Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania ’25; Concentration in Leadership and Communication
When experienced financial advisor Alexander Lear (BAAS ’25) was ready to advance his career several years ago, he hit a professional roadblock. “I wasn't getting a lot of traction,” he begins, “and the main piece of feedback that I was getting was, ‘We'd love to hire you for this wealth management position, but you don't have a degree.’” Eager to check that box and move forward, Alex committed to studying full time to earn his bachelor’s and quickly return to his career. His experience in Penn LPS Online's Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) program, however, introduced Alex to a broader, more enriched future.
The traditional college path, Alex shares, hadn’t been an option for him. He graduated high school in 2008—the height of the Great Recession—and like many families, Alex’s was struggling. A friend offered him a job in financial services, so Alex joined the workforce, building a career with big banks and eventually earning his securities licenses.
When he decided to return to school a couple of years ago, his college search started with schools in his area—on-campus programs accessible to his West Palm Beach home, where he could easily transfer the handful of college credits he’d picked up over the years. A business-related major seemed obvious. Then Alex’s father, who lives in Philadelphia, texted him a local ad for he’d seen for Penn LPS Online's bachelor's program and encouraged Alex to look into it.
Alex was skeptical. “I didn’t know if I wanted to do something fully online—if the degree would be viewed the same—but I started to speak with some of the program team staff, like Kathy Urban and Eileen Ford, and looked into the faculty,” he says. “I was really impressed with the backgrounds and accomplishments of the people involved in the program.” He applied and was accepted for a fall 2023 start, with transfer credits fulfilling most of his BAAS degree electives.
“My primary goal was to boost my career prospects in my existing industry,” he recalls. “I've created this career in financial services, and if I obtained a bachelor's degree in pretty much any subject, I could be on a management track fairly soon.” Eager to complete his degree and return to the workforce, Alex and his advising team tactfully planned out his schedule to meet his target graduation date of December 2025.
“Then, as I started taking classes—these very interdisciplinary classes—I started finding interests like social science and behavioral economics and psychology,” he says. Alex began to engage more deeply in his courses than he expected, realizing he was studying subjects he never would have if he had attended a local school to major in finance. “The BAAS program opened up a lot of avenues.”
Intercultural Communication was one of Alex’s first classes, which he describes as a mix of communications and global studies. “The class taught me a lot about how we view the world, how to look at things through different people’s perspectives, and how to value those perspectives,” he says. Another transformative class was Ethics and Society. “Studying moral philosophy and ethical reasoning, I started to think about what I really wanted to be doing with the rest of my life.”
As he worked his way through his degree, choosing the Leadership and Communication (LEAD) concentration, he continued to consider what his future could be. “Global Environmental Issues opened my eyes to how I’ve always been passionate about the environment and conservation,” he says, recalling his time as a Boy Scout and how he enjoys vacationing in the Carolina mountains. “Climate change is probably the greatest existential threat of our time. These are immensely complex problems, and we need people to sign up to help address these issues.”
With Global Leadership and Problem-Solving, which he describes as the capstone course in the LEAD concentration curriculum, Alex gained a practical glimpse of global development programs. “We got to interact with a social development expert at the World Bank, and we studied malaria eradication efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he says. The course highlighted for Alex the life-saving impact that international aid through US funding and programmatic support can provide. “You may hear about it in the news, but to be able to talk to people who are on the ground in Africa working on these issues was really interesting.”
Alex is on track to graduate in December 2025, but his Penn experience has changed his plans for what comes next. “With Penn, I've been so engaged with all the coursework that I realized I want to continue learning after my bachelor's and earn a higher degree of specialization.”
Over the next few months, Alex will be preparing for graduate school. He’s considering business programs among the best schools in the US and UK, particularly degrees that he can apply to sustainability and climate finance roles. The University of Edinburgh in Scotland, which has strong sustainability programs, is his top choice, he notes.
“I don't know exactly what I'm going to do after graduate school, but I would like to work at the intersection of the environment and society,” he shares. “I know that I need to be doing something with a social purpose.”
With his Penn degree, a high GPA, and strong recommendations from his LEAD instructors, Alex is confident he will have his pick of grad schools. For prospective BAAS students who may be skeptical, like he was, Alex advises they navigate to the BAAS Graduate Success webpage. “If you're at all considering continuing to a graduate program, if you want to know what potentially could be next to you, take a look at the graduate school acceptances on that page. There are amazing programs that students are getting into post-graduation.”
