Between the corners of Ithan Ave and County Line Road, SBI has the reputation of a grueling summer that will cause undergrads to be unsuccessfully climbing back up the GPA ranks for the rest of their college career. For those who don't know, SBI is the abbreviation for the Summer Business Institute at Villanova's #1 Ranked School of Business. Outside of the information sessions, the marketing tools used to reel in parents and students alike, and the faculty and staff of VSB, SBI gets a pretty poor wrap. Taking it out of any platform striving to make more money, I'm here to share my gratitude for the program. Here are five reasons for why just the first two and a half weeks have changed my outlook on Villanova and beyond…
1.I’ve realized that Villanova really is one of the most open-armed, welcoming communities I’ve ever been a part of.
Unsure of whether it's the way a Spring semester plays out or being immersed in a sophomore slump, I wasn't sold on the Villanova community that was sold to me. I transferred to Villanova this past Spring, entering the second semester of my sophomore year as a terrified and anxious Florida girl who thought she was entering uncharted territory, even though it was just another college campus, never mind that it was just a mile down Lancaster Ave from my first college experience. While many reasons could've added to my somewhat disappointed perspective, I truly thought Villanova was just another place of overwhelmed and overcommitted busybodies. While we may be overwhelmed and overcommitted, we are joined together by that, the love of that, and the rollercoaster of its emotions. In just two and a half weeks I've met more friendly faces and connected with more people – Villanova students, non-Villanova students, and SBI and summer faculty. While admitting to those emotions might be the hardest thing, I've found it to be the easiest way to kick-start a bond between friends.
2. These bonds are often with the least expected of people.
Like I said, that fear of vulnerability is something that you need to let go in order to meet your newest friend. It may not be the case for everybody, but I personally struggle – every second – with the fear of showing my vulnerability. This may or may not be the reason why most of my friends have shared with me their initial intimidation. Admitting it to both you and myself, I'm constantly flooded with emotions, questions, doubts, the list goes on. With the somewhat consistent warmth of summer, I've found it a little bit easier to pull off my resting bitch face and let my classmates, group mates, friends, and professors know that I'm not great today and I am very behind. Rolling out of bed, grabbing an empty backpack, and showing up a few minutes late to class isn't the end of the world or the end of a good reputation. Hey! Maybe you'll even share a good laugh with a soon-to-be friend.
3. I still have no idea what I want to do – major, minor, career…forget it
Since I transferred into Villanova as a second-semester sophomore, I was given an extra year to declare a major – hands down the best part of being a transfer. I left my sophomore year ready to declare a Communications and Philosophy double major with an added embellishment of a double minor in Business and Marketing, that is, if I passed SBI…my fingers are still crossed. After graduating I would land a cool, trendy job somewhere not too far from a city or the coast and would be on my merry way to real life. Wrong! The first hour of class completely wiped any certainty of a future plan from my mind as if it was never there. It seems like each hour of the day, especially the ones spent in an over-the-phone Q&A session with my mom, lead to more and more questions. I think I'll stick with the Philosophy major just because of that. The exposure that SBI has given me to things I never even put any thought into has led me to want to do more, learn more, and be more. Without SBI I would have continued neglecting this whole word of important information and knowledge. Heck, now I can even understand some of those "fancy lawyer" terms I hear as I procrastinate while binge-watching Blue Bloods. Not only that, but I can convince my parents that I'm pretty damn smart with tech-savvy Excel language and I now know that block chain does not refer to a chain of Lego blocks. Maybe I do wish, though, that Business Law Basics didn't cause me to constantly wonder how my dad is still doing well in his risky sole-proprietorship.
4. I’m thankful for SBI, but I’m even more thankful for the long hours of summer days and the occasional sunshine, even if it does make me question my decision to opt into sitting in a classroom for 7+ hours a day.
I've become more aware and more thankful for some of the little things. Whether it be a classmate reaching out, a friend sending me luck for my day of lectures, getting let out just fifteen minutes early, or, like I said, a little sunshine and warmth, SBI has taught me to say thank you more often. While it may just seem like a regular academic year semester, it is so much more. For what reason, I'm still not sure. A laugh during lunch, a glance shared across a classroom, a professor's passion…all of these little things that surround me during the academic year seem to go unrecognized and unnoticed. In SBI, however, these are the things that get me through. I've never felt more accomplished to receive a good grade or recognition from a professor and I've never had more happiness for walking out of Bartley at 4 PM to throw on a bikini, lay in the grass, and read some dense finance chapters. Taking in these little things make such a big difference – a lesson that I've always thought I'd known but, obviously, never really experienced. Thank you, SBI.
5. Don’t get me wrong, SBI is hard as hell.
I sit in my bikini, swatting bugs, wondering what the hell I'm doing outside when I would be much more productive in a silent classroom of, yep, you guessed, Bartley. But really, the whole situation is hard. Day after day, the clock shows you've only been in Bartley for 15 minutes and you're already scrolling through your unrefreshed Instagram feed. You've sat inside for a good part of the weekend while EVERYONE else seems to be with EVERY ONE of your friends doing the COOLEST things on the PRETTIEST beaches across the globe. Your mom keeps texting you, sending you reminders to call your brothers and sisters, and sharing what seems to be articles from pre-teen magazines, videos from the next Dr. Phil, GIFs of hugs that she likes to call "moving Clip Art." Your classmates are either stressing you out because they're stressed or because they don't seem to have an anxious bone in their bodies. Never mind you get 10+ emails confusing you about software that already has you with your head in your hands, short 9 AM pep talks encouraging, aka expecting, everybody to make their professor proud with a 100% on the first exam. Oh, did I mention you'll be seeing this professor for 3+ hours every day in the same classroom of Bartley for the next three weeks? You better get that 100%. Then you worry yourself, will my name be on the next email titled: "Attention: UPDATED GROUPS…" another one bites the dust. SBI is hard, intensive, grueling, some more adjectives come to mind but, so is life. If I make it through, though, I feel like I'll be climbing more than just a step stool to a better future. Just a few weeks in and I feel more at ease for all types of situations that will come my way not only future years, but future decades to come.
Yes, there are difficulties, but the positivity of all of these experiences truly outweighs them. If you're now sold on SBI, great! Contact me for any tips. And if not, I hope that you are at least inspired to find more exposure to the new and uncomfortable throughout this summer. Just one last thing: can't sleep? Sