From our school final school newspaper for the Spring of 2007.
First I’d like to say a big Big thank you to Annie, Cheri, Julia, and everyone who helped put out the last RB, without your hard work I couldn’t go on my last tangent. You know the movie Pay it Forward with Haley Joel Osment, a young boy figures out a simple but powerful concept, by helping others you create an environment of giving that becomes contagious and a simple concept can change the world. While the movie didn’t win any Academy Awards it did have a great concept.
At Tepper, I see the Pay it Forward mentality really becoming engrained in the culture. A big reason for this is the hard work of so many graduating students. We experienced a new concept with the mentorship program, some worked some didn’t. But for those of us who liked the experience we wanted to augment it and for those of us who didn’t like it we want to take initiative and make a change or fill in the white space as Dr. K would say. Regardless, so many of my classmates took charge of clubs and student government and delivered an amazing 07. In a few days the class of 07 won’t be here anymore, I am getting more and more nostalgic every day. It’s now the class of 08’s time to shine.
Soon to be second years, you have a huge amount of power in shaping where this school will be in several years. I am sure many of you really figured this out this past weekend as over 100 admitted students came to see you and hear your thoughts about the program, networking, job searches, etc. They don’t care about guys like me who won’t be around in 08. I was extremely impressed by the weekend’s events, from the scale of international festival with wonderful cultural presentations and delicious food booths to a very impressive banquet dinner that included 3 articulate powerful messages delivered by Carisa, Jeremy, and Keenan. You are going to step back on campus in August, feeling refreshed, everyone will look years younger it’s a crazy phenomenon. You will have excelled in your internships and will then be thrust into the frenzy that is Game and full-time recruiting. Just make sure that during this time you pay it forward.
I came in to Tepper a little (ok very) nervous about what exactly was I going to experience and I was only coming from 400 miles away not several thousand like many of our foreign students. I was immediately taken under several wings so to speak and because of that I was able to get adjusted to the madness much quicker. Next year, when the COC or a club wants you to be on an internship panel or GBA comes calling for help on a project, remember who helpful or not we were last year. I heard so many of the class of 08 talk about the tight knit community at Tepper over the weekend, which is our competitive advantage. In order to maintain this advantage, it’s now up to each of you to keep the tradition going. If you weren’t involved in something this year there is still time. A big reason I enjoyed being at Tepper so much was being able to have an impact on something. There are too many outlets for creativity and initiative here to pass up. This is the time to take risks; whether you fail or succeed they pay off.
