Entrepreneurship Club President Speaks Out

How Responding to a Mass Email Prepared Me for 'Real Life'

It's funny how one simple decision that only takes a moment of thought can change your whole life.  That's how I feel when I think of how a PR student, hardly involved on campus (that's me), came to be the president of an awesome organization such as the Entrepreneurship Club; simply by responding to a mass email looking for club leadership.  Little did I know that through the club I would have the opportunity to work with incredible people, witness success stories, and see a difference I helped make. 

When I first became involved with the club two years ago it had about 20 people and almost completely new leadership.  After a year of VP, learning what potential the club had, I was voted in as president and determined to turn the organization into a place students could turn to for help starting a business.  So, with the guidance of an amazing director we became a club with a "student business pump," as I like to say, and ended the year with close to 900 members. 

Although the numbers are cool, my favorite part about being involved with the club was helping fellow students reach their career goals.  We had so many students tell us the competitions or new system helped them take the initiative to pursue ideas that had been keeping them awake at night.  One story that sticks out in my mind is Jordan Poulsen's iJump Drive.  At our first Design team meeting Jordan presented his idea for a storage device for iPads which sparked the interest of Scot Marchant, an Engineering student and design team director at the time.  A few months later, after perfecting the product, the two won the Elevator Pitch Competition during Entrepreneurship Week.

Stories like this invigorate me because as a club we were able to reach our goal of connecting the different schools on campus to help create bombshell teams of students with different skills.

When people ask what my turning point was for my education, I tell them it was when I responded to a mass email looking for new leaders of the Entrepreneurship Club.  Because of these experiences I'm much more ready for "the real world" than I ever would have been simply by going to class.

Brianna Petersen