As my time at Booth winds down, I’ve attended a number of events that have helped me process through MY Booth experience (pun intended) and have kickstarted some ideas on how I want to spend my last few weeks at Booth and beyond.
First off, I had the chance to relive my undergrad (as many of you know by now, I also went to the University of Chicago for college) by attending Summer Breeze, a yearly concert for undergrads held in Spring Quarter. I was there tabling for Freenters, the team I’ve joined for the New Venture Challenge (wrote a post about that here), spreading awareness about the company and signing up students to the platform. Getting a chance to talk to current undergrads and getting their feedback as a representative of my Booth NVC team, I had the feeling of having come full circle. I came away feeling grateful again for my wonderful undergrad education, as well as a renewed sense of appreciation for my time at Booth that has allowed me to learn and grow beyond my undergrad education.
Freenters teammates right after setting up a table at Summer Breeze (CEO, Rho Kook Song, and VP of Finance and Data, Simon Holstein)
I also had the chance to attend a breakfast with Dean Stacey Kole, the Deputy Dean for Alumni, Corporate Relations and the Full-time MBA Program and Clinical Professor of Economics at Booth. Dean Kole hosts events like coffee hours for the entire student body, but she also hosts smaller breakfasts and lunches where Booth students can get to chat with her in a more intimate setting. For this particular breakfast, many of the students attending were second years and so much of the conversation turned to how we could continue to learn and connect as alumni. For example, I learned that Mukund Multani (top row, fourth from the left in the photo below) is setting up a chain of Class of 2016 alumni remaining in Chicago that will meet every month. We learned from Dean Kole that other alumni have done similar things, continuing to meet and support each other even decades after graduating. She was admiringly candid and was also able to offer her perspective on the current state of Booth in light of the history of the Booth and of the overall University of Chicago administration and community.
Dean Kole and the breakfast attendees
Finally, I had the chance to attend the 2016 World Religions Forum Overview/FAQ Panel Discussion, moderated by Professor Harry Davis (Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor Creative Management) and organized by the various religious student groups at Booth. A panel of Booth students representing several world Religions (the Baha’i faith, Catholicism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, and Protestant Christianity) gave a basic introduction of their faith and answered questions from the audience. In kicking off the panel discussion, Professor Harry Davis tied it to our experience as students, connecting it to not just the “what” or “how” in the study of business but also the “why.” He then closed off the panel by introducing the idea of tweaking that famous phrase thrown around at Booth, “Why are you here and not somewhere else?” and changing it to, “I am here and not somewhere else because.”
A classroom packed with Boothies for the 2016 World Religions Forum
