Campaigning

My 578 Booth classmates and I are divided into 10 cohorts. My cohort is Bond, named after Joseph Bond (not the spy, the type of asset or the act of coming together). I'm running for cohort president. I pulled HTWFAIP off the shelf for some pointers. It was the first time I'd actually opened the book, although I bought it some time ago - after scanning the table of contents, I decided to browse through Chapter 3, "He Who Can Do This Has the Whole World with Him. He Who Cannot Walks a Lonely Way." Here's the opening paragraph:

"I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or a grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?"

The chapter was tremendously helpful and engaging; while none of the information was new, I it made more sense and sunk in more deeply than in the past. While a portion of this might be due to personal growth on my part, I think it's mostly due to the clarity of the writing, which is impressive given that the modern writers and teachers I've encountered had this book and decades more research and writing to build off of.

As part of my cohort election I had to write a half page platform statement. Suggested guidelines were to discuss my interest in the position, my qualifications, my vision and goals, and the personal characteristics that would enable me to succeed.

I decided to largely ignore these pointers as I had no interest in a hard sell. I'm running against other cohort members, people I like and respect. First and foremost, I want my cohort to develop strong relationships; it would be counterintuitive to try to say why I'm better than one of my colleagues. Here's what I came up with instead. (Please don't have high expectations; as part of the constant prioritizing that characterizes B-school, I spent less than an hour total on the writing of this.) And thank you to Myosen for some great feedback!

Cohort President Platform Statement:

We’re all busy. Classes haven’t even started, and we’re already swamped with bidding, LEAD, career services, happy hours, and more. Not to mention trying to get to the gym or the grocery store! Once we add in classes, study groups, career clubs, recruiting, etc., why would we want to spend time with our cohort after LEAD is over?

The other day I was talking with a friend from another cohort. He said that while he’s met more people than he can count, he feels like he's missing out on something. He has lots of people to chat with on campus or go out for drinks with, but he didn’t feel like real friendships were taking root. He said that one of the things we’re here to do is to build a lasting network, but he didn’t feel like he was heading in that direction.

Our cohort provides a structure where we can build these lifelong relationships. We’ve already started, with squad dinners and a great happy hour. We’ll build these relationships other places too, of course, but the cohort structure is unique. We’ll be competing with friends from our career clubs for internships and jobs, and we’ll only meet so many people through study groups. Our cohort is comprised of 60 people from various countries, industries and backgrounds, and, in my opinion, some of the most fun and interesting people at Booth. The Cohort President's role is to facilitate cohort bonding and represent the cohort on the GSB. I want to serve as Cohort President in order to help us build a strong community, where we develop the types of friendships that will last long past our time at Booth, and where our voices combined will be a strong presence and influence on the GSB and broader Booth community. Let's continue to make Bond the cohort everyone wants to visit.