Hook ’Em Horns — What A Run.
What an odd turn of events for the 4 million college seniors graduating this May; COVID-19, a flailing job market, and a foggy future…
The iconic tower on campus every student sees on their way to class everyday. Hard to miss, easy to love.
What an odd turn of events for the 4 million college seniors graduating this May; COVID-19, a flailing job market, and a foggy future await us. Not how it was supposed to turn out.
But, as I opened my Gmail in the morning on my phone last week, I read the most recent email from UT graduation manager alerting me to send in completed ‘graduation slides’ by May 10 if I wanted to be seen in the commencement presentation.
Weird? Yeah, I’d say so. The grandiose UT Austin Class of 2020 commencement celebration we envision has been reduced to a live video telecast of our guest speaker and university brass doing their best to inspire us in time of uncertainty. Just won’t be the same.
Yet, as I put my phone down and got out of bed — where I’ve slept with a plush blanket emblazoned with a Longhorn everyday since 6th grade — I smiled. I’m damn grateful for the opportunity to have lived my dream from the moment I saw Vince Young raise the national championship trophy in ’06 with confetti falling over his jersey in the white and orange:
An image I’ll never forget — I associate burnt orange with excellence all because of this game.
As the volatile, whiny, seven-year-old, only child that I was, I pleaded my dad to let me stay up until the conclusion of this game. A school night it was, and every “PLEASE DAD!” bought me five more minutes of game time. After the Longhorns fell down 2 scores late in the 4th, I vividly remember my dad saying he’s done for the night as he had to get up in the morning for work. He let me watch the remainder of five minutes and change of the game on mute. As history would have it, Vince Young & the Longhorns brought down the mighty USC Trojans and we became national champs. I signed my unofficial allegiance to Longhorn fandom that night, forever.
The years passed through intermediate, middle, and high school; I stayed a Longhorn fan, as promised. College application time came around in high school, and of course, UT Austin was at the top of my list. Applied as early as I could for the business school, and fortunately was told in the first batch of acceptance letters that I was admitted to UT.
One of my best friends, a year my senior, Spencer Crawford, started his freshman year at UT so I went to visit in the spring semester of my senior year of high school and spent the night to see what all this college fun was about. It didn’t disappoint. I was amped to begin my career on the 40 acres.
4 years went by, just like that. My first residence of Jester East dormitory was a staple living place of many freshmen before me, and led to the creation of lifelong bonds with some amazing people I’m grateful to call friends. Walks along Speedway in between classes, long hours in the PCL group and quiet rooms led to a balanced portfolio of procrastinated, social, and proactive study sessions, endless conversations with peers + teaching assistants + guest speakers + professors, and the evergreen outlets for fun will be what I fondly look back on when I reminisce about my time at UT.
Social Learning Theory: People learn by watching other people. We do what others do by observing and imitating.
This theory was mentioned and taught to me by one of my favorite college professors — Dr. Johnny Butler. He lectured my class — with conviction — that by being at UT alone we gained an advantage of meeting incredibly accomplished people across endless fields, if we so choose to. We held the power to observe, learn, and imitate from accomplished individuals what leads to success in outputting work that makes the world a better place. That sort of emulation encapsulates everything that I’m appreciative about when I look back at what UT meant for me.
I came into university with slight hints about my future career ambitions, but had no real, bulletproof plan. Being a McCombs student meant existing in an imaginary rat race environment created for me and the rest of my peers to navigate. Business school in today’s age of undergraduate offerings seemingly equates to constant networking, seeking internship opportunities, and asking others where they would be working in the upcoming summer.
