Did The First Year Go Already?
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Follow my journey as I spend the next two years at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business to prepare for the next chapter in my career. |
Less than a year ago I was sitting in Harper Center 104 amid a sea of several hundred admitted students listening to Kurt Ahlm, Dean of Admissions, welcome all of us to Chicago Booth. Me and my future classmates were like newborn babies in a family. Booth lavished us with attention and adoration, constantly congratulating us on the accomplishment of gaining admission and welcoming us into the Booth community. Fast forward 10 months and just like that there’s a new bunch of babies on the way and we’re the not nearly as adorable older siblings. It feels like class of 2014 just got to campus and we’re already welcoming the class of 2015. People were right, business school moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.
Today I attended a luncheon for new student leaders. With a little over half of my first year behind me I am already one of seven new co-chairs for Booth’s Net Impact chapter. I’m ecstatic to have been selected for the role. However, I don’t quite feel ready to be a “student leader.” Most of the time I can’t even find my way around the lower level of Harper Center. Me leading a student group is like the blind leading the blind.
I’m sure I will figure it all out and won’t send a 100+ member club crashing to the ground. I guess what’s freaking me out most is not that I could mess up as a student leader, but that being a student leader means that my first year already has more time behind it than it does ahead of it. It wasn’t that long ago that I was worried about making friends. Somewhere between December and now that worry went away and in its place are now an amazing group of girlfriends who drag me to TNDC and a gorgeous gay boyfriend who won’t break up with his gay boyfriend so that we can get married and have lots of babies. In the words of LadyRoadWarrior, they are “my people.”
If I just found my people shouldn’t we have more time together before our internships start? I surely think so. Alas, someone set the timer on business school to warp speed so the time ticks away no matter how much I want it to slow down. So what lies ahead for me? Spring break will be spent in Africa with 29 other Boothies (both 1st and 2nd years). Chicago African Business Group is sponsoring its annual trek and this year’s destinations are Accra, Ghana and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Africa trek will be a mini Random Walk Fiji reunion as one of my four trip leaders and two other Random Walkers will be trekking too. In a couple of weeks I will be auditioning to perform in Booth’s annual Follies and will also apply to be a 2nd year Career Adviser. As for my summer, I’m pleased to say that I will be spending it in New York City working at Google…and that is another story for another day.
