Adeola Kamson, MBA’19
I wanted the two years I’d spend in business school to not only broaden my professional network but also broaden my friendships and personal connections. For some people, it can be daunting as an adult to make new friends, especially when you’re in an environment where you have the added pressures of academics and career planning. When you couple that with missing the comfort of friends and family back home, it can easily become more stressful. Despite those challenges, my time at Kelley has been filled with new experiences, new friendships, and great adventure. I want to share three things that have helped me during my time here at Kelley to live intentionally while pursuing my goal of making genuine friendships.
Start small
See this as an opportunity to make new friends and build connections on the foundation of this new journey. I made it a point to eat lunch in the MBA Lounge and sit with different students each day. It was great to strike up casual conversations with my classmates out of the classroom. This led to making brunch, dinner and study plans over the weekend – which I truly appreciated.
Many of your classmates are going to come from different corners of the world. In my cohort team of five, we made it a point to celebrate everyone’s birthday with a small token. Everyone likes to be celebrated at least one day out of the year!
Travel, travel, travel!
Kelley provides several opportunities for international exploration and Bloomington’s location makes a simple road trip with classmates a great way to get to know each other outside of academics. My two weeks in China during GLOBASE were filled with memories that I’ll never forget. I’m looking forward to the other travel plans that I’ve made with my classmates turned friends!