Hello! My name is Sean Cleary. I grew up in Columbia, SC and attended the University of South Carolina-Columbia, where I earned both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees from. My Bachelor's degree (2011) is in Business Administration (Accounting), and my Master's degree (2016) is in Higher Education and Student Affairs.I was inspired to pursue a career in higher education through my time as an orientation leader during my undergraduate career. My professional career started at the University of South Carolina as a Junior Budget Analyst, a role that I held from 2011-14. This role was a perfect blend of my accounting major and interest in higher education, but I found myself wanting to move into a role where I could have an impact on incoming first-year and transfer students. In 2014, I made the decision to pursue my Master's degree full-time and accepted a graduate assistantship with USC's Undergraduate Admissions office planning all of their special events. This was a wonderful experience planning events that had a direct impact on incoming first-year and transfer students, and spawned my love of enrollment management. During this time (summer 2015), I also held a NODA internship as the NODA Intern for New Student Orientation at Suffolk University in Boston.After graduating in 2016, I spent 2 years working in undergraduate admissions at Georgia Southern University, 1 year in undergraduate admissions at UMass-Boston, and 5 years in enrollment management at Harvard's Division of Continuing Education. After 8 years of living out of state and working in enrollment management roles, I made the decision in summer 2024 to move back to Columbia and return to the University of South Carolina again. In order to continue to expand my knowledge of higher education, while also having an impact on first-year students, I took a role outside of enrollment management. I currently serve as the Resources and External Relations Manager at the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at USC. In this role, I oversee marketing, communications, publications, and the website for the NRC. I'm excited to continue to grow as a leader in this role.