Sam Williams
“In working with my teammates, we’ve grown and excelled most when everyone is comfortable and able to contribute in their areas of strength, whether that be math, writing, or design. Fuqua’s team-based learning challenged me to lead at times and to understand when to share an idea and when to ask for others’.”
MMS: Foundations of Business
Industry:
Prior Education:
Auburn University
Political Science, 2021
Why I Chose Fuqua
While working in Washington, D.C., I realized that regardless of which career I pursue, I needed to understand the fundamentals of business and finance. I saw the MMS: Foundations of Business class profile and curriculum and knew it was a perfect fit. Getting to study business with clever people from around the world has been enormously enriching.
Before Fuqua
I was a research fellow with a focus on federal budgeting under President Calvin Coolidge.
After Fuqua
I plan to begin law school in the next few years and would like to work in venture capital or private equity. I want to become the connective tissue between ideas and resources, passion and planning, disruption and process. Ideally, I’ll focus on biotech/biopharma, with an emphasis on translating research into cognitive decline (particularly Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia) into genuine alleviation or cessation.
5 Tips for Staying Productive and Avoiding Burn Out
- At the start of each term, get on Excel and create a term schedule with all assignments, deadlines, and exams for all classes. Having this information in one place will reduce stress and uncertainty for the rest of the term.
- Schedule non-academic activities with your group. It will bring the team closer and guarantee much needed breaks.
- Set time limits for work sessions and take regular breaks. The brain can’t focus for long periods of time, and short breaks help to partially recover some cognitive bandwidth.
- Talk with your family often. They will want to hear how the program is going, but don’t forget to keep up with things back home, wherever that is for you.
- Keep up with your hobbies. Schedule time for activities which energize you and have nothing to do with school or recruiting.
Working with My Team at Fuqua
My team is the greatest quintet ever assembled. Our quality of work and depth of learning benefitted greatly from our various origins and educational backgrounds. My teammates hail from Connecticut, India, China, and the Philippines. And with undergraduate degrees in finance, economics, politics, public policy, and computer science, we each bring to the table a unique contribution.