Kevin Jerome
Kevin Jerome is a junior at Tusculum College whose hard work and determination is unmatched by most of his peers. Jerome is a first-generation American whose parents came to the United States from Haiti. He grew up in Queens, N.Y. , with 14 family members in a two-bedroom apartment. Despite these beginnings, on which Kevin looks back with fondness, he has persevered and has chosen to take full advantage of all that Tusculum College has to offer.
A former Tusculum College football player who broke a weightlifting record at Tusculum his freshman year, Jerome is an international business and economics major. Through an on-campus recruiting event, he landed a prestigious internship with Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance and Financial Services. After only a few months, he was ranked nationally as Northwestern Mutual’s seventh leading intern in productivity. He is currently working on his Series Six and Sixty Three certifications to obtain his securities license by the end of his junior year. His lofty career goals include becoming a certified financial advisor and building his client base at Northwestern Mutual. He dreams of one day building an organization from the ground up and being heavily involved in philanthropy.
He works an average of 30 hours a week in his internship and has a full load of classes, but he still finds time to volunteer with the Young Professionals of Tri-Cities, Habitat for Humanity and Pou Yi Mou’n Yo, a charitable organization for children.
Robin Lay, the director of Career Services at Tusculum College, helped Jerome apply for his internship and said, “Kevin has the unique confidence to ask very successful (people) for career advice—mixed with enough humility to make him teachable—which means that he will continue to grow personally and professionally.”
With the help of several mentors and leaders, each of whom he believes owns a piece of his success, Jerome has been able to say “yes” to many opportunities. But like many students at Tusculum College, he also depends on the scholarship support that is made possible by gifts from alumni and friends of the College.
Alumni and friends create opportunities for students like Kevin by giving to the Tusculum Fund.