Barely a week after the Occupy Wall Street protest hit the national consciousness in the fall of 2011, Andrew Snow picked up his guitar and rallied the movement in Austin, Texas. His punk rock band, Drastic, performed outside Austin’s City Hall. “We ended up playing protest shows all over the city,” he recalls. “For a while it felt like we were the house band for the Occupation.”

Andrew was in the midst of a four-year run playing guitar after graduating from UVM with a degree in political science. His band played across the South, in Austin, Dallas, New Orleans. In the back of his thoughts was always the notion that he’d return to pursue a career in his home state of Vermont, possibly involving law. As an undergrad he had interned in the Vermont Public Defender’s Office, and the experience had made an impression. The Occupy movement made him think harder about economic inequality — about corporate responsibility and greed, about regulations and loopholes — and pushed the notion of a law career into the front of his thoughts. In the fall of 2013 he became a law student at the only law school he wanted to attend.

“This first year has really opened my eyes,” he says. “Property law. Public law and regulations. Criminal law. I’ve just found out that I’ll be interning in the summer with the Vermont Supreme Court. It’s hard to pin down what I’m most excited about.” When asked what he’s most looking forward to, though, he doesn’t hesitate. “I can’t wait for the fall semester,” he says. “That’s when I’ll get a chance to learn about white-collar crime.”