By Alex Marino, Staff Writer
Embedded in the Thunderbird mystique is an innate desire to hit the road in search of exotic adventures across the world. Willingness and desire to cross boundaries into new cultural dimensions is what makes us T-birds and differentiates our student body from other business schools.
But before we all disappear into the world to put into practice our newly acquired business knowledge, I caught up with several T-birds to learn about their individual summer plans. The responses I got are a clear representation of the unique diversity and interests of our student body.
Several T-birds in the MAGAM program will travel to Peru to represent the Global Consulting Laboratory through consulting and marketing projects with Johnson & Johnson, CitiBank Group, and the non-profit university ESAN. The groups will leave on May 10th to begin field research and cultural acclimation in the Andes region, and return back to Phoenix to present the project deliverables to prospective clients on June 3rd.
The MGM program will also conduct TemLab consulting projects in Peru and West Africa later in the summer. The consulting projects from both groups give T-birds a unique opportunity to practically utilize business knowledge gained from time spent on campus. It’s also a great opportunity for students to test the waters in fields of interest while learning how to interact in the global business environment at all levels.
T-Birds Bahar Heravy, Melissa Gaylord, Nash Wills, Roohi Bharti, and I will be representing the MAGAM program in prestigious placements around the world. Bahar, aka Fatima, is going to Washington D.C. to complete an internship with the Afghanistan Embassy in the economic, trade, and investment department. Melissa, Nash, and I will travel to Madagascar to complete an internship with a Rio Tinto subsidiary and strategic alliance in the fields of microfinance, enterprise development, and corporate social responsibility. Roohi will complete an internship with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in a corporate development leadership position.
T-Birds Dan Zlaket, Yaser, Mahmood Alabbas, Inge Patton, and Bradley Hoffa are a few students conducting projects that will represent the MGM class. Dan has a head start on the rest of us and is already traveling throughout Lebanon. He will soon return to the States and begin an internship with Hilti in LA. Yaser will participate in the MGM TemLab in West Africa that will commence later in the summer, and plans to get married as well. Mahmood will be traveling to Saudi Arabia and Dubai to work with family, and intends to secure funding from potential investors in Dubai for his startup company. Inge will travel to Bowling Green, KY to complete a marketing internship with Bilstein Cold Rolled Steel, a German company planning to build a factory in the U.S.
The students listed above are a small percentage of T-Birds with extravagant travel and professional plans for the summer months, but each of them exemplify the T-Bird mystique. I look forward to returning to our oasis in the desert next fall to share that mystique with the incoming classes, and continue the transformative adventure that comes along with the T-Bird lifestyle. Travel well!