Intro Speaker Male:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast by the host and guests may or may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Miami University.

Intro Speaker Female:

I am going into my last semester of chemical engineering.

Intro Speaker Male:

I'm a senior journalism major.

Intro Speaker Female:

And I'm minoring in supply chain and operations management.

Intro Speaker Male:

I'm a biochemistry major.

Intro Speaker Male:

Classes are going great. Extracurriculars are going great.

Intro Speaker Female:

I'm an RA on campus.

Intro Speaker Male:

I'm thriving.

Jason Meggyesy:

Hi, I'm Jason Meggyesy. And this is Major Insight. This is the podcast where we talk college life with amazing students about how to find your place and purpose on campus.

When Clinton Ransom came to college, he came with a cultural background that was very different from many of the people he would meet on campus. But that didn’t stop him from pursing his interests in business and finance.

And after an internship at Rocket Mortgage landed him an upcoming job at the Chicago real estate firm Marcus & Millichap, Clinton knew that sales and finance were the right career choices for him.

We’ll also talk more about learning how to thrive in a new and unfamiliar environment, the benefits of Greek life, and why it’s so important to take care of your mental health.

For the audience, just give an introduction. Who you are? Where you’re from?

Clinton Ransom:

My name's Clinton Ransom. I'm a senior finance major. I'm from Germantown, Ohio. It's a small town, just south of Dayton. Finishing up my first semester of senior year right now. And I just accepted a job offer at a commercial real estate brokerage in Chicago and living life man.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. Yeah. We'll get into the real estate stuff here in a little bit, but how's it feel finally getting into senior year? I mean, for me it feels like it's just flown by.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. It actually feels like literally yesterday I was waking up in a dorm. There are always seniors freshman year that would be like, yeah, enjoy your time in Miami. Enjoy your time in Oxford. Because you're going to blink and it's just going to be over.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

And it actually has been.

Jason Meggyesy:

It's true. The one thing that I realized about going through college is that all the cliche things that people say, they're only cliche because it's accurate.

Clinton Ransom:

Oh, yeah. I wish there was more of it, but I'm also ready to get into the real world.

Jason Meggyesy:

So let's rewind all the way back. Give a little bit of background on Germantown, your upbringing, all that kind of stuff, man.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. So Germantown is a very small town, 5,000 people. The way I grew up is like, my dad works in a really big steel mill in Middletown as do a lot of dads in our town, like very blue collar upbringing, neither of my parents went to college. It really pushed in my head that I need to go to Miami or I need to go to Ohio State, something and get a degree. And I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I like, honestly, this sounds bad, but I knew I wanted to make money.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. I mean, that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing to say.

Clinton Ransom:

So the weird thing about Germantown is like, because it is so blue collar, I really did not get to see a lot of businessmen. I really didn't even know business was like, I don't know, a persuadable career. Like what I could do there. Just because everyone who was doing business, all I saw was in like TV shows and stuff. So I was like, I'm going to be a doctor because the only rich people in my town were doctors of lawyers. And I'm terrible at arguing. I like people way too much. So I couldn't do that. So I was going to be a doctor. And then I saw my buddy Ryan reading a book about ... he was reading a book about cancer and I was like, why are you reading that? And he's like, dude, it's interesting. And literally in that moment, like junior year, it clicked in my head like, oh my God, I hate science. Science is so boring.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

In my opinion, obviously like to each their own. There are a lot of bright individuals out there who love it. I am not one of those people. I cannot. It just isn't me. So then I was like, what am I going to do with my life? I took one marketing class in high school, one of two business classes my high school offered. And I was like, you know what? This is it. Market marketing is it. So I made that my major and applied to Miami University and here we are.

Jason Meggyesy:

So not seeing any role model or type of person, that's like, oh I really want to do that thing that they're doing as a profession. How did that affect you?

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah, definitely. So coming into college is like super confusing trying to figure out what you want to do for anybody really. Even if you do have those role models and think you know what you want to do, you'll come into college and you'll take a class here or there and like either this will peak your interest or something you thought you wanted to do will just be the most boring thing ever. And that's what happened to me. Because I was like, I took that one marketing class in high school and I was like, this is definitely what I want to do. And the summer before college, I kind of realized like, shoot, what kind of job can I get where I can just do things I like? Then I had to figure out things I like and things I like were talking to people, getting to meet new people, creating relationships. So I realized I wanted to do sales and I thought marketing was my gateway to that. And then I took a marketing class and I realized like, how far away,

Jason Meggyesy:

You're talking about marketing class here?

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. I took a marketing class here at Miami and I was like, that is not at all what I thought it was. What am I going to do? I know I want to do sales, but how am I going to get there? What business degree do I need? I kind of thought at that point, all right, finance might be the way to go. Because I saw some older guys in my fraternity going into sales positions at companies like P&G and they were finance majors. And I was like, okay, maybe this will be the most helpful thing for me. Get a good grasp on finance and money. And hopefully, I'll just let my sales skills that I've acquired from just talking to people, do the rest of the work.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. So kind of talk to me about, you're senior in high school and you're considering Miami, you're considering these other places. What other places were you considering and why Miami ultimately?

