Promoting an inclusive environment and what you would bring to creating a welcoming, global community at Darden. (300 words)
An experience promoting an inclusive environment and what you would bring to creating a welcoming, global community at Darden
Each year as a volunteer with the St. Monica’s Young Professionals Board, my fellow mentors and I work with South LA high school seniors who are preparing for college applications. In our mentor group discussions, we discussed a common phenomenon that stood in our way: many of the kids we mentored were ambivalent about college because they had never seen a college in person. They were nervous that they weren’t ‘college material’ and feared they didn’t belong.
I met with the head of the program and my fellow mentors, and together, we launched a series of campus visits for our mentees to Los Angeles City College and LA Trade Tech Community College. Every group would include at least six kids, would be followed by a restaurant dinner (just to sweeten the deal). Through the colleges’ admission offices, we arranged private tours, accompanied by current students at the college from similar backgrounds, who shared their experiences.
We have conducted five tours so far; on one recent tour, a college student from Compton told our kids about how he made the most of college life by joining the Media & Entertainment and Corporate Engagement clubs, and inspired them with tales of his summer internship at a production studio. Our inner-city high-schoolers saw people whose backgrounds were just like their own, taking advantage of a college experience.
Drawing on this experience, I hope to create a welcoming community at Darden through the ‘Humans of Darden’ club, where I will organize and join small group events that bring the community together such as in-home dinners, sponsored first-coffees and holiday-themed events from Christmas and Ramadan to Diwali and Passover. I look forward to bringing my empathy and welcoming attitude to Darden, where the integrated and diverse community will make a transformative MBA experience for all our classmates.