Networking Reflection
During this semester, I had the opportunity to attend a couple of the Mendoza Football Friday Networking Events. At the events, I had the opportunity to expand my network with students from Mendoza that are outside of the MSM program. These experiences were very valuable to me because I have been instilled my whole life with how valuable the Notre Dame network is through my father. Growing up in a Notre Dame family, I would always attend games with my family, and we would always meet up with my dads friends from undergrad. Seeing the bond my father has had with these people for over 4 decades now, it shows how strong his friendships were here, and how deep the Notre Dame “brotherhood” goes.
Since spending time at these 1-2 hour events, my MSM friend group has expanded and now we have been spending a lot of time with MSF kids and MSBA kids. It has been very cool to hear about their experiences throughout their program so far, what challenges they have faced at Notre Dame, and what takeaways they have had during their time here so far. We all have a lot in common, so it really was a great bonding experience. Another deep takeaway I had from the events is how my newly expanded network can help me during my future endeavors and job searches. During my process so far, I have reached out and talked with a lot of Notre Dame people who are always so willing to drop what they are doing and help out in any way they can. Down the line once me and my peers here at Mendoza get settled into a company and work our way up a bit, it is going to be good to have a lot of these people to use as resources in the job world and they may just be coworkers some day. Overall, it was great taking a couple hours out of my day this fall on Friday’s to go and meet fellow Notre Dame Grad Students and Staffers at Football Fridays. The food and drinks provided were definitely a cherry on top, as Notre Dame always goes above and beyond at these events. I would grade this networking experience as 8.5/10.
As we continue on with the school year, and inch closer towards graduation, it is really important for me to take some skills that we have learned during this class and apply them to better my networking in the future in order to lock up a good job in May. The first lesson from this course that stuck out to me was the Ted Lasso Leadership slide deck. There were many takeaways from this lesson, however my favorite was being a goldfish when it comes to the ups and downs in life. I think this is a very cool way to look at things, and had not heard this metaphor before. Being able to have a short memory when something good or bad happens in life, whether that be at work, school, during a social activity is crucial for people to be able to move on and stay in the moment. We all want to improve 1% each day, and not letting anything distract us from the end goal is something that I want to continue to instill in my toolkit. This would be something that would not just benefit me, but also the people around me.
The second skill I want to highlight from the Lasso Lesson is about Accountability. When I look at the best leaders over time, I believe that many of them had a high level of accountability instilled in them, which was directly injected into the communities in which they served. Holding everyone accountable and to the same standards creates for a better environment as well which helps to motivate people toward a certain end goal. I feel as if I hold people accountable for their actions and have held my group mates to the same standards this semester, however feel like I still need to work on holding myself accountable at times. I do feel as if this is a skill that I have improved on recently, but continuing toward that goal is something that is important to me and essential in me becoming the leader I aspire to be in the future.
Lastly, what I want to leave with is the quote from a lecture of “put yourself in the shoes of your Saturday self.” This quote had to do with procrastination, and that is something that I feel I tend to struggle with at times. Sometimes I can find myself getting stressed out and instead of attacking my work or problems head on, I push them back until the last minute. Although I tend to do a good job under pressure, pushing it off definitely causes more stress than getting a head start, and as I move onto next semester and my future, this is something that I am going to continue to improve on. Setting an example for my peers in working ahead would also improve my leadership skills.
