亚历克斯·沃菲尔大约早上8点起床.m. 每一天. By 9, 他在去威彻斯特的路上, where he spends his mornings in meetings with his team at ModernSoftware—the Software Development Company he co-founded last summer. 这个团队, 由亚历克斯, 他的朋友蒂莫斯·彼得里斯, 他们的编码员, 书中 Menhe, 谁拥有计算机科学硕士学位, dedicates much of its time to prospecting potential investors, 倾听他们的问题, 并回应他们的需求. In essence, 亚历克斯 spends his mornings doing what he does best—helping others.

But when he was young, helping others did not come as naturally. 我在西雅图长大，后来, 宾西法尼亚, 亚历克斯 was home-schooled up until his junior year of high school. His social circle was relatively small and limited to those, well, close to home. Social situations were not exactly his forte growing up.

“There was a lot of misreading of situations growing up for me,” 亚历克斯 says. “People would come to me for help or just wanting to talk about themselves or understand their situations, 我要以我自己为中心. 我必须学会如何扭转局面.”

现在 a Business Administration major at Marist and graduating in less than 100 days, 亚历克斯 understands people’s situations for a living. 这一切都始于他15岁的时候. 他的父亲, an electrical engineer and former radio operator in the army with a developing interest in the stock market, 为亚历克斯的生日买了股票.

“就在那时，一切恍然大悟. Watching the numbers go up and down like that—it looked like magic.” As he continued to learn more and more about the logistics of mathematics and business, 他的兴趣发展成了一种激情, which he continued to foster as he watched others around him excel in the field. He oftentimes looked to his family and close friends for inspiration. 他的妈妈, 爸爸, 和哥哥, 安德斯, as well as his two close friends from 宾西法尼亚, 乔·马斯卡拉和斯宾塞·迪尔巴赫, served as the “main motivating factors” for 亚历克斯.  “我视他们为榜样，”他说.  

 By the time he completed his freshman year at bet亚洲365欢迎投注, spending much of his time in the Investment Center on campus, 亚历克斯渴望开创自己的事业. Himself along with seven fellow students developed a company based on a dating application for mobile devices—somewhat of a video-chat-type-Tindr. 该公司, 正如亚历克斯所说, 被烧毁了,” after the team discovered that the invention had a pre-existing patent.

    But already equipped with the knowledge and experience of most college-graduates, 亚历克斯 transformed the “crash and burn” into an opportunity the year following.  

“I got a call from 蒂莫 one night and he said: ‘Hey, remember that thing we tried last summer? 我知道有个人又想这么做了.摩登软件公司就这样开始了.         亚历克斯, 蒂莫, 第三项是, 书中, 不知疲倦地创办公司, 一开始几乎没有成功. 亚历克斯 described the process as filled with screw-ups, waiting and waiting to attract clients willing to invest in the new-born company. But it was also at this point where 亚历克斯 realized that he was not pursuing a career in business merely for the money. He was doing it because he could help people through whatever they were facing—whatever problem or need they had, 亚历克斯 and his team were given the opportunity to offer relief. 最终，“有些东西被抓住了。.” ModernSoftware adopted its first client a few months later.

Having been working for the company since July, 亚历克斯 devotes much time to mathematics. His days are colored with creating and analyzing financial charts—lots and lots of charts. But yet, the right side of his brain is far from inactive. 在高中时, he enjoyed writing almost as much as he did business—recording his life in the form of poems and short stories. 现在, his creative writing has bled into his passion for business in the form of SnoQap—the financial blog he created shortly after the launch of ModernSoftwares. 这个博客, which initially began as an opportunity for 亚历克斯 to merge his interests and produce articles related to technology and finance, has now evolved into a popular Wordpress site with four contributors—亚历克斯 and 蒂莫, along with fellow students Nick Collettea and Andrew Montalti.           

“It has been working out well because we are writing about what we are passionate about,” 亚历克斯 says. In the midst of his business ventures and self-started career and blog, 亚历克斯 continues to find ways to touch the lives of others, through his work as a Residence Assistant in Leo Hall, as well as involvement with 校园 Ministry community service. 在这种光线下, he has very much developed from his younger struggles with understanding and relating with people.  

“I have learned that you have to make it all about everyone else in life,” he says. “When you make it about you and are selfish and arrogant, 你不是在为社区服务, and you lose sight of why people find value in you.”

As graduation fast approaches, 亚历克斯 does not foresee too much changing. He plans on continuing the SnoQap blog and obtaining a full-time job while working with ModernSoftwares on the side. Of course, that is not to say that his adventures will plateau. “I just think that everything you want to do, you can do at any point in your life,” 亚历克斯 says. “You don’t really have to wait, because you are living your life right now.”

阿丽莎·赫尔伯特著