Welcome to Business School

"Hey Kara, do you want to be on the cheering squad to welcome the admits??"

Umm... No.

Standing in front of over a hundred strangers in a Blue and White t-shirt screaming and cheering... No problem. Standing in front of over a hundred strangers in a Blue and White t-shirt screaming and cheering at age 28... Absurd. So I passed on that and decided I would try my best to offset the cheesy welcome by showing the admits that some of us had indeed moved beyond the "glory days" of high school pep rallies.

We were given a list of the dos and don't for the weekend. Don't say anything about having to walk miles to get to school from the Green Lot, which as most of you may or may not know, is the neighboring city to Durham. Be positive about the workload, life in the "city" of Durham, and everything in general. Keep PDA to a minimum if you are part of the crew. The list went on. So, in an effort to obey the rules, I tried to strike up the right balance between maturity and fun loving. I talked about the rigorous academic curriculum, the life lessons one could expect to gain from working in teams, the many opportunities to develop leadership skills... I was also sure to mention that beyond the walls of the Fox Center, we really knew how to cut a rug, let our hair down, party hardy. I highlighted my 36 hour Campout experience, the 80's party, the Halloween party (still can't find my gloves), the dress like a Fuquan party, the Fuqua Fridays that we turned into Fuqua Saturdays. "We love to drink here at Fuqua," *chuckle chuckle* And I really thought I was doing a pretty good job of convincing the admits that Fuqua was a work hard, play hard environment, the right place for them.

At the end of our evening of wooing and wowing them at school, we decided it was time to show them a good time. The spot chosen: Shooters, a local joint here in Durham, with a mechanical bull, a dancing cage, and a whole lotta cheap liquor. This was my first time going to Shooters. Let me set the scene, Shooters is one of those spots where you walk in and immediately feel compelled to yell, "Let's do shots! Who wants to do shots?!" Not the Lemon Drop shots you'd normally do, in celebration of a co-workers birthday, just to prove to yourself, and everyone else in your business casual clad group that "you could still hang" with the best of them. No, this place brought you back to 21, when Adios' and Long Island Ice Teas were the drinks of choice, and where only one of three shots would do. Patron. Jager. Goldschläger. I was surrounded by a mass of my classmates, and future classmates, all of us rehashing our youth, licking salt from our filthy hands, slamming shots of tequila, and then shoving limes into our mouths, limes that were passed to us with the same hands that wiped down the bar, touched our money, and other things...

It seems trivial things such as rules and regulations fell to the wayside after a few drinks, and what was left, was pure and utter debauchery. In the entire 8 months I've been here, I have NEVER witnessed such a debacle. The ONE weekend we were asked to be on best behavior, the ONE weekend, and suddenly we choose to honor Joe Francis with our own Fuqua Gone Wild. It was glorious.

The next morning as we stood around awkwardly, waiting to greet the admits in our beer stained t-shirts, infused with cigarette smoke, our eyes red and glassy from dehydration, I thought, our high school pep rally days may have been behind us, but as for our undergrad days... we've got a long way to go. I smiled to myself as I watched the admits head in our direction, "Welcome to Business School."