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Having graduated as a double major in music and economics & business, Dave Mitchell ’05is working as a financial services professional, selling insurance and investment products.
“I have always wanted to help people make their money decisions more effectively,” he says. “Financial advising gives me a way to do that. My Income Tax, Investments, and Finance courses helped with this. The Investment Club and conversations with professors and other students outside class also helped me with this position; however, it’s a lot different than the academic world.”
Mitchell enjoyed a college career packed with experiences while completing his graduation requirements a semester early. He sang or played one of eight musical instruments for 11 different student ensembles, including the jazz, jazz combo, and spoken word ensembles; served as a tutor for music theory, finance, and economics courses; held the positions of vice president, secretary, and treasurer in Investment Club; and was a member of Arts Society and the Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Epsilon (economics) honor societies.
As a junior, Mitchell was an adjunct professor of music at Warren County Community College, and as sophomore, he was a music instructor and choir member at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church. He collaborated on a non-credit musical composition with Tom DiGiovanni ’96and traveled to Kenya and Tanzania for a January interim session course.
This spring, he received the J.H. Tarbell Award,awarded to a student who demonstrates the best understanding of financial operations and institutions. Previously, he earned the Eugene P. Chase Phi Beta Kappa Prize, given to sophomores who have demonstrated scholarship as first-year students.
Helping make all of this possible was a scholarship from the class of 1941.
“I have always been grateful to the donors of the various funds that helped me attend Lafayette,” says Mitchell, who was a Marquis Scholar. “I believe Lafayette secures some of its best talent in the classroom from the gracious donors of funds that support merit- and need-based aid. I have spoken with very high-caliber students who admit that the most attractive thing about Lafayette to them was the price tag after awards — in many cases, the determining factor over other schools.”
Mitchell feels a special connection to the class of 1941 scholarship as the grandson of the late Walt Mitchell ’41.
“I am proud to have followed in his and my father’s footsteps to a degree at Lafayette,” he says, “and the task was made much easier as a result of the assistance from the kind donors to the fund.”