Business Students share paths to success

(From left to right) Christie Lam, Galen Haws, Garrett DeBlauw and Amanda Zook are hosting an event for the younger business majors.

Courtesy/ Andrew Opfer

“It’s not enough to just graduate; we want to prepare you for success after you graduate,” junior Christie Lam said, quoting academic advisor Rebecca Hay.

This quote could very well be the theme of the upcoming May 5 event “How They Did It,” a 9:30 p.m. meeting in the Cafe’s banquet hall. Four business students, who have been involved successfully in the business world, will host it.

Two Biola business clubs, Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) and Crowell School of Business Investment Society (CBIS), are partnering together to put on this event, geared toward freshman and sophomore business majors.

The aim of “How They Did It” is to encourage business students to get involved in business activities outside of the classroom, according to Lam, the vice president of SIFE. It will also be a night of general advice, such as the importance of early involvement.

“We’re going to explain how we got to where we are now. We couldn’t have gotten there unless we started early,” Lam said.

“People have this view ‘Oh, I’m special. I’ll get there someday,’ but nobody suddenly turns successful. You do have to work your way up and just get involved and try things out even if you hate them,” she explained.
Lam has lived out this advice; besides her involvement in SIFE and CBIS, she is on track to complete three internships before graduation. She stressed the importance of trying out new activities for educational purposes.

Lam said that it seems as though business students have forgotten the importance of being well-rounded, even in areas that won’t necessarily go on your CV.

“It’s important just to develop yourself to learn your strengths and your weaknesses — not just to go on your resume because a lot of stuff doesn’t go on your resume,” Lam said and described the life lessons that she learned from living with an RA that helped her develop herself as a person.

“You can learn from anything, and I think people forget that,” Lam said.

Lam said the meeting will promote “the use” of being well-rounded.

“It’s not just about having good grades,” she affirms.

Lam said that “How They Did It” was designed for lowerclassmen business students in order to give advice and recruit for next year’s business clubs’ leadership positions; however, any student is welcome to attend, including business upperclassmen.

“Even if it’s not business students, you learn a lot from being in a business environment,” said Lam. “Just the etiquette of how to dress, how to e-mail well, how to work in teams.”

The four hosts of this event will be CBIS founder and president senior Galen Haws, CBIS vice president Garrett DeBlauw, SIFE president Amanda Zook and Lam. The leaders will be giving presentations on the lessons that they have learned through their business experiences. After the presentation there will be mingling and refreshments.

Lam hopes that this event will show business students why it’s worthwhile to get involved in these clubs. Currently the attendance is not as steady or high as the leaders would like. The SIFE club has four members, and the CBIS club fluctuates between four and 20 members, according to Lam.

The CBIS club membership is unsteady because it increases when they have speakers, according to Haws. Haws said that they have hosted speakers from Merrill Lynch, Fidelity and Edward Jones and have had company owners come in to discuss real estate and business investing.

“It has gone from simply a forum of people who have like interests to an educational tool within the school of business,” Haws said.

One of these educational tools is the club’s virtual stock exchange and real cash investment account, which is currently up 9 percent — Haws hopes that this will greatly increase in the future.

“I would like to one day see students meet and manage millions of dollars,” Haws said. He also said he hopes for a more serious meeting attendance so that the vision of the club can be upheld.

Lam pointed out that until attendance increases, the clubs are in a catch-22, because students don’t want to join organizations that aren’t “good,” but these organizations won’t become “good,” until students join them. Lam hopes that students will be inspired by Thursday’s meeting to get involved.

DeBlauw agreed that this meeting should be useful for students.

“This event is a great opportunity for underclassmen to gain some insight into their own futures,” DeBlauw said. “Everyone needs some help to determine what career path is right for them, and by attending this event we (the upperclassmen) hope to provide them with examples of our choices.”