Skills Learned in Jurisprudence Learning Community Help Student Land Full-Time Position

Cameron Chambers likes a plan. As a high school senior, the Bethesda, Maryland, native already had his career path mapped out.

Now a Bachelor’s/Accelerated Master’s (BAM) student majoring in accounting in the Costello College of Business, Chambers chose George Mason University specifically for the BAM pathway and the opportunity to jumpstart his education and achieve his goal of practicing tax law.

“People always said, ‘Think of education as an investment,’ so I just researched it,” he said. “George Mason offered the BAM program and I could apply to be a CPA. It lets me do that faster so I can go to law school. It gave me a good place to do all those things.” 

As an undergraduate in the Honors College, Chambers explored avenues that would enhance his interest in a future law career. He is a member of the George Mason Academic Standards Committee and an editor for the Undergraduate Law Review, part of the Schar School Patriot Pre-Law Program. 

He also discovered the Jurisprudence Learning Community (JPLC), one of four faculty-led communities, each with its own academic theme, housed in the Schar School of Policy and Government. JPLC is open to any sophomores, juniors, and seniors who plan on pursuing law school following graduation or are interested in learning how the law pertains to a career in public administration, policy, or politics.

“I was looking at any opportunity as an undergraduate to get my foot in the door and also investigate law as a practice and see if it was something I would do,” he said.

In addition to joining a community of peers interested in law and attending field trips in and around the Washington, D.C., area, Chambers gained something unexpected in the JPLC.

“We were assigned a lot of legal research projects,” he said. “I don’t do that as an accounting major.”

The experience of doing research served Chambers well when he interned for eight weeks last summer at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) doing mergers and acquisitions. 

“There’s a lot of tax code I had to go through,” he said. “That legal research skill set that I got was invaluable. Other people didn’t have it. And I thought ‘Why am I not struggling?’ Because I did this.” 

Chambers, slated to graduate in December and begin next semester as a graduate student, credits JPLC with helping him secure a full-time offer from PwC as a tax associate starting in the summer. He reached out to Shea Holman, director of JPLC, to share the good news. 

“I told her that the [JPLC] class prepped me for this perfectly,” he said. “It was that legal research ability that differentiated me and definitely helped me get that return offer in a competitive space.”

For more information about the Jurisprudence Learning Community or any of the Schar School’s other learning communities, visit the Schar School Learning Community webpage.