Alumni Feature – Yash Patel
Yash Patel (Questrom’23) is “open to being inspired these days.”
In the midst of studying law, working at the District Attorney’s Office, opening gelato shops on Long Island as an Amorino Franchisee, and becoming a lieutenant at the fire department, Patel somehow had a spare 30 minutes to talk about all the (very many) things he’s been up to since graduating from Boston University and Kilachand Honors College in 2023.
With a BS in Business Administration with concentrations in Accounting and Law, Patel’s path was pretty straightforward. He went off to PWC to work as a Real Estate Tax Associate in their New York city office. With great support, a good team, and clear steps to climb the ladder, PWC was a great place to be.
But Patel was looking for something a little different.
After a year, he decided to pivot. Now, Patel is in his second year at Brooklyn Law School while getting on-the-job training hours at the DA’s office.
At a desk in the DA’s office with his fire department’s walkie talkie next to him, Patel explained, “I definitely could have chosen a role in the financial industry regulating financial crime, which is probably more aligned with my background, but I decided to do the DA because, one, the office is 10 minutes down the road from the firehouse. I also know a lot of people involved with the DA through my role as a firefighter, and it’s pretty important work.”
While Law school and the DA may be recent changes, Patel’s time at the fire department actually predates his graduation from BU and KHC.
“It’s something that my late father always wanted to do. He always wanted to help out in the community. And he said, ‘one day when I retire, I’ll be a firefighter, and my life will be complete because I saved somebody’s house,’” Patel said. “He never got the chance to do that, so my brother and I decided, ‘Why don’t we pick it up?’ My brother’s been a firefighter for almost 10 years now, and then I started in 2021, and I fell in love with it.
“Like everything else I do, it’s really centered around people and talking to them. It’s right up my alley. I love doing it. That’s why I decided to go up the ranks this year, Lieutenant now, hopefully Captain soon,” he continued.
Patel was able to trace this value back to his first job, explaining, “In high school, I was working at a local Dunkin Donuts. And my family had close ties to that Dunkin’. I would just be making coffee and talking to all these customers that come in. And I started making really good relationships with these people—that’s what really inspired me. I was like, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life: make relationships with people.’”
As Patel said, pretty much everything he’s done boils down to community, and that threads through his experiences with KHC and Questrom as a peer mentor and KHC ambassador.
Patel reflected on some of these experiences saying, “In a packed classroom of 40/50 freshmen who haven’t even started their first day of school, one student asked where the parties were. I told him exactly where to go, not that I knew that well. I remember the other mentors being like, ‘You can’t tell them that,’ but to me, a main point of college is to make connections and make friends and have fun. The way you’ll gain something by learning from others perspectives.”
Through his breadth of experience, Patel has stayed committed to the love for the people and communities he serves, and that seems to have made it all worth it.
“Some days I wake up and I’m like, ‘What am I doing with my life? How am I a firefighter and then also working for the DA in law school and doing other nonsense stuff on the side?’ But then, I look back at a super busy day where I’d been out since eight in the morning and I’m going to sleep at 11, drained but feeling so accomplished with the amount of things I did. It makes me feel good,” he said. “I definitely do have those lows where I feel super lost. It doesn’t mean I’m not happy with where I am right now. I think once I graduate law school, life will settle in.”
Interview and Profile by Gabby Church, KHC ’26