I Think Maybe We Are Back

The pandemic taught us all a lesson in persistence and the need to adapt. My hope is that it also made us more appreciative of the power of daily interactions with friends and colleagues. I sense that after the first week of class and two enormously successful events that we have rediscovered our purpose.

Thursday night we welcomed about 100 people interested in building or expanding a partnership with the College of Business. President Cartwright, a first-time attendee at this event thanks to COVID, commented on how noisy the room was and how motivated people were to find a mutually beneficial relationship with us going forward. For our part, we put our best foot forward by featuring our students, faculty and staff. People stayed way past the 6 p.m. ending time.  The college shined.

While that event was going on, another part of the team was working at Addition Arena to get us prepared for Welcome to the Majors the next morning. The doors opened at 9 a.m., and we welcomed more than 1,500 students to the College of Business. Denise McFadden was an exceptional emcee/class instructor. Alumnus and Darden CEO Rick Cardenas gave great advice, and the students embraced the networking opportunities we provided. I could see the pride on my team’s faces as the event unfolded. They knew they had hit it out of the park, just like the good old days.

We still weren’t done. There were guests to host and FinTech students to meet and orient to the college and the expectations of the program. Those events went on flawlessly as well. 

Rituals like the events we have to start the semester are important. Done right, they add meaning to people’s experiences, provide them with new opportunities and perspectives and help them understand that they are part of something bigger than themselves. My team shook off the rust from the last couple of years and delivered big. We are incredibly lucky to have them.  Hats off to Tiffany, Erika, all the Kelli’s (however, you spell your name), Jasmin, Justin, Susan, Sarah, Justin, Darrell, the OPD team, and the Office of the Dean staff who pitched in to make sure we covered everything.   

Our culture of engagement is built on the simple idea that learning is a social activity and that the best education occurs when you get a chance to sit on a log next to someone who has something interesting to say.  Conversations ensue, people see the world differently, and good things happen.  A lot of good things happened last week. I sense it is going to be a very good year.

Welcome, now dive in

Today is the first day of the fall semester. If you are new to the college, you are not alone. We welcome more than 1800 new students to the College today along with several new faculty and staff. You’ve probably heard that we are big: more than 8200 undergraduate students, about a 1000 graduate students and 225 faculty and staff. It can be hard to stand out in such a large crowd. If you stand in the back of the room and wait to be discovered or provided the help you need, you guarantee disappointment and risk total failure. Fortune favors the bold here. Don’t miss out on accessing the many resources we have to help you succeed.

But our scale does not define your experience in the College, the shared beliefs of our faculty and staff do.  We believe that no real learning occurs inside your comfort zone; that the most defining moments happen when you get to have a conversation with someone who has something interesting to say; and that a great education expands your horizons, helps you make good choices about how to spend your one precious life, and gives you the skills and confidence to know that you can compete with anyone anywhere.  We have created a culture and set of experiences that will demand that you engage with us in the pursuit of these objectives. These things are not negotiable.  If you are not willing to sign up  for this adventure, we are not the place for you.  Frankly your life here will be miserable.  If you are willing to go down this path, the journey will transform you.

For our undergraduate students, the journey starts immediately. “Welcome to the Majors” is Friday. It is designed to introduce our newbies to the culture of the college and help them start to form a strategy for how to stand out from the crowd and “get to the one” (if you don’t know what that means you will). Welcome to the Majors is complemented by workshops run by our student Ambassadors that gives new students tips on how to best succeed in the College, including how to succeed in our core courses. The Ambassadors are part of the College’s leadership team and play an important role in shaping our culture. They will be doing several of these workshops the first two weeks of the semester in The Exchange. But don’t wait for a session, if you need an answer, find someone and ask. If they don’t have the answer they will get you in front of someone who does.

The Exchange is a place where we invite in community leaders who have interesting things to say to our students. Thanks to our friends at FAIRWINDS Credit Union,  we have a guest in the exchange almost every day.  Most days we have more than one Exchange. Many of our guests in The Exchange employ UCF interns and graduates. They are interested in identifying good talent while sharing their experiences and advice with young people like you.  At no other time in your life will you have so many potential employers coming to visit you.  Go early and often, but remember to reserve your seat before you go, there are only 120.

By October you will likely have had your first tests in your primary core classes and will need to start taking a hard look at where your interests intersect your skills and talents.  Many students come in to the College thinking they want to do something, only to change their mind mid-semester.  The Office of Professional Development can help you understand where you might best fit in.  Internships can also help. It’s why we do an Internship Invitational and Career Fest this month.  Look to get involved.

The goal of all this activity in your first seven weeks is to get you engaged outside of your comfort zone, to get you in the right major, plot an efficient course to graduation and have you develop an action plan for landing the job you want before you leave here. Denise, the Office Professional Development team, the Primary Core Faculty, the Student Ambassadors, and Justin Barwick who runs The Exchange are all here to help you make good choices as you start your time with us. And if you need some mid-course corrections, don’t we have several things planned to help you get on a new path.

Welcome to the UCF College of Business. Get your armor ready Knights. Charge On!