Jacob Alexander Schroeder, BA’22: Intellectual Curiosity and a Zest for Life

Jacob Alexander Schroeder, BA'22, of Boise, Idaho, died Dec. 6, 2024. He was 25 years old.

Known for living life to its fullest, he achieved a great deal at a young age and was committed to his passions, which included international travel. In middle school he founded Imagine Balloons, using his balloon-twisting skills to raise funds for a Japanese exchange student and friend in need. These skills carried into his college years, as Vanderbilt friends can attest, not only as a maker of balloon shapes but as an entrepreneur. At the age of 12, he interviewed President Barack Obama for Scholastic Magazine as a Scholastic News reporter.

He was valedictorian and class president of his senior class at Liberty High School in Hillsboro, Oregon, where he was honored as a distinguished citizen and became the youngest member of the Chamber of Commerce.

He attended Vanderbilt as a Curb Scholar in Creative Enterprise and Public Leadership, a selective undergraduate program for students who work at the intersection of creativity, entrepreneurship and public engagement. He created an interdisciplinary major in economics and history with minors in business and Spanish. He was a Buchanan Library Fellow, chaired the American Enterprise Institute's Executive Council at Vanderbilt and was a student government senator. A recipient of the Ainslie World Travel Fellowship, he traveled to more than 15 countries, led the international expansion of an Argentinian tech startup and partnered with Natori/Tetrault Productions to produce a factory PR video in Manila. When he returned to the United States, he worked as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. in their Houston office.

He was a teaching assistant for the Managing in Adversity class taught by Michael Ainslie, BA'65, and Associate Professor Patrick Leddin and was a research assistant for Distinguished Professor of History and Professor of Political Science Thomas Schwartz, who wrote on his LinkedIn page, "Jacob was an extraordinary person, possessed of enormous energy, optimism and curiosity, with a quick intelligence and a wonderful sense of humor. He was truly a joy to work with and left a mark at Vanderbilt and every other organization he touched."

Schroeder is survived by his parents, Heidi and Kevin Schroeder, grandparents, aunts, an uncle, cousins and extended family.