Following graduation, recent former student body presidents have taken on a variety of careers, from teaching, to law to entrepreneurship. Despite the differences in occupation, all former leaders interviewed by The Dartmouth agreed that Student Assembly had a profound influence on their adult lives teaching them the importance of interpersonal skills, training them in conflict resolution and even affecting their love lives.
Two student body presidents, Jorge Miranda '01 and Molly Miranda '02 known as Molly Stutzman when she served as student body president married in 2006.
Jorge Miranda, a government major and education minor, has worked as a teacher and currently serves as the principal of MATCH Charter Public High School in Boston. Molly Miranda, who graduated from the College with a degree in history. After graduation, she took a job working for the provost of Tufts University, Jamshed Bharucha, who had been the dean of faculty at Dartmouth while she served as student body president.
Although working at Tufts was a "terrific experience," Molly Miranda said she realized she was interested in business and joined executive search firm Spencer Stuart.
As student body president, Molly Miranda served as the student representative on the College's search committees for the vice president of public affairs and the athletic director. Her involvement in these committees sparked her interest in executive recruiting, she said.
Molly Miranda recently completed her MBA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloane School of Management and will begin working as a consultant at Deloitte Development LLC in September, she said.
In 2006, Jorge and Molly Miranda, who got to know each other through the Assembly, were married at the Newagen Seaside Inn in Newagen, Maine, according to their wedding announcement in The New York Times.
Both said that their experience as student body president has helped them in their professional lives.
"I think when done well, student government is individuals trying to make Dartmouth a better place, and in the process, you learn a lot of skills about working with people, working with administration, trying to move something forward," Jorge Miranda said. "In my mind, it's not about politics."
Serving a diverse constituency as student body president helped Molly Miranda learn how to "navigate the world" a skill that made her transition between jobs much easier, she said.
"It's part of what makes your post-college life sort of magical in a way," Molly Miranda said. "You can plan your life to some degree, but a lot of it is happenstance and luck and fortune. That's certainly true for me."
After graduating from the College, Dean Krishna '01 moved to Palo Alto, Calif., to teach sixth grade for Teach for America. In 2007, he received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
After receiving his Master of Laws degree at New York University in the spring, Krishna is planning to move back to his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa to practice law, he said.
"[In the Assembly,] I learned how to effectively push for change when your power is limited, because that's life," Krishna said.
After his tenure as student body president, Josh Green '00, a government major, became a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group before attending Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School, he said.
In 2005, he and a friend started Panjiva, "a technology company that provides information and tools that make global trade more efficient," Green said.
"Ultimately when I decided to start my own company, it was building on skills that I gained in terms of managing teams but also building on a passion I had developed while being president, which was for new ideas, getting something started, building something from nothing," Green said.
Green recruited former student body vice president Case Dorkey '99 to help with the company's start-up. Dorkey currently serves as the director of business development at Panjiva.
"When I was [student body] president, I worked with a really great group of people, and it made my job significantly easier and significantly more fun," Green said. "Since that experience, I've put a premium on making sure I'm working with best possible people."
Frances Vernon '10, who stepped down from the presidency last month, is not certain where her post-graduation life will take her, she said.
Vernon, who created her own major in globalization, health and development with a focus on Latin America, is currently finishing her thesis about migrant health. Her experience in the Assembly taught her how to work with many different types of people and how to examine issues critically from a variety of angles, she said.
Vernon will begin work in the Natural Resources Group of Goldman Sachs in New York next year, although she hopes to be in medical school in four or five years, she said.
"In order to really understand the complexity and multidisciplinary background of a lot of the world's very large problems, I felt it was going to be very helpful to have at least some working knowledge and experience in learning about what the world of finance is really all about," Vernon said.
