When Corey Ciocchetti’s high school counselor told him that he wasn’t cut out for college, he not only proved her wrong but went on to become one of the highest-rated and most popular professors at DU.

Ciocchetti, 32, says that being a professor in the Business Ethics and Legal Studies Department of the Daniels College of Business is “the best job for me in the world.”

But he hasn’t forgotten the obstacles he faced to get here.

“I’m much more proud of what I’ve overcome in life,” he said.

A Colorado native, Ciocchetti graduated with a 3.95 GPA from DU in 1998 with two Bachelor’s degrees in finance and economics and a Master’s degree in religious studies in 1999.

He went to Duke University School of Law in Durham, N.C. and graduated in 2002.

He practiced corporate law for a year but soon found that his life was consumed by his job and he was having trouble sleeping.

“I thought that was what would make me happy. I had money, a prestigious job, a nice car and I was miserable,” Ciocchetti said. “I walked into work one day and quit. My boss said, ‘What are you going to do?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.”

A year after he quit, he began experiencing vertigo, the feeling that the world is spinning.

At the advice of his doctors and his fiancé, Jillian, a surgical assistant whom he married in 2005, he underwent an MRI scan to rule out the possibility of a brain tumor.

As he was lying in the scanner, he said he enumerated the things that meant the most to him – his family and friends. Although doctors told Ciocchetti that everything was normal, the experience was a turning point in his life.

“I really got my priorities in line after the MRI,” he said.

He began searching for a career path that would allow him to balance work with family life, so he decided to become an entrepreneur.

Ciocchetti’s love of sports inspired him to start his own business teaching basketball and tennis to children. He founded the company Hustle Sports in May 2003.

“It was fun, and I was working the same amount of hours but at my own schedule,” Ciocchetti said.

At the height of his business, he had 20 employees and was getting ready to expand Hustle Sports nationally when he received a call from DCB.

“They had an opening and wanted me to apply,” Ciocchetti said. “I just kept making it to the next interview, and that’s how I got here.”

He sold Hustle Sports and joined the Business Ethics and Legal Department in 2004.

He now teaches classes on business law and ethics, employment law and constitutional law.

Ciocchetti had an epiphany about halfway through his first quarter as a professor.

“I realized I had found my calling in life. I was helping people, I was researching areas which are particularly interesting and relevant to our world, I was surrounded by intelligent colleagues and my schedule allowed me to play basketball at lunch,” he said.

He has obtained the highest teaching evaluations at DCB for six consecutive quarters and was given the Master Teacher Award in September 2006 by 100 professors at the National Academy of Legal Studies in Business meeting. That, he said, was one of his proudest moments.

Although he is often mistaken for a TA at faculty meetings, he says it is “cool to be an underdog.”

“It’s a challenge. Being an underdog motivates me to do the best I can. I’m able to tell young people that I’m 32, look what I’ve accomplished, and don’t think for a second you can’t accomplish the same thing,” Ciocchetti said.

On the last day of every class he teaches, Ciocchetti gives his “philosophy on life.”

It started off as a 10-minute presentation about living an “authentic” life, both in the personal and professional world.

Eventually, his “philosophy on life” became so popular that he extended the lecture to two hours on the last day of every class, and it was the inspiration for his book, Real Rabbits: Chasing an Authentic Life.

Ciocchetti also requires every student in every class to meet with him one-on-one at least once during the quarter.

“It’s a personal connection to see how they’re doing in the class, and to make sure they have a resume they can get a job with,” Ciocchetti said. “If I could impact one student in those meetings it’s worth it, and I think it impacts far more than that.”

Ciocchetti speaks to students across the nation about his experiences and the lessons he wrote about in his book.