Witnessing both the ugly and pretty sides of what recruiting for internships/jobs did for people’s well-being and psyche, I can honestly say that without the constant pressure most students feel in attempting to land these sought after jobs, we wouldn’t have the career prospects of our first jobs currently in hand. Compared to other friends and acquaintances from universities across the nation, I feel relatively content with how our environment forced us to take action and get closer to career choices earlier on in our college career. This is huge. Social Learning Theory took place here. With the breadth of guest speakers, mentoring opportunities, alumni networking events, industry-focused organizations, and volume of corporate relationships UT has, students like myself within McCombs had the opportunity to capitalize on all of these options. We wanted to be like those business professionals, or at least admired some percentage of their accomplishments and dug deeper into what it meant to get to their side of the table.
By interning in a variety of capacities ranging from being a legislative aide at the Texas State Capitol to working with Dean Platt of McCombs on a research project, all the way to interning for a growing AgTech startup and eventually getting to do sales at Indeed.com, I found out what work was like in varying environments. How the public sector differs from private, how small companies operate and differ from the larger ones. I got a taste of the whole buffet. And by tasting the wide ranging offerings of the buffet, I learned what kind of organization structure would suit me most right out of college.
Now, these opportunities weren’t easy to obtain. It’s mind-boggling when I sometimes look back and understand the extent of applications I submitted or cold calls/emails that went into everything I sought after. But that’s the beauty of it. You might not get what you want when you want, but you can always try. I live by Mark Cuban’s gritty quote:
Every no gets me closer to a yes.
One of the most satisfying promises I made to myself and held onto was taking class after class outside of my degree plan that quenched my intellectual thirsts. Whenever it came time to register for the next semester, I had sent out emails and requested syllabus’s for a course I was interested in or gone in for office hours to chat with a professor and see whether their teaching style suited me. Sometimes the classes panned out, sometimes they didn’t. 0 regrets. I took what interested me — Design Thinking, Understanding European Politics, Indian History, Sports Analytics, etc — and came away more polished in subject matter. No, I didn’t get a dual degree (although I would’ve liked to) but I’m happy with what I got out of UT Austin academically. Was there room for more? Sure. Hindsight is always 20/20.
That leads me to what I’m most grateful for on my time on the 40 Acres. Relationships with people who opened my mind to all types of varying perspectives and life stories. Truly crazy how many fascinating people you can come across if you are open to it.
A litany of professors to thank. Dr. Butler for being one of the most decorated people I had ever met — one of the first African American band members at LSU, a college basketball player at LSU, served in the Vietnam War, PhD from Northwestern, several published sociology papers, a successful angel investor to many Austin area startups, and energy advisor to President G. Bush during his term. What a resume. But that skeletally represents who he is as a person. His charisma and willingness to speak his mind immediately spews magnetic positive energy to every student in his class. His class gave me my first real startup experience and opened my eyes to the varying ways successful commercial endeavors can be launched — in really counterintuitive ways. I can only aspire towards living as colorful and impactful as life as he as.
My Indian History Professor, Indira Chatterjee, completely opened my eyes to the reality of how current day India came to be what it is. Growing up in an Indian household, I was always spoon fed stories of how India came to be, yet never really knew the facts. With spirited class discussions and often completely never before seen material in lectures, my peers and I were blown away by the nature of everything we learned. Between the Mughal and British Empires, India’s history is a complicated jumble that this course was barely able to scratch the surface of yet provided a solid foundation for future learnings. Hell, it further fueled my desire to travel through India to see firsthand what I learned. And I did!
Finally, Tepera Holman. An academic coordinator who put together a program director for McCombs Success Scholars: an initiative designed for incoming freshman who came from smaller high schools and communities that sent less students to UT annually compared to larger, more affluent school districts and cities. His leadership style and open door policy led us to all form a deep bond and mutual respect with him. Above all however, the simple initiative of grouping together students from common backgrounds led to some incredibly strong friendship I’m thankful for. By sharing classes together freshman year, we found a critical first community to be a part of. Hugely instrumental in my college career. Having people in your corner can ease a ton of doubt as you transition into the massive mini city that UT is.
