From Penn State to Goldman Sachs, Hear the $4.2M Nittany Lion Fund Roar

Some things were just too good to be true in college. I spent four years at Pennsylvania State University's plush main campus in University Park, Penn. -- appropriately called "Happy Valley." It was one of the few places on earth where you could actually share a snack with a squirrel and a religion with your classmates -- football. The Nittany Lion was and, in some ways, still is our deity.

And then some things were really too good to be true, so much so that they basically never happened. For example, if a Penn State graduate were to ever land a full-time job at Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), I'd wonder what magic strings his or her dad must have pulled. Even as recently as 2002, hardly anything we did as students assured an entry-level position at a major investment bank on Wall Street -- forget "connections" or a 4.0 grade average. The crème de la crème on Wall Street were mainly Ivy Leaguers.

In fact, I remember when my friend Amy, at that time, an English major at Harvard, received a letter in the mail from an investment bank, asking her if she'd like to work in its fixed income division after graduation. Meanwhile, my classmates, who majored in finance, held E*Trade (ETFC Quote) accounts, worked three summer internships and made the Dean's list each semester, would probably need to transfer to Wharton before making their way to a trading room.

Now, the trading room has found its way to Penn State -- literally. During my visit to campus last week, I watched as students employed a state of-the-art trading room in the brand new business building on campus. Jim Cramer, a Harvard grad, kicked off his "Mad Money" college tour in Happy Valley last week, too, and was quite impressed with the university's Smeal College of Business, in particular, its Nittany Lion Fund (the NLF). ...