Hard & soft skills: James Dunning and Tyler Dunning at Capital One

"I've got two resumes that are almost identical," the slightly confused Capital One recruiter told Tyler Dunning (EBA, '22). He applied to the same position after his twin brother James (EBA, '22) was accepted. "She got a kick out of the fact that we were both applying," James said. The brothers graduated from PHC in 2022 with degrees in Economics & Business Analytics. They started in August of 2022 working as business analysts for Capital One in Tyson's Corner, VA, and Patrick Henry College's liberal arts education prepared them well.

"It's been cool to see how business is very much a liberal arts discipline," Tyler said. "Business is very interdisciplinary because to be effective at business, you have to be a generalist—good at a wide range of skills." The range includes logical skills like coding and softer skills like communication.

The Dunnings have found that Capital One seems to value the liberal arts. For example, they entered a two-year rotational program with 150 other business analysts, where they each spent a year in a different role. "They want you to keep moving around so you can get exposure to a lot of different aspects of the business," James said.

Also, even though a big part of their job involves coding, most of the people starting the same role as James and Tyler had no coding experience. "[Capital One] recognizes that what matters a lot more is critical thinking skills or communication skills or other things you might have learned in college," James said. A liberal arts education, which students receive at PHC, teaches skills that take longer to develop, such as writing and critical thinking. "It can feel like because PHC doesn't have as much of a STEM or technical focus, that can put you behind in the business world," he said. But technical skills are easier to pick up in the workplace. 

Tyler noted the similarities in goals between the business world and liberal arts education. Liberal arts education is concerned with what good looks like. "To understand the world or have wisdom, it begins with answering the question, 'what does good look like?'" he said. The business world is concerned with learning what good looks like in a practical context.

Tyler works for the "core credit card" team, focusing on regulations for people who are building credit or have good credit. James works on the "new to credit" team, focusing on students, immigrants, and other people who haven't had a credit card for long. Daily tasks include writing code to pull data and then making PowerPoint presentations to outline regulatory recommendations for business leaders based on the data. 

For example, James said that he might investigate how business leaders could use information from the Capital One bank accounts. "I might spend my day saying, 'How many people applying for a credit card already have a bank account with us?' So I pull that information from our database and show that on a chart." He would keep pulling different kinds of data to build a case that supports the idea that Capital One should be more comfortable approving credit cards for people with more money in their Capital One bank accounts. 

The Dunnings said that PHC especially prepared them through two experiences: first through Vice President Howard Schmidt's classes, which have carried over directly into the business world, and second through participating in the Patrick Henry Investment Group. "Our involvement in the PHIG was super helpful, especially developing more of those practical skills and understanding financials and doing data analysis and spreadsheets," Tyler said. He and James worked with two other students and Schmidt in their junior year to form the idea for PHIG. The following year, Tyler became the first PHIG president, and James was on the board. 

PHC emphasizes a biblical worldview, which has equipped them to understand human nature in their jobs. James explained his experience working in fraud. "What was shocking to see was just how smart a lot of the fraudsters were. These are clearly super bright people," he said. Much of the credit card fraud funds drug or human trafficking. "There's so much evil that can be done by stealing through credit cards. That's another area where you stare human nature in the face."When James and Tyler entered PHC, they never imagined themselves working at a credit card company. "Probably nobody thinks that," James said. But he thought Capital One seemed like a good place to learn and grow. "I think it's definitely been God's grace," he said.

In Tyler's junior year at PHC, he became more interested in finding a job that involved research and data analysis to inform business decisions, and his position at Capital One has been just that. "It aligned better than I expected with the kind of things that I was hoping to do," he said. The brothers aren't sure how long they'll work for Capital One, or even how long they'll work together. "But at least for right now," Tyler said, "we're thankful for where we are." 

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Patrick Henry College challenges the unacceptable status quo in higher education by combining the academic strength and commitment to biblical principles that elite institutions have lost; a commitment to high academic rigor, fidelity to the spirit of the American founding, and an unwavering biblical worldview.