiti Project Art Sale & Auction every year and the trip to Haiti in 2010, right after the earthquake, plus all the wonderful times spent hanging out with my friends.

If you could go to Vassar again, what would you do differently? 
First, I would have reached out to many more alumni to understand their career paths and what can one do with their life post college. I thought that messages to alumni had to be ‘perfect,’ whatever that meant without realizing that alumni are to help in a non-judgmental way. Second, I would have tried to take the prison class.

Describe your current job and the path you took to get there.
I am a strategy consultant, and my work revolves around solving various problems for generally large corporations: finding new paths for growth, accelerating growth within existing geographies or products, or figuring out how to make their operations scale better. I got my current job through a regular recruiting event while in business school. Prior to strategy consulting, I worked in economics consulting. I was lucky to get that job through a Career Fair at Vassar, and it was a great place to start my career.

What advice would you give current students or recent graduates interested in pursuing a career in your professional field or in applying for a job in the US?
Network, network, network. Don’t feel shy about reaching out to alumni (learn from my mistakes). This will help you understand what job or company may be more suitable for you, and whether the way alumni spend their days in that profession makes you excited. Prepare for your interviews — ideally practice the answers with your friends.

Do you have any quotes that you live by?
The inspirational quotes change all the time. At the moment, I have none, however I can’t get the following little poem out of my mind: “Hold him a little longer / Rock him a little more / Tell him another story (you’ve only told him four) / Let him sleep on your shoulder / Rejoice in his happy smile / He is only a little boy / For such a little while.” I have an (almost) 2-year old boy and the poem comes in handy in particular during toddler tantrums.