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah, so I was definitely only looking in state. That's really all I had the funds for, but my entire life, I wanted to go to Ohio State. I'm still a huge Buckeye fan, but the first time I visited Miami, I was like, this is where I want to go. I walked around this campus and I knew people who went here. I don't know. I just like the culture. I feel like it was such a very much more tight knit than what I would've gotten at Ohio State. Because those were like my final two and Ohio State was just way too big. I was not going to walk 35 minutes to class. And the thing there is like, you don't get a chance to meet as many people or know as many people because here and people like hate on Greek life a little bit, but I think it's one of the most influential things I've done here in Miami.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Just because it's allowed me to meet an absurd amount of people.

Jason Meggyesy:

So after you decide to make the decision to come to Miami, for all the reasons you just mentioned, how was that transition for you? What were the biggest surprises that you found your first semester, even your first whole year of school?

Clinton Ransom:

Ooh. See, freshman year was without a doubt one of the toughest years. I felt like every other kid I met was from like one, a big city.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Two, an upper middle class family.

Jason Meggyesy:

Just different, just different from-

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah, dude. They had been to places around the world, around the country. We are not the same.

Jason Meggyesy:

It felt like everyone had already known the game and we just came in and we had to learn how to play the game.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. Like a majority of the kids I graduated high school with, like I was one of two guys in my high school, graduating class to go to school and rush fraternity. It was mind blowing. It was culture shock.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Honestly. And for such a long time, I was down on myself over that kind of ... like, I shouldn't be around these kids. I'm not worthy or whatever, which is stupid. And then probably junior year, I started using that as like, even though these kids came from this.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. Different backgrounds. Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. Yeah. And I came from like this, we're in the same place right now.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

It really does not matter.

Jason Meggyesy:

What things did you do freshman year to navigate these feelings of, you said out of place, just different feelings that you hadn't had before from home?

Clinton Ransom:

I didn't try to be what everyone was.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

I was just myself and people enjoyed that. I don't know. I just tried to be the same kid I was in high school and guess I grew up and learned to not let that bother me really. Because it doesn't matter. There are kids from every background possible at this school and you'll find a friend somewhere.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Even if they're not from the same place as you, same background, whatever.

Jason Meggyesy:

Facts. Now let's talk about the Delta Chi fraternity. Tell me what it's done for you throughout these four years that you've been in school.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah, definitely. So for me, I found my best friends, ever, some incredible individuals that I hope to stay in contact with until the day I die. People I hope are standing next to me at my wedding. Not only that, the amount of job opportunities that I found because of former Delta Chi's, like I found my internship this past summer and my now job because a guy who was a senior our freshman year, like I hit him up and was like, oh I want to do this, hook me up with somebody and help me out. I think there are academic, social relationship benefits. So many great things that come out of Greek life. It just gets a bad rep. I've also gained from being on like exec and being in chair positions. So much career experience like dealing with people, managing people. The best sales experience I ever got was being a recruitment chair for a fraternity.

Jason Meggyesy:

So talk to me about the switch and the motivation for the switch between marketing and finance and kind of why you gravitated more towards the finance route than the marketing route.

Clinton Ransom:

I took a marketing class and it was very much... It was very broad. Marketing is something where you're figuring out how to reach a large audience of people and how to pitch a certain thing. But you're not dealing with those customers and clients directly. And I want to do sales where I am talking to the client, I'm interacting with them. I'm helping them find a solution to their problem one on one. And I didn't know what I wanted to sell, but I knew that understanding the finances behind it ... because at the end of the day, everything has a price. Everything has a price. So I just figured finance would be the best thing. At the end of the day, knowing a deep dive into finance would help me so much more when it came to actually selling stuff.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Now knowing what I'm going to do, it's going to help me so exponentially to have an incredible grasp on how people finance the things they buy.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. So you touched on the Rocket Mortgage internship a little bit. You did this internship with Rocket Mortgage. How do you think that ... first off, if you could explain kind of what you were doing.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. I was a strategic sales intern and strategic sales is like business development. So a big part of my job and the job of the people I was working with, what they were doing was just finding any connection possible between home purchasing and other businesses. So companies like Zillow where people are trying to buy homes. But I would just research all day long, different companies that would do stuff with home buying.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Or had some link to it so that they could reach out and then I would get their phone number and their information and the salesman on my team would reach out to them and try to set up partnerships.

Jason Meggyesy:

Got you. So that perfectly segues into the question that I was going to ask originally. So you did this internship with Rocket Mortgage. How did that help you with your internship last year with the company? What was the company again?

Clinton Ransom:

Marcus & Millichap.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. So how was that kind of a stepping stone at Rocket Mortgage to the one that you're doing now, which is kind of seems to be more tailored into the path that you want to go for your career.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. I could not have picked a better internship to set me up for what I did. Because a majority of what I was doing was either finding contact information for other companies and then updating them in our database, which we use Salesforce. And I got really, really good at finding literally anybody's name, number, email, LinkedIn. I could even find where people live, not going to lie.

Jason Meggyesy:

Okay.

