This past weekend I had attended the first of several sessions in the StartingBloc Institute for Responsilbe Leadership at the Yale University School of Management. It was an amazing and humbling experience.
Why was it amazing? I had the opportunity to network and talk with some of the brightest most motivated business students in the country. We were all there learning about, discussing and working to find ways to impact the world in a positive way through socially responsible business practices. I loved every minute of the day because I love talking with smart people about business and world issues. If you are an undergraduate and you share my feelings, apply to be a Fellow in next year's program. You won't be disappointed.
I was humbled because of the schools that were represented: MIT, Yale, Stern, Columbia, Wharton. . . Villanova. Now I am not going to try to tell you that Villanova business school is subpar, but by no means is it on the same playing field as those mentioned above.
I have always known students that go to Ivy League and like caliber schools are smart. They wouldn't be there if they weren't. Hell, my girl friend goes to Dartmouth College. But I don't think I ever realized how smart they are. When talking with my girlfriend about her studies (Japanese and Linguistics) I just wrote off not completely understanding what she was talking about as a function of not knowing those two subjects. Place me in a situation where I could talk business and sustainability with some Ivy League students and I could at least keep up, which I did. However I did realize that they talk on a completely different level from that of what I have experienced at Villanova or its peer schools. The command they had of "business speak" is amazing. Also I think that they just simply know more about business in general especially the technical things like finance, economics, etc. Simply put the student in this program are very smart as well as very diverse. Here are the demographics of the NY Institute (which I am a part of):
Average GPA.....................................................3.52
% Underrepresented Minority...............................28%
% Minority..........................................................52%
# of Countries Represented by Fellows..................39
# of Languages Spoken Fluently...........................47
Female Fellows...................................................56%
Well there you have it. My first impressions of the student in the Institute for Responsible Leadership. I am debating on whether to go into some of the topic that we covered, but I don't know if anyone cares. If you would like to hear about the topics, please let me know in the comments.
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