Most importantly, the class of relationships I’m most happy about — all of my friendships. I could write a really long and detailed memoir about my friends and our wacky adventures, but I’ll save that for another time (maybe Netflix show). When people discuss potentially disbanding college or moving to a complete online format, it can’t be further discounted from the value of meeting people aged 18–24 from all over the country who match your interests yet are uniquely different. I grew up with these people. We experienced quasi-adulthood and reconciled with each other over difficult decisions, and celebrated with one another over just about anything. Coming from a smaller city — White Settlement, Texas — my worldview was quickly widened though engendering friendships with people with vastly different backgrounds. Differences as simple as growing up in the east coast, west coast, or coming from an entirely different country, being transfer students… UT offered a wide spectrum of people to connect with. I savored every last opportunity to socialize and learn about what people’s parents, what their personal story was, and why they were here.
As mentioned earlier, coming from a lower to middle class socioeconomic community, I had no real intuition about the vastness of career choices or life journey that were out there in the world. Meeting people and making friends socialized me into what was possible. What was out there. Sure I had inklings about what I wanted to do career-wise following high school, but my plans took a 180 after I saw/witnessed/learned firsthand realities of a career in law or wanting an international business major. This was crucial; by being acclimated to my newfound company in college, I saw the varying definitions of success. I was then able to piece together what success meant for me, and my subsequent actions matched it.
The semi-ironic twist
With a study abroad in Prague for my spring semester of 2018 and by graduating a semester early, I was physically only at UT for six semesters worth of time. Making both decisions were difficult, yet I’m extremely happy I crossed the line and jumped into my time spent internationally.
UT offers a plethora of international programs to match just about any interest. There was no I was going to miss out on this during undergrad. Living in Central Europe for four months and meeting eccentric people from across the globe proved to be as invaluable of an experience as anything I could’ve done in my college time. The richness of European history coupled with constant traveling across the continent with newly minted friends was truly special. All of the ‘When I studied abroad…” jokes are 100% accurate. Because there’s nothing quite like unsupervised international adventures with people your age.
From January to late March of this year before COVID-19, I travelled through India; solo backpacking in what should have been my final semester. I was dually split about the decision as I knew college life would never come back, but then again, when could I have travelled so freely again? Even being cut short by the pandemic, my time in India molded me into a prouder fighter for humanity. What exactly does that mean? Well, I was astonished by how many backpackers and travelers in India weren’t boastful or overbearing in talking about their nationality. Rather, they referred to themselves as being a global citizen. That was a whole new of looking at things for me. Yes, these people were prideful about their heritage. But they would rather live in a world where nationalities and passports meant less and the overall progression of a more equitable humanity mattered more.
At hostels across India, I would often find myself chatting with people originating from Brazil, Australia, Germany, France, Colombia, England, Liberia, Honk Kong… and feel totally lucky. Throw in the 1.4 billion people roaming around India, and my brain would be dizzying from the languages being spoken and the cultural nuances around me everyday. Yet, that’s what it’s all about. Listening. Learning. Empathizing. Discussing. Broadening. Understanding. I hope to embody those values of being a true global citizen.
When I look back at my life 5,10, 20 years from now, I might only be speaking regularly to a handful of college friends. But it won’t matter. Those memories will stay with me. The moments lived, the laughter shared, and the hearty late-night shenanigans will be a lasting frame of happiness for my friends and I.
As this chapter of life comes to a close, I’m eternally grateful. I can’t really picture sitting where I am right now without everything that happened for 7 semesters and half of a backpacking trip’s worth of time. So thank you, UT Austin. You weren’t what I imagined, but you damn well were everything that I wanted. As for that 7 year old who cheered wildly for a Longhorn win and Longhorn football glory in 2006? He’s happy to have lived the Longhorn experience.
Hook ’Em Horns, baby.
Age 11 Vinit celebrates a birthday (right). Age 22 Vinit celebrates being a Texas Alumnus!