DEALicious by Connie H. '15
in which i counsel an FPOP and come out with free candy. also how to get involved in entrepreneurship.
First things first — I took a weekend trip back to New York and stood in line for three hours to taste the fabled Ramen Burger. Best 8 dollar investment ever.
Coming back to campus last Monday, I jumped straight into helping lead DEAL (Discover Entrepreneurship and Leadership), one of the FPOPs (Freshman Pre-Orientation Programs) offered to incoming freshmen. Totally optional, but a great way for incoming students to meet other freshmen and upperclassmen with potentially similar interests. They let me design the tank tops. :)
All the DEALers go through serious, important, life-changing activities.
Building a home for an egg before we drop it off the fourth floor of Baker House…
Only after we let the DEALers retrieve their items from the cornucopia, Hunger Games style.
All but one egg survived. Go engineers!
Of course there were obligatory icebreakers…
That may or may not have ended in some violent pool noodle action.
And our icebreakers revealed some interesting facts about each other — like how one DEALer started his own brand of unjunked candy, or how another DEALer is the youngest licensed stockbroker… anywhere. Impressive! (read: omg what am I doing with my life)
The rest of the FPOP involved touring a number of Boston’s entrepreneurial resources, including the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, TechStars Boston, and MassChallenge. All of these centers are unafraid to help MIT students of all ages and disciplines — they just expect you to come in with a crazed passion for what you’re working on. (Note: if you have any specific questions about entrepreneurship, please comment or email me!)
MIT also offers entrepreneurship programs targeted specifically towards MIT students, including StartLabs and the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. All these resources are open to freshmen, whether you’re vaguely interested in business or you’re working on your fourth company. A great takeaway I got from the week was that it’s never too early or late to start something.
Our last full day was a scavenger hunt around MIT, Harvard and Boston that brought our four teams all around the city with the help of unlimited T passes. With 24 freshmen and 8 counselors all interested in entrepreneurship… things got hypercompetitive. Hyperhypercompetitive?
All in all, an amazing five days with some of the most inspirational incoming freshmen on campus.
And I found Yoshi!
Now onto sorority recruitment…