Five Tips for Succeeding in the College

Midterms bring more than just test scores, it is an opportunity for you to assess how you are doing at school and whether you need to fine tune, or even revamp your goals and strategies, for success. A couple of years ago, the ambassadors offered five tips for succeeding in the college. They are reproduced below.

1. GET INVOLVED! This is the absolute best way to find people with common interests, to find your niche and to find your UCF family. There are hundreds of registered student organizations to join, including intramural sports, student government, fraternities, and sororities, and more. And if there is not a club or organization you are interested in, we encourage our students to create their own.
2. BUILD YOUR NETWORK. In the business world, relationships and connections will play a big part in your career. Meet classmates to form study groups or collaborate on group projects to help you succeed in classes and add new friends to your circle. Interact with companies and alumni through The EXCHANGE, or as we call it, the heart of engagement at the college. At The EXCHANGE, a community leader, corporate partner or alum will host the conversation and you’ll have the opportunity to listen and ask questions.
3. ARMOR UP and SETTLE IN. UCF is lively and fun place to be, and we want you to enjoy life on campus while practicing safety measures such as social distancing and wearing a face covering. We want you to always feel safe at home. We have created a many events and activities that allow you to connect with students, staff, faculty and employers. So dive in.
4. SUIT UP and GET HIRED! Think about your professional development as soon as you become a business student. We have an entire office dedicated to this. The Office of Professional Development is the one-stop spot for all the tools to help you get an internship, job or promotion. From the Advising team (A-Team) to the Career Coaches, our staff will help with all your needs, such as resume reviews, mock interviews and professional advice.We also have our own internship and job board called Knightline, where you can search and apply for jobs. Events like The Invitational provide opportunities to connect with employers and learn about available internships and jobs. Both are exclusive to College of Business students.
5. STRATEGIES for SUCCESS Life as a student can get hectic, so start thinking of strategies to help you succeed in the classroom. Our ambassadors recommend reviewing your syllabus for course requirements, getting to know your professors and making a study calendar!
   After studying, make sure to make time to reward yourself for all your hard work. Find out what works best for you. Not every student learns or studies the same, so it might take some trial and error. Once you find what works best for you, stick with it and you will be successful.

If you want to learn more about how to succeed here, you can check out our guide by clicking here. It’s being updated as the realities of COVID and our response to it continues to evolve and we return to pre-pandemic operations, but it’s basic message and strategies to succeed in the college remain unchanged.

It’s time to finish the semester strong Knights. Charge On!

Hall of Fame 2022

I was with Jim Atchison at the UCF game on Saturday. He mentioned his son had snap a picture of his picture on the wall in BA2 where are Hall of Fame Inductees are on display. He asked if we were going to do the Hall of Fame this year. I responded yes. He smiled.

After a year off because of the Pandemic, we are planning to bring it back on February 17, 2022. The UCF College of Business Hall of Fame is the college’s signature event that honors our most distinguished alumni and partners. More than 750 College of Business alumni, faculty, students, corporate partners and friends of UCF attend the gala. Induction into the Hall of Fame is the highest honor given to business graduates. In 2021 our inductees include Woody Walker ’92 ’94MBA, executive vice president of strategic partnerships at CCG; Justin Wetherill ’06, CEO and co-founder of uBreakiFix; and Brian Wright ’06, general manager of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. The event made everyone smile.

If you have a worthy candidate for our Hall of Fame, you can fill out a nomination form by clicking here. Get it in soon because we hope to make our selections in the next couple of weeks.

We’ve had a whole extra year to plan this event. Expect it to be awesome. It always is.

The Value in Being Underestimated

See: Navy, Stanford, and Kentucky in this weekend’s college football results.

I spent most of the week in New York, Washington, D.C., and Annapolis. My primary goal was to promote our new Master’s in FinTech program and have some well-placed alums help us make connections that can benefit the program. All of those alums were underdogs when they got their start. They had to explain to their prospective employer why they should hire them rather than the typical candidate they hired from a prestigious Ivy League school. They then had to exceed expectations to rise in the ranks. In short, their grit, preparation, determination and confidence produced lofty results that defied their employers’ low expectations. They stood out.

I ended the week at the Navy-UCF game when a 16.5 point underdog staged a comeback win against a team with “superior” talent. Underestimating the United States Navy and Marines always seems like a bad idea. It was on Saturday. Something tells me that while we were celebrating our admission into the Big 12 and looking at the betting line, Navy was preparing for an opponent with a growing reputation who looked better on paper than they did.

As we continue to grow in both academic and athletic prominence, fewer people are going to underestimate us. They are going to see us coming. Witness UF’s sudden interest in FinTech. We cannot afford to lose that grit, preparation, determination and confidence that we had as underdogs, and let it turn into arrogance or complacency. Neither can you.