"I'm a normal teenager,” says Mitchell Krasnerman, as he lists the various activities he enjoys in his free time: going to clubs, restaurants and diners, bowling, and “chilling with my friends.” But this 18-year-old leads his active social life at the same time he maintains a 3.8 GPA in Baruch’s rigorous Undergraduate Honors Program. Krasnerman began college and the program when he was 16.
This poised-beyond-his-years finance major is clearly taking full advantage of all that Baruch has to offer. Last January, he studied abroad in Spain at the Collegio de España in Salamanca. The focus of his program: studying the Spanish language. “I learned more Spanish in my one month of study abroad than in three years in high school,” he jokes. He quickly adds, in earnest, “I was speaking well and could get around, but I would never list Spanish as a language that I’m fluent in.” (Krasnerman speaks Russian fluently: his parents and grandparents were born in Russia.)
Krasnerman has years of work experience behind him already. From 1998 to 2001, he worked at an insurance agency as an assistant underwriter, earning Employee
of the Month awards five times and Employee of the Year in 2000. He has held two internships: at Salomon Smith Barney, he was a marketing intern (“I was a mailer and cold caller”), and at HJ Berhman, he helped prepare tax returns and financial statements and kept tax law files up to date. He applied for 30 positions in the fields of finance and management through Baruch’s Internship Fair, some jobs in the city and others abroad. “I’d rather work in New York City,” he says.
Small class sizes and interesting teachers are what Krasnerman likes best about the Honors Program, citing favorite classes in law, psychology, and philosophy. He hopes to combine his study of finance with other business areas.

—DH