They Never Said it Would Be Easy…

All business majors in their senior year at Wagner are required to take two classes that are meant to prepare them for the real world. One involves a 100 hour internship and a 20 page thesis paper while the other is a real life business simulation called CapSim. I’m not going to lie, it’s a lot of work. I spent the end of my junior year dreading it after hearing about the torturous library hours and high stress levels from my older friends. Even during the summer, these classes were haunting me… the CapSim class in particular. I had my internship set up early on in the summer and I already had an idea of what I would write my thesis on so I wasn’t too worried about those. I started interning for the Richmond University Medical Center’s development and marketing team during the first week of classes this semester and I’ve really been enjoying it. Recently we planned a Masquerade Ball Gala to raise money for the hospital. It was really cool for the other interns and I to see how our hard work paid off to benefit the organization.

The CapSim class however, has been less than enjoyable. On the first day of class this fall, CEO’s were selected from the class who then chose their executive board. To put it simply, each team represents up a company and the companies compete against each other in different market sectors for market share. Ultimately, the company with the highest market share, stock price, and profits wins the simulation. My team didn’t do as well as we hoped to, but in the end we really came together to make the most of a difficult situation. We made our final presentation today in our spiffy business attire (I wish I had a picture to insert in here) and it went pretty well. My levels of stress have significantly decreased since 12 hours ago and I’m starting to feel like I can breathe again.

Now I just have my senior thesis due and a few other individual assignments before I'm officially done as a Business Major at Wagner College. This semester has definitely been my most difficult, but I think I say that in the end it will be the most rewarding. It's challenged me and forced me to grow as a student and as a person. Through my internship I've gained valuable real world experience and through CapSim I've bonded with my teammates and we've each relied on each other to complete some extremely difficult tasks.

No one ever said it would be easy, but they did say it would be worth it. I'm just hoping they're right.