Penn State Smeal fall marshal credits family, fastidious planning for success

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For Justin Stough, his keys to success point in two directions, where he came from and where he is going.

Stough, who will graduate from Penn State on Dec. 22 with a degree in accounting and a minor in management information systems, has been named the fall 2024 student marshal for the Smeal College of Business.

He attributes his academic and professional success to two things: his support system and his meticulous agenda.

“My biggest support system would probably be my family,” Stough said. “Just because, whenever I'm down or feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, anxious about the things that I have coming up and the deadlines approaching or whatnot, they're just always there to just tell me ‘be present, live in the moment and still have fun. It'll all be taken care of. You'll be good.’”

Along with his reassurance from his family, he swears by his agenda book.

“I carry my agenda with me everywhere," he said. "I think a big thing with writing everything down, having an agenda and then checking it off when you've done that is you just are always looking ahead to the next thing, and it keeps you productive.”

Stough has built an exceptional academic and professional resume, seemingly leveraging every minute of his time at Smeal.

His high grades and resume have earned him multiple awards, including the President Walker Award, the Evan Pugh Scholar Award and the President Sparks Award. In 2021, he was a semifinalist in the Smeal Ethical Case Competition.

And, he finished his schooling in three-and-a-half years.

Outside of the business school, he earned a certificate of outstanding achievement in the Spanish Basic Language Program and the Spanish Intermediate Language Program in 2022.

Stough’s professional and extracurricular accolades are also impressive. He was the president of Lions for Christ, a member of the Accounting Society, and a resident assistant. He has been a cost accounting intern at Geller Brothers Landscaping LLC since 2022. And, he has worked both full-time and part-time for Apex Tool Group as a finance intern since May. As a self-described “go-go-go guy," he will be starting as a staff accountant at Apex Tool Group on Jan. 2.

Stough is no stranger to being productive and studying. He takes an admittedly unique approach to preparing for exams, he said.

“Pretend you're the professor,” he said. “And, what I mean by that is I don't want to know it at the basic level where I just know it to get through the exam. I want to know it so well that I feel confident I can teach it to somebody else.”

Stough is not all work and homework. Outside of school, he said, he loves to watch and play sports.

“Soccer is my favorite sport to play. I played since I was like three or four for the boys club, and then the township, and then you get into high school and so forth,” he said.

He has played intramural soccer every semester of his time at Penn State, and he loves to watch college basketball and Little League baseball. He said he starts his day with ESPN’s “Get Up.” In addition, he has watched almost every sports team here at Penn State.

As he leaves University Park, Stough shared that he will miss the sports, comradery and student body.

“What I will miss most about Penn State is probably just the people, to be honest,” he said.

 “There are so many people that you come in contact with every day. And, just taking the time to introduce yourself again and build those connections," he added. "The school spirit at Penn State is insane. So, when you're here and everybody's with you and for you and cheering for the same thing and having the same goals, there's nothing like it.”