Feeling Like...

The Grandmother of MARS Apprentice.

I was part of the inaugural year of Apprentice and still feel completely honoured to have been a part of it. Professor Malik aka M&M came to me with this great idea for the TV show spin off. My immediate thoughts were 1. When does he have time to come up with these random programs ideas? 2. Why is he telling me? and 3. Is this going to be a lot of work? :)

Looking back I'm blessed that he picked me to help bring the program to life. And help was just a small part of it. The idea came from his brain and my OCD skills brought it to life. The idea of launching a pilot Marketing program for a business school that specializes in churning out accountants was a great idea. The execution at times was difficult but definitely paid off for my career and learning skill set. I loved taking Marketing classes during my time at DeGroote but had no idea that launching this program was so specific to my development in Marketing & Advertising.

Trying to figure out how to pitch the program, drafting letters to companies, trying to recruit students to a program with no history, interviewing students and executing the events from boardrooms to challenges was probably the most difficult task I took on in my final year of school. I had no idea what I was doing but M&M figured out that I had to hit the ground running. Current Apprentices keep talking about being self starters in their positions and this program definitely taught me all that good stuff that you can quote in an interview. Initiative, Autonomy, Fast Learning Curve, Problem Solver, etc. I had no idea what I was learning was so integral to my career. Guess that just goes to show that undergrads think they might know what's going on but it slowly and continually falls into place. Especially when you hit the beast called the "work world". All in all I appreciate the classes I took at DeGroote and the way I learned to study and apply myself however being a part of MARS Apprentice probably gave me more learnings and skills to bring to the table when searching for my first job out of school. I am a complete believer in the program and think it's probably one of the best things you can do for yourself if you are looking to get into a MARS profession.