Clinton Ransom:

No. That sounds weird. That sounds weird. But that's a big part of sales. So when I came to Marcus & Millichap, what they're doing is the brokers are calling property owners and trying to see if they want to sell their property.

Jason Meggyesy:

Now is this just residential or is it like, [crosstalk 00:12:07].

Clinton Ransom:

No. These are like commercial properties. So the team I was on, it's an industrial team. So like warehouse, shipping bays, factories, just these big, big, old properties throughout the middle third of the US really.

Jason Meggyesy:

So when was the moment that over this past summer, when you were in Chicago working for this company, that everything kind of seemed to click for you and you're thinking yourself, this is definitely what I need to be doing?

Clinton Ransom:

Probably the second or third week. And I was just downright exhausted, but I was just so happy and I just felt so confident. Not going to lie, junior year was pretty rough for me. Confidence was definitely low heading into this internship, but I was like, I'm going to be in downtown Chicago. I'm going to be living in the loop, working in the loop, walking to work every day, wearing my little suit. I don't know. It made me incredibly happy to be doing what I was doing, where I was doing it because I love Chicago, but also seeing how much grit my team had.

Clinton Ransom:

So I loved one, what they were doing. I thought it was so cool that they were just helping these people sell their property and they're making fat paychecks off of them. Not only that, they get to tour the properties, they get to go to new exciting cities, see the properties, meet with the people. They're making 250 calls a week. So theoretically like 20 to 70 of those people are going to stay on the line and talk to you. That's 20 to 70 new people you're meeting a week. I'm like, that is so awesome.

Jason Meggyesy:

So now you have your job lined up after school, you're a senior. What's the most important lesson you've learned?

Clinton Ransom:

I think the most important thing that I would tell anyone, stay attentive to your mental health. Mental health was something I did not even think about coming into college and all these new things were happening and I was lost in a foreign land. I was away from home. I was away from my parents and I had never felt so sad before. And then next thing I know I'm like, who do I talk to? What do I do? I think last year was the first year I started going to a therapist, like a mental health specialist just to talk to them. And that has been one of the most important things. And I don't think people talk about it enough or a lot of people try to keep it in or just like tough it out. And that is the worst thing to do, I think. So like just take care of your brain. If I could go back and give myself something, that's what I would say.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. And that was going to be my next question, but you already hit it. And I totally agree, man. I think it's so important to have relationships that you can come to people and talk and say what's on your mind and get that out there. Because like you were saying, it's just so unhealthy to keep it inside, man.

Clinton Ransom:

No one wants to say, oh, I'm sad or I'm anxious or I'm whatever. But at the end of the day, everyone gets sad or anxious or scared sometimes like,

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

Just say it. Who cares.

Jason Meggyesy:

It's a fact of life. It's honestly, I mean, whether you like it or not, it's part of the experience.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah.

Jason Meggyesy:

Not just college, but human experience in general.

Clinton Ransom:

Yeah. I was lucky enough to find some friends my freshman year that were much more educated on mental health and things like that than me. And being able to talk to them was really great. Because I had never talked about that stuff to anyone before. Like I said, I had bottled that all up in high school and meeting someone my freshman year that was so educated on anxiety and depression and I just like found them on my floor. Honestly just hanging out with people every day, whether they're educated on that stuff or not at one point, they'll try to help you. And if they can't help you there's resources out there. There's resources through the school. There's resources around Oxford.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

It's one Google search away.

Jason Meggyesy:

I think one word that we've kind of been dancing around it, but vulnerability also.

Clinton Ransom:

Oh yes, dude.

Jason Meggyesy:

Like being willing to kind of open up.

Clinton Ransom:

Yes. Being vulnerable is one of the most important characteristics I think a person can have. Honestly it takes so much confidence and so much strength to be vulnerable to someone, to show them your weaknesses. And I just think it brings you so much closer to other people.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah. It's all part of the experience, bro.

Clinton Ransom:

Exactly, bro.

Jason Meggyesy:

It's all part of the experience.

Clinton Ransom:

Exactly.

Jason Meggyesy:

No, I appreciate you so much, bro. Thank you.

Clinton Ransom:

No, this has been great. I really appreciate being on here and getting to do a podcast. My first ever podcast. I feel,

Jason Meggyesy:

Accomplish. Yeah. How you feel?

Clinton Ransom:

My God, I feel famous.

Jason Meggyesy:

Yeah.

Clinton Ransom:

First off, because I know this is going to go viral.

Jason Meggyesy:

No, we're going to hype this one up.

Clinton Ransom:

Oh my god. Stop.

Jason Meggyesy:

We’re gonna hype this one up.

Jason Meggyesy:

Clinton Ransom is studying finance at Miami University. And after graduation, he already has a job lined up at Marcus & Millichap, a commercial real estate firm in Chicago.

And thank you for listening to Major Insight. If you enjoyed this podcast, share with your friends or anyone interested in navigating college life. Many more episodes are now available wherever you get your podcasts.

SHOW NOTES:

Featured Majors:

• Finance

Featured Organizations or Internships:

• Rocket Mortgage
• Marcus & Millichap
• Delta Chi Fraternity

Career Cluster:

Accounting and Financial Services