D is for Degree Development

Undergrad is a different journey for all of us, but most upper years can attest: your first few months at Schulich are a whirlwind storm of excitement, transition, independence and community. A brand new environment, an exciting new academic challenge and the prodigious student body pose a sensational beginning to this new and extraordinary chapter of your life.

While most of us agree that this new space can be incredibly fun to learn about, there’s no doubt that it can be quite difficult to navigate where to spend your time, energy or focus outside of the classroom. As clubs and committees across the campus begin hosting various events, many of us begin to juggle our various commitments of school, extra-curriculars, work, etc.

Many of us in first year wondered to ourselves: Why should I get involved? What benefit do these clubs pose for me? Why is it important for me to attend events? What reason is there for me to get involved, to meet people? Why the heck is everyone at this school obsessed with case comps and networking??

Luckily there are several answers here about how you can develop yourself.

1. Community integration

Let’s just address the elephant in the room, shall we? Making new friends is hard. Making new friends during a virtual semester? Even harder.

By now, most of you will have heard about the tight-knit community present here at Schulich, and our ever-growing alumni or upper year base who stand at the ready to give any new students a helping hand whenever they need it. Unfortunately, if you don’t already have a close connection with someone, it can be intimidating to take that first step. Extra-curricular activities provide an amazing opportunity to get to know various members of the Schulich community, and gives you the perfect chance to get to know the world-class leaders present at our school.

Attending club events can be the perfect shoe in the door to talk to upper years, alumni, or industry reps who have the right experience and advice to help you navigate your undergraduate years. As individuals who run the behind-the-scenes processes for the amazing events you attend, these people are ready to answer all of your burning questions, or to help you navigate the beginning of your professional journey.

Of course, attending extra-curricular events pose benefits beyond the scope of upper years as well. Being able to expand your social network with others who share similar interests, passions and hobbies such as yourself allows you to create lasting friendships and bond with other students whom you will be spending the next four years with!

2. Explore your interests, or identify your dislikes

Speaking of interests, extra-curriculars offer a great hands-on approach to figuring out what you’re passionate about!

Be it participating in case comps, attending networking events, or listening to keynote panels, each of these can help you identify your likes and dislikes. These will come in handy once you begin the process of choosing your specialization.

Something to keep in mind: if you’re struggling to find the perfect fit for you, perhaps start by figuring out what you are less interested in. Many professions are vastly different in the classroom than the real world, so ensure that you are gaining exposure to both ends in order to make yourself prepared for the career you chose to pursue. As you eliminate options you prefer less, it becomes easier to find where your passions lie, and gives you the ability to concentrate your focus on a specific profession, rather than saturating yourself to every available channel.

Many events offer the chance to hear from industry reps and learn about their careers — utilize this! Either during the event, or afterwards, ask them about how their work fosters their passion, how their interests benefited their career, or how they are able to integrate their hobbies in or outside of work. Oftentimes, you’ll find yourself able to relate to the interests and passions these individuals possess, and you can use this as a learning opportunity to develop your skills towards the profession of your choice.

3. Develop your technical- and soft-skill portfolio

Over your years at Schulich, you will come to realize that success within the program, and beyond, emphasizes the expertise of certain skill sets. Ranging from an expert ability in team management, to being able to create effective slide decks (YMA superstar Tyler is a whiz, check out his blog for more info!), to maintaining important connections or even just knowing the ins and outs of Microsoft Excel, the list goes on.

Point being, your formative undergrad years are key in building up your skill set, in order to prepare you for your endeavours at Schulich, or in the workplace. Attending extra-curricular events are critical in figuring out what exactly is an essential skill in the profession of your choice, and what may be the best course of action to go about acquiring it.

Case competitions in particular are an excellent way to develop your technical skills, improve your time management and really advance your own critical thinking skills. Being able to break down a case, with either a team or individually, identifying key issues and being able to follow up with a feasible solution plan are elemental aspects of the recruitment process at various organizations or professions.

A key piece of advice: if you are unsure about participating in a case comp, it can be very helpful to reach out to someone who has a better understanding of the comp for some advice. Previous year participants or the execs running the comp always have the right information to help you decide if the case comp is an opportunity of interest to you, so be sure to reach out and obtain the help you require!

4. Breaking productively

Anyone else ever binge-watch a Netflix series then feel super guilty for being unproductive? Yeah, me too.

But taking a break from the books is important! As the winter approaches, it gets a little harder to partake in outdoor activities to get your mind off of school, but if you want to avoid break-time activities that easily get away from you, after-class events are an amazing opportunity to clear your mind, while easily picking up some new knowledge.

5. Networking

I know this year has been full of a lot of curves, a few too many changes and disruption of the natural order of things we had become accustomed to. In a lot of ways, almost every single person can identify something they’re missing out on or something they wish they had gotten the chance to experience in normal circumstances. Unfortunately, as much as we want, we can’t really do much about a majority of these things.

However, we can tell you to rejoice because one positive to come out of this year is how much easier it’s become to conduct networking! Where previous years would require excruciating scheduling of coffee chats, meetups and barriers such as physical distance throwing a wrench in your networking plans, our new virtual environments provide an excellent opportunity unlike ever before.

I’m sounding like a kitschy television commercial, I know, but I really do mean it when I say networking has become so much easier for the average person like you and me!

For newbies: networking is an incredible way to form connections with individuals across industries, companies and now, even countries. Chatting with industry professionals or seasoned alumni is just one of the many ways that we can complement our learning here at Schulich and gain an external perspective for how the professional world operates. Online networking takes just a small portion of your time, but the rewards it can bring to you are phenomenal.

For oldheads: forget the days of standing around in networking circles waiting to get your 2 cents in, and forget the days of commuting to coffee shops downtown to meet reps. The beauty of our virtual environment today takes no more than 20 minutes of your time to sit and chat with the people you want to speak with, without the added hassles that you used to face.

Some online networking tips we recommend:

• Start by identifying what it is you want to learn about: the industry, the position, the company. Using resources like LinkedIn or RocketReach is an excellent way to reach out to the people you want to speak with
• Be specific and direct when you reach out. Working individuals lead busy lives, if you want them to speak with you, be clear about what you are looking to chat with them about. Also, remember to introduce yourself — I can’t imagine anyone would know what to do with an unidentified stranger asking to speak with them!
• Always have a list of questions prepared beforehand! You never want to have nothing to talk about with someone who is putting aside time to speak with you. On the flip side, feel free to also let the conversation divert naturally if it happens to — remember you are using the questions to learn from the individual, not grill them.

All in all, yes we are in strange times and unprecedented times and every other phrase that has headlined every email you’ve received since March, but we genuinely are still able to find silver linings amongst the absolute chaos that has been 2020. Take things slowly, especially if you are just finishing up your first semester here, and know that it only gets better from here on.