Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Andrew Peer and I'm the former president of the Undergraduate Management Association. I'm talking today from the big lecture hall here in the El Fierro Center and I spent a lot of time here taking classes over my four years at UB, as will you, but I'm actually here to talk to you today more about things that are outside of the classroom and the things that are going to make you different. Everyone has to spend a time in these classes and has to take the required course load, but not everyone has to get involved and that's how you're going to get your edge here at the School of Management. Involvement in student groups here is an essential part of life. Today I'm going to briefly describe some of the different types of clubs that are open to you and why it's really essential that you get involved early in your college career and also how you can get involved. Let's start by talking about some of the different types of clubs that are offered at UB. Within the School of Management, first of all, we have clubs that only have a Buffalo presence, for example, the UB Accounting Association. Being part of one of these clubs, which is confined to a local chapter, has certain advantages. First of all, it's a more flexible organization. In other words, there's not so much structure in terms of national bylaws or certain events that need to be run every year and it really gives you an opportunity, getting involved in a group like that, to really leave your mark and set some tradition as to what these groups do. You can change the bylaws very easily, you can plan different events that have never been done before. There's really a lot more flexibility in a group that is only here at UB. In contrast, UB also offers clubs in the School of Management that have a national or even international presence. An example of this is the fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, which is a business fraternity. The advantage here is that you can tap into a national network of both members and alumni and also be able to enjoy the structure and mission of a large organization. It's a little bit less flexible in contrast to the more local clubs that I talked about before, but yet there still is an advantage to being associated with a big name that's going to be recognized nationwide. A third way to categorize the clubs is by area of interest. As you know, there's various concentrations within the School of Management for different academic interests. Likewise, there are clubs that are specific to these individual concentrations. For example, Beta Alpha Psi is a fraternity, a club here in the SOM, that's focused primarily in the accounting and finance areas. However, there's also clubs that are more broad in scope, such as Delta Sigma Pi, where there's all sorts of different concentrations that the members belong to. That gives you an opportunity to discover interests of different people. If you're trying to determine what concentration that you want to pursue, you can ask these other members and get more of a broad base of experience through their events that are planned and try to figure out what you'd like to do. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about why you should get involved. There's really so many benefits to being an active part of the club life here in the School of Management, and I'm going to speak about some of the ones that I felt were most important for me. First and foremost, making new friends who have similar academic interests and also gaining access to the alumni network at these clubs is really vital. The closest friends that I made in college were people that I met through the clubs in the School of Management. I think you join a club that interests you and you get a lot of similar people with similar interests and a lot of people that will become very natural and close friends to you. These clubs will run all sorts of events, social events, professional events, and it'll really give you an opportunity to connect and build some long-lasting friendships. It's also very valuable to build friendships and meet some people who are older than you who have gone through some of the classes that you're about to go through and have a little more experience than you have. These people can be great sources of advice and also great friends to have in your path here in the School of Management. For me, I met one upperclassman who sort of became a mentor, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later and the way that that ended up helping me and really putting me in a good position to find a career in the end and also gain some valuable experience. Secondly, you can make better relationships with faculty by joining a club. Each club here in the School of Management has a faculty advisor who is also a professor here. As part of the club, especially if you're in a leadership position, you'll work very closely with these faculty members and develop more of a close rapport than you would have, say, if you only knew the professor from a classroom-type setting. And having the professor as more of a friend, I guess you could say, is really a valuable relationship. They're great sources of information about different careers. They often talk to the recruiters and know what's being looked for and what the hot new areas of business are. They also are really important for you in the sense that you're going to need some letters of recommendation along the way, and to have a faculty member that really knows you and is really able to talk about your strong points is going to benefit you in the future. The third benefit is your own professional development and also making yourself stand out to employers. Joining the club, as I mentioned before, really differentiates you. It puts you in a situation where all of a sudden you stand out from people who all they did was remain in this classroom and plowed through and got their degree. When you go in and sit in an interview, your first one, I guarantee you you'll be shocked at how quickly conversation moves from academics to clubs. These employers want to know what you did extra, what interests you, and the type of leadership positions that you held here at UB, and want to make sure that you're a motivated person that's going to work hard and someone that's truly interested in the community and also life outside of just academics. In an interview situation, as I said, employers are really going to draw on this, and you have to be prepared for that, and also build some experience in clubs that are going to give you some material to talk about in these interviews. Now I'm going to talk a little bit about my personal experience in the clubs and how, in the end, it really benefited me. As a freshman, I came out and joined Delta Sigma Pi. It's one of the ones I mentioned earlier, one of the more broad-based interest clubs here in the School of Management, covering all concentrations. That's where I met my friend who was a couple years older than me. He was an accounting major, like I was planning to be, and he was able to give me some great advice as to what courses to take, what professors he enjoyed, and things like that that sort of made the route a little bit easier for me. Along the way, he got a job with a Big Four accounting firm and graduated and put in a year there and really developed a good relationship with his employer. He came back the following year for a recruiting event and introduced me personally to the chief recruiter of this firm. I feel this personal introduction, in the context of being involved in this club, was really beneficial as far as the recruiter getting to know my name and wanting to get to know me personally. Sure enough, I had an interview where I talked a lot about my club experience and some of the different leadership positions I had held in the clubs, and it went great. I made it to the second round of interviews where I went into the office and met with one of the partners, who was a UB grad as well. We got to talking, and I come to find out that he was also a member of a few of the clubs that I was in. He was talking about how things have changed and wanted to know what type of events we were running now, and it really put me at ease and I think put me in a situation to really succeed in that interview. Sure enough, I did get the job and now I'm set for after graduation. I've got a job to go into and it's really great. Now I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how to get involved. I advise you to do the first thing is go to the School of Management website and link to the student clubs page. Here you'll find the listing of all the clubs that are available in the School of Management, and you'll also see the names of the presidents of the clubs will be listed, so you can contact them and ask questions if you like. You'll be able to read general information about each club, the areas of interest that they're really focused on, and the type of events that they run. Usually most clubs will do social events as well as professional events. As I said, you can read about those and find out when those introductory meetings are where they're going to do a lot of the recruiting. It's also important to keep your eyes open early in the semester. There's going to be a lot of advertising going on around the School of Management. You'll notice flyers around the Alfiero Center and the Jacobs Management Building, postings on the various plasma screens and bulletin boards, and you'll also have some representatives coming in from the clubs advertising for their recruiting events and really encouraging you to get involved. Really listen to those representatives and really read those advertisements and try to find at least a couple things to just check out in your first few semesters. Go to some of those meetings and see if you like it, and if so, get involved. And then from there, the ball really starts rolling and soon enough you'll be in a leadership position and you'll be interviewing for jobs and talking about all those great experiences. So I hope you enjoy your years here at UB and make the most of them and really make an effort to get involved.