A Pre-Law Student Walks Into a Ross Club
I didn’t initially plan on recruiting for BOND. As an LSA computer science student interested in law, Ross clubs were nowhere near my radar. I went into the info session solely because a few of my friends were interested, but I was shocked to find that by the time I left, I could actually see myself in BOND’s community. From seeing the president come from a public policy background to chatting with other members who were studying business in conjunction with other majors, I realized that the best part of BOND lay in the intersectionality of its members and their interests.
What was once a lack of interest in joining a Ross club did eventually morph into nerves about being a non-business student in one, and as I entered the first biweekly I was honestly quite nervous about what I was getting myself into. On the one hand, I enjoyed talking with everybody I had met in BOND thus far, and knew I wanted to be a part of the community; on the other hand, I was not in any investment clubs, business frats, or even accounting classes where people usually meet in Ross.
Almost immediately though, people started introducing themselves to me, and as the biweekly started, I began to feel more comfortable in the space. That trend continued throughout my entire newbie semester, where I found myself in many situations where any stresses about not being in Ross proved to be pointless. In team workstreams, my project managers encouraged me to pursue our research from lenses I knew best, like legal and regulatory aspects of a market, and in the newbie DL sessions, I was able to learn Excel and financial basics so that every student in our class had the same base knowledge.
Outside of biweeklies and workstreams, I was quickly reminded of how small of a world Michigan is, and ended up running into BOND friends everywhere (but especially in the East Quad dining hall). Add to that the very traffic-filled journeys to Chicago, and I found myself getting to know everybody in the club far better than I ever imagined. In a group as tight-knit as BOND, being a non-Ross student made no difference in how close I became to my friends in the group, although it definitely saved me from the collective stress of BCOM 250 presentations.
Between the appreciation for different backgrounds of study, the support throughout the newbie semester, and the well-themed (i.e. century gothic by W’22) and fun BONDings, I felt comfortable in BOND both professionally and socially this last semester. I am happily surprised by how much I have loved being a part of the community, Ross-student-majority and all, and I cannot wait for many more semesters to come!
