A Letter to Cohort 16 from Dr. Bailey, QUEST Executive Director
Congratulations QUEST Seniors!
Spring is a bittersweet time of year for our QUEST community. We say goodbye to our QUEST seniors while we say welcome to our incoming cohort of students. The juxtaposition of our feelings of sadness and excitement were very apparent at the QUEST Student Organization (QSO) barbeque on May 7th when our outgoing seniors (cohort 16) and our rising sophomores (cohort 19) were in attendance. Fortunately good weather, good food, and lots of fun helped us forget any feelings of sadness and enjoy a few more moments of celebration before we say goodbye to our QUEST seniors.
I’m so pleased at how well our QUEST seniors have done in the job market this year. Many of our students will be working for companies that already have a strong relationship with QUEST including Accenture, Booz Allen, Cognizant, Deloitte, PwC, and Lockheed Martin. Many other students will be working for outstanding companies that will help launch their careers and give them opportunities for continued learning including Cisco, ExxonMobile, Google, Microsoft, and Morgan Stanley. Still others have decided to pursue graduate school (including Maryland, MIT, and Virginia), become a Fulbright Scholar, or Teach for America. A more complete list of opportunities our seniors will pursue can be found here. Whatever the opportunity, I’m so pleased that our seniors have decided to follow their passions and define their own career paths.
The significance of our QUEST seniors is a reflection on the success of our community and also a high standard for our returning QUEST students. Since our community emphasizes action learning and engages our alumni, faculty, staff, and corporate partners, many people and organizations can delight in the trajectory of our seniors after graduation. Many seniors told me that they were able to draw upon their QUEST experiences in job interviews to help find an opportunity that best fits their passion. Fortunately, many of their companies saw the value of learning in multidisciplinary, team-based, action-learning settings since it reflected their work environments. Furthermore, our seniors could draw upon their accomplishments and missteps in the QUEST program to approach the challenges of their new opportunities with confidence, flexibility, and humility. Thank you to all of you who have helped our seniors reach this milestone.
To our QUEST seniors, please accept my congratulations on behalf of our community. You make us proud!
Dr. Bailey
QUEST Seniors celebrate after receiving their medallions at QUESTpedition