Written by Guest Author Jeremiah Samuel

Cohort 39 at Orientation

My name is Jeremiah Samuel, and I am a senior operations management & business analytics major in Cohort 36. This fall, I decided to become a mentor for Cohort 39, which meant I got to be involved with QUEST orientation for Cohort 39! Thanks to the QUESTPress Editors-In-Chief for inviting me to do a guest story. First, I will share what inspired me to become a mentor. I realized how much the QUEST Honors Program has given me in terms of experience: working with real-world clients, having the opportunity to network, and gaining professional opportunities. For example, I was able to network with PepsiCo at QUEST’s career fair during my sophomore year. I then had the opportunity to interview for their Kickstart Leadership program where I was able to gain a myriad of information on the company.

I decided to be a QUEST mentor because of the wonderful mentor that I had when I was in the BMGT190H course. She did an excellent job of providing a guiding hand to my team and helping us to achieve our personal as well as greater team goals during the class. I wanted to take the opportunity to be able to have the same impact that my mentor had on me.

Jeremiah, center, with the BMGT/ENES190H team that he is mentoring

My experience as a mentor started out as a greeter, where I helped to guide people to their morning energizer activities. Following this, all of the mentors got the opportunity to write clues about themselves to help students in Cohort 39 find their team and their mentors. From here, I got the chance to meet my team and I noticed immediately that while all of them come from very different backgrounds, they had some similarities. I then facilitated a discussion around their strengths and weaknesses as team members along with having them write a letter to themselves which they will be open when they graduate from the University (like a time capsule!).

We then went on to participate in an activity at Stamp where the teams got to address problems like making Labor Day a fun holiday. I enjoyed this because I got the chance to also work with my team in this activity, and we had some really fun prompts. It really allowed everyone to be as creative as they wanted to!

Eventually we went on to do team-building activities outside of RecWell. Outside in the summer sun, we worked with two other teams to be able to complete activities to build trust. At the conclusion of the first day, we headed back to the business school, and our teams began working on their pilot products. I taught them how to use design thinking to tackle the solution to the problem that they had. Additionally, they began to design their product and come up with our wonderful team name: The 39rs (yes like the football team). I was able to play quarterback in the team cheer where we showcased our 39rs spirit!

The next day we spent the majority of the time discussing team strengths and weaknesses as well as working on pilot products. At lunch, I had the chance to be able to talk with the other mentors and hear how their experiences with their teams had been going. I thought that it was great how all of our experiences were very similar and different at the same time, even though we had the same activities that we were participating in throughout QUEST orientation.

Cohort 39 Mentors

I also enjoyed taking pictures with my team and the mentors throughout the morning as well. We took some really wacky pictures; it was fun! Seeing the products that the different teams developed and my own team put on a great pilot product skit that was confidently articulated to the QUEST faculty and staff was all that I could want as a mentor. QUEST orientation was a great start to their semester for BMGT/ENES 190H! I am so excited to see what my team comes up with this semester!