Class of 2016 graduate Alexandra Grote McCool is the highlighted alumna this quarter. She graduated in December of 2020 from Texas A&M with a Bachelor’s in Business Administration. She is currently working in San Antonio as an allocations analyst for Valero Energy Corporation and married her husband Jacob in October 2021.
How would you encourage a Geneva Rhetoric School student to make the most of their Geneva years?
I don’t remember how I did on any particular test or assignment. I do remember getting frozen yogurt in Greece on the junior trip, and sitting on the boardwalk for lunch in the sunshine. Don’t agonize over things you won’t remember in five years. Enjoy the people around you and the experiences Geneva offers. That is also my advice for parents.
How did your Geneva education/training prepare you for the work you are doing now?
My job involves managing a lot of customer relationships and is very communication driven. Geneva taught me to be articulate and concise in essays and I now apply that to my interactions with my customers.
Please describe the most significant value you learned from Geneva.
I would say the most significant value I learned at Geneva was the value of wisdom — that’s not to say I am wise by any means. It’s more that Geneva exposed me to a lot of wise people and gave me the blueprints I needed to seek out wisdom in others once I’d left. Knowing what wisdom looks like has helped me choose friends, advisors, and even my husband!
Describe Geneva in one word. Explain.
Support. Geneva is a unique culture — the teachers are invested in you, other families are invested in you, parents that don’t even know you are praying for you by name. That kind of support doesn’t leave when you graduate or move away.
Please share one or two of your Geneva extracurricular activities and then contrast that with one or two of your current non-work activities.
I did debate freshman year and yearbook later in high school. I definitely don’t make a hobby out of playing devil’s advocate, but I still love design and writing.