Upon entering Booth you are faced with the simple question: what if you used this time in business school to really work on yourself emotionally and socially in addition to academically?
What if you took these two years to truly take note of patterns formed in new environments and gauge how you respond?
LEAD is the orientation all first years coming into Booth must attend in order to graduate. However, it is not your average “the-coffee-machine-is-here” orientation. It speaks to the actual development of yourself as a person and leader. What may seem simple on the surface of orientation actually belies a quite intricate and carefully planned process. This process involves the Leadership Development Office at Booth as well as second year students as facilitators or facils to run sessions during LEAD.
One of the enduring phrases I have from LEAD is creating small experiments with yourself and checking how they went. For someone with an emotionally led mind, the clinical “take a step back and analyze” was such a stunningly simple explanation.
It’s also worth noting LEAD occurs during a relatively simple and social time at Booth: recruiting has not kicked off yet and all Random Walks (pre Booth trips) are carefully planned to end before LEAD. It’s a sweet spot in which you have a few friends if you attended Random Walk and many many new friends to make during LEAD. It’s also during LEAD that you meet your cohort, they are who you go through exercises and activities with. It’s a great first way to meet a more manageable sized group of your new classmates. While Booth does not take class with our cohorts, the emotional growth and new beginnings at LEAD function as a bonding mechanism for the class.
Below are reflections from second year LEAD facils and what running LEAD meant to them.
“Coming into LEAD, I wanted to pay-it-forward to the incoming 1Y class and practice public speaking in front of a large audience. What surprised me most were the friendships I made, both on my LEAD facilitator team and with the first-years. I left with a greater appreciation for how I show up as a leader and how I work in a team. LEAD is a great way to showcase Booth’s pay-it-forward culture right at the beginning of the first-year experience. I wish people knew that it’s a fantastic group of selfless student leaders and we get incredible mentors in the Leadership Development Office, whom I still speak with monthly. For incoming students, my advice is to come with an open mind and heart to the opportunity and connection. It was an amazing experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” -Patrick Mispireta, LEAD Facil ‘27
“LEAD was the perfect way to kick off my Booth experience after my random walk, and it’s where I built some of my strongest connections at Booth. Applying to be a LEAD facil was a no-brainer for me because I wanted to pay it forward and help create the same environment where I felt safe putting myself out there and building new friendships. What surprised me most as a facil was how much intention goes into every module. The team puts a lot of care into curating the syllabus so that 1Ys leave with a great experience and feel even more excited to start their Booth journey. My advice to incoming students is to come with an open mind. You won’t always know what to expect from the modules, and that’s part of what makes LEAD so memorable and rewarding.” -Melinda Kan-Dapahh LEAD Facil ‘27
