During the course of the year, our program director, Eric VandeVoorde, was able to schedule an additional etiquette seminar with Sir Anthony Cawdron regarding corporate mixers and more formal dinners. These events granted me a complement to the industry experience gained during my co-op rotation and supplemented my abilities to network and form business relationships.

 

That’s not to say that the program is all work and no play. The smaller size of the program cohort allows for frequent social events, the first of which being bowling at the Rack N Roll in the Purdue Memorial Union at the end of orientation week. In addition to being a good way to blow off steam before my first semester of graduate school, it provided me an opportunity to interact with my classmates in a more relaxed setting and make friends who I would later see in my courses. The social proved popular enough to become a repeated activity over future semesters. One of my favorite events was an impromptu potluck, mostly because I will never say no to an event that has food, but also because the dinner contained many cultural dishes provided by my international classmates that I was able to try for the first time. Similar dinners have followed, such as a gathering at Nine Irish Brothers at the end of one finals week, and more events will likely be scheduled before my graduation at the end of this semester.

 

I am very appreciative of the extracurricular activities the program has hosted, both as a means of complimenting my continued academic studies, but also as a means of meeting new people from a variety of backgrounds, two of whom I’m actually living with this semester. In all honesty, a large part of that success has come from the continued dedication and support of our program director, and I hope future cohorts enjoy the program even more as it continues to grow.