By Jonas Ward
Senior accounting major Justin Wise is a men’s lacrosse team leader who recently finished an internship at IBM. After he graduates, Wise has a job lined up as a Global Business Services Federal Sector Accountant.
Wise started a six month internship at IBM In June of 2020. During the internship, he was also taking online classes that following fall.
“In June of 2020, I started a six month internship from June 2020 to January 2021 working full-time at IBM as an Accounting Analyst in their International Global Financing Department while also taking 3 classes online in the fall,” Wise said. “I was also offered and accepted an extension of my co-op working on a part-time basis in my new role [GBS Federal Sector Accounting] from January-May and then will start my full-time role in May when I graduate.”
During his internship, Wise was also dedicated to his lacrosse team. He dedicated a lot of energy to his team, alongside his schooling.
“To me, a leader on our team is someone that puts the team first and represents our team in the correct way,” Wise said. “They’re also someone the team respects, looks up to and the team has all their trust in them to lead and steer the team in the right direction. Being a team leader does not mean you’re better than everyone else, it means your team trusts you to do what’s best for the whole team and they will follow you.”
Max Burgio, one of Wise’s best friends, has known him since first grade. They have played sports together throughout their childhood, and they ended up going to college at the same time and both played lacrosse. Burgio’s father was Wise’s first baseball coach when he was younger.
“He is one of my best friends and one of the nicest people I’ve met,” Burgio said. “He’d do just about anything for his friends and as a teammate there is no one I would else I’d rather have next to me on the field.”
When Wise is not studying or playing a lacrosse game, he loves to unwind with his friends on campus. Since his freshman year, he and his friends have come to favor a certain pastime, video games.
“My favorite free-time activity has got to be playing the video game NHL with my housemates Walter Saraceni, Kyle Dodge and Matt McAlpine,” Wise said. We’ve been playing it together since our freshman year and we are very competitive people and hate to lose, so things get pretty heated as you can imagine.”
Andrew Hauk is Wise’s lacrosse coach. He has been a mentor for Wise since he joined the team his freshman year. Hauk said Wise is selfless.
“Justin always puts others before himself,” Hauk said. It doesn’t matter if you are a senior or a freshman, he treats everyone the same way and holds his teammates to the same high standard that our program demands from our players. He truly is a great role model for all of our younger players to aspire to be like when they are the future leaders of our team.”
