Ode to Section 3 - I'm lovin' it!!

For those of you who don't know what Sections are (not naming names... Alice Huang) I'll tell you... In a business school class there are about 430 people. We are further subdivided into 6 sections, roughly 70 people per section. Your sectionmates are the people you will spend the most time with in your first year of business school because you take all of your core business school courses together.

In order to help the sections quickly bond early on in the year, there are a series of events that the school puts on such as the Section Olympics, a Ropes course where you spend a whole day in the woods in 100 degree weather "team building" aka being made to feel like you're going to die at every turn, and a couple of other events. The Section Olympics however is not only a team building activity, but one that establishes your order within the sections. Now many might disagree with that statement. Those are the people who are often heard throwing out these cliches:

"Its just for fun."

"We bonded just by being together as a team."

"Who cares if we win or lose."

Who cares? I do.

Last year I walked away from the Section Olympics, sweating profusely and head hung in shame. Section 3, Class of ’09 suffered a humiliating defeat and I, raised to be competitive in even the most trivial of games – called my aunt a filthy cheater last spring during a "friendly" game of Disney’s Scene It - was greatly displeased. Our abysmal performance didn’t even merit a "How you played the game" award. That’s how bad it was.

As section leader of the new Section 3, I vowed that this year would be different. I would accept nothing less than first place.

Section 3, Class of ’10, brought their A game, and then some. A section of people after my own heart. I watched with pride as they passed around the burnt wine cork to mark up their faces, preparing for battle. When we got out onto the field, I watched as most of the other sections sat around idly watching the events... "supporting" if you will. Not my team. Oh no. While everyone else was out there kicking back, my team was strategizing, plotting. They weren’t just out there to win it, they were out for blood. Vengeance. And vengeance they got. It was a thing of beauty. They absolutely DESTROYED the other sections.

And quite honestly, there wasn’t a group of individuals who deserved that win more – 10% skill, 100% heart.

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I’m expecting great things from this group. I think they are all amazing and I wish them all the best of luck in their first year!!!

Section 3… Kickin’ ass and taking names

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."