In the Jungle; John Botts

Thank you for joining us for In The Jungle, where you stay connected to the current students at Pittsburgh State University. Now here's your host, Howard Smith. Welcome to In The Jungle, where we meet the grillers of Pittsburgh State University. I'm your host, Howard Smith, and today we are joined by John Bots. Hi, John. Hi. Thanks for being with us today. Thanks for inviting me. Hey, I understand you're from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Yes, sir. Tell me a little bit about Bartlesville. Bartlesville is about 36,000 people last time I checked. Good size town. I think people call it a retirement community, but I'll friendly place, enjoyed growing up there. Super. So, how did you find Pitt State from Bartlesville then? Well, I think the first time I heard about Pitt State was my junior in high school, Lamont Thompson, part of admissions, I believe at that time, came to our high school and gave a presentation on PSU, and that was the first time I found out about it. Wow. Did you get to a campus visit then? Yes, yeah. I think not too long after that we did. I went up with my parents and did a tour of the campus.

Had you heard about us before the recruiter? I tried to think of that. I think I'd probably seen the split face around, but I didn't connect it too much until he came and gave that presentation and talked to us, and I realized, oh, yeah, I've probably seen this before, heard about this school before. Well, that's cool. That is cool. So, what was your undergraduate major? Finance. Finance. And now you're actually working on your MBA? Yes, yeah. So, I like the school enough. I just kept going. How are you going? We love that. Yes. No, we have some great programs, so what do you want to do when you get out then? I mean, you're pursuing an MBA, obviously, it's towards some type of goal, I assume. Yeah, I don't actually have a specific career path that I know right now. I think I've always enjoyed managing money, and that's why I did finance for my undergrad. Right. So, I think working in a bank or working as financial advisor, something like that, helping people, which, however, way I can.

So, have you had any internships or anything like that? Yeah, I've done a couple internships. This last summer, I had an internship at Farmer's Insurance, and that kind of learning about that industry had an internship at Shamrock Trading Corporation in Kansas City. That was a good one too. Tell me, so what did you do in your internships? I mean, were they insurance and farmers in Shamrock? Yeah, yeah. They're a little different. Farmer's insurance, obviously, insurance. At that internship, I was working in claims, so talking to customers, trying to get them back to where they were before, whatever accent they've had, or anything like that. And Shamrock Trading Corporation was working more towards the finance side of things with different accounts like accounts receivable, accounts payable, that kind of thing. Would you feel like it helped you? Yeah, both were very helpful in kind of guiding me and thinking through what I want to do long-term in my career, but...

So, tell me what it's like to be working on your MBA right now. Do you go to school all day? Do you go on the evening? What do you do? Yeah. Well, it's been different each semester. This semester is different because two of my classes are night classes, so there are evening on campus, and then I have one online class. So it's a little different to having two night classes and online class, but also past two semesters, it's been more during the day in class, so it's a little bit of everything. Okay. Has there been anybody on campus that's had an influence on you? Yes. I think of two professors, one who is not not here anymore, Jeff Poe. He was a professor in in-cals, took a couple of classes with him, learned a lot in those classes, and he was just a good person to talk to outside of class also. And also Dr. Brocker, Kevin Brocker, also had a few classes with him in-cals, and I've talked with him on all kinds of things outside of class also, so those two are... So, what kind of stood out, I mean, as far as those two individuals creating an

office, obviously they've created a good rapport with him, and what kinds of things did they do then? Well, I think of Jeff Poe's, someone I talked to, I started a business while I was here in college. He's someone I talked to, but... Is this still going? No, not anymore. That was my cotton candy business, but he's someone I talked to about that and kind of helped work through some things there, and just different conversations about things. Dr. Brocker, also, when I've had things outside of class that I've worked on, has been a good guide on things, so... It just sounds like a very personal one, not only a good academic with knowledge, but... Right. Fantastic. Hey, you're in a student organization or of some type. Yes. Tell us the name. Yes, it's called... They kind of describe what's going on with it. Yeah, definitely. It's called Gorilla CEO, and the CEO stands for Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, so obviously, like I said, I started a business, so I'm very interested in entrepreneurship

and those sort of things, so... It just got started within this past year, I guess we're technically going into our second year now, so it's a really new organization. We're trying to promote entrepreneurship and students, supporting students on campus that want to start businesses. This next month, we're actually having a pitch competition, kind of like a shark tank, if you've ever seen the show. Yeah, seeing this show, shark tank, it's going to be similar to that. So kind of elaborate on that for a minute, so where are you going to hold it and who's involved? Yeah, it'll be here on campus in the Student Center. Our group is Gorilla CEO's putting it on. It's open to all students, any major. Most people probably think of business majors as doing something like this, but it's open to everyone. Everyone can have a fun idea. It can be something that they've started already, some business that they've started or it can be a completely new thing that they just have an idea, that they want to pitch to some judges, and it'll be judged. And then there's a chance to win some prize money. Probably a good practice, then, too, if I wanted to pitch to a bank later. Yeah, you have some resources.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. It would be. That is cool. What's some of your favorite things about going to Pitt State? I love the campus. I knew on the first tour that we came up here, it definitely checked the box on a beautiful campus and always enjoy walking around here. Oh, good people. All the time I've spent here, I've met a lot of great people. I've made some good friends, met my wife here, so that was a good thing. That's value added education. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, those are two things I definitely think of. Hey, if we had a prospective student come in right now, based on some of the things you said, what would you tell them about why they should come to Pitt State and take a look? I would say you should come to Pitt State because there are endless possibilities of things you can do here. There's all kinds of different majors, you can decide on. There's all kinds of student organizations. I think there's over 100 student organizations. So there's so many different things you can be a part of and get involved in. And PSU really provides a good place to do that.

Hey, that proves why you belong at Pitt State University. John, thanks for being with us today and I'm your host Howard Smith. Thank you for listening. Join us for in the jungle, Wednesday afternoons at 350 and Friday mornings at 850 here on KRPS.