Since 2021, Pitt Business undergraduate students have worked as Student CEOs, leading one or more of the three Saxbys café locations around the University of Pittsburgh’s Oakland campus. For Fall 2023, the Cathedral of Learning café will be led by Evan Coury.
Coury is a junior majoring in accounting and finance from Springfield, Pennsylvania, who enjoys the NBA and UFC. Pitt Business prides itself on giving students experience-based learning opportunities and gaining professional exposure outside the classroom – and the Student CEO role is another opportunity.
We asked him a few questions about what he’s looking forward to in his semester at the helm:
Q: What interested you in becoming a Student CEO?
A: What interested me about the position was the opportunity to get to run a business in a controlled environment. I was convinced of how great the experience would be to practice owning a business and to see if being a business owner would truly be something I want to do in the future.
Q: What important lessons have you learned so far?
A: Some important lessons I learned so far are:
- There is going to be a learning curve with everything.
- Having a well-trained team is crucial.
- Things will always go wrong; it’s just how you find a way to deal with it.
Q: What do you hope to gain by the end of your time as Student CEO?
A: I hope to gain an understanding of what it takes to run a business and the critical things that go on behind the scenes I may have not known about before.
Q: What’s your dream job?
A: My dream job right now would be to be a business owner of some sort.
Q: What’s your favorite Saxbys menu item?
A: My favorite item has got to be the Salted Carmel Cold Brew
Through a wide array of project-based courses, case studies, class presentations, competitions, internships, and fellowships, the Pitt Business undergraduate program has numerous opportunities to apply knowledge to real-life business situations. To learn more, click here.
Interested in trying your hand at running a café at the Cathedral, Hillman Library, or Big Idea Center on Forbes Avenue? Keep an eye out for Spring 2024 applications coming soon. You can also read about the 2022 SCEOs – Shivani Gandhi (BSBA ’25), Dylan Minnick (BSBA ’24), and Maggie Yu (BSBA ’25) along with the 2021 SCEOs – Ceari Robinson (BSBA ’22) and Angel Albright-Sexton (BSBA ’24).
