Spotlighted Student: Jason Hirsch '16

In 10th grade Jason Hirsch ’16 played tennis on Haverford’s campus at the Julian Krinsky summer camp, and his love for the college and campus stayed with him. He knew he wanted to attend a small college with the opportunity to play tennis. As he read more about Haverford’s philosophies around trust, concern, respect and the Honor code, it made his decision to apply an easy one.

Jason had plans on being a pre-med student, with a major in either chemistry or biology, but he found lab-work unrewarding. He took Introduction to Economics with visiting Professor Tim Lambie-Hanson, and he was intrigued with the application of data analysis. He also took Crises, another course with Lambie-Hanson, where he learned more about macroeconomics.  This clinched his decision to major in Economics.

Jason is also earning a minor in Environmental Studies which ties into his passion for meteorology.  Since 1999, when Jason was 5 years old and hurricane Floyd hit his home of Newtown, PA, he has had a fascination and passion for weather patterns.  He has been writing a weather blog since 10th grade, http://philaburbiaweather.com/

During the summer after his freshman year Jason got involved with a few externships, including a hospital, an investment management firm and a health care consulting organization. The following summer he worked for AlphaCor, a medical testing start-up, where he travelled around visiting testers, gauging their productivity and assessing their quotas.

This past summer Jason was awarded a Whitehead Internship at DLL Financial Services, the lease finance subsidiary of Rabobank. He worked in project management and focused on business and information technology projects. In addition to upgrading accounting systems, he negotiated with vendors and ensured the efficient operation of the program.

Jason’s thesis is focusing on whether corruption has a significant impact on foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in oil-rich developing nations. His motivation behind this topic is how the resource curse of oil has affected oil economies in recent years. He aims to find out whether corruption in these countries will bring about different behaviors from expanding multinational firms. Jason will be conducting regressions to determine whether there is a significant positive or negative effect of corruption on FDI. He will be including multiple controls related to political rights and civil liberties in his analysis. He will also be exploring whether emerging oil-rich developing countries might have different results compared to other nations. 

Jason keeps busy with many activities including playing on the tennis team. He is Co-President of Students’ Council, where he is focusing on projects related to Haverford’s smoking policy and the athlete non-athlete divide. He is also Co-President of Haverford Investment Gurus (HIGS) and works in the Admissions Office as a Senior Interviewer, interviewing prospective students interested in Haverford. Finally, he serves on the Dining Services Development Committee. Using a food survey and implementing what was learned through that survey, he saw ratings of the food offered on campus go from an approval rating of 30% to 70%.

Jason has dreams of owning a business where he can utilize investment management skills, analyses, and project management. He wants to make a difference and have a say in changing the direction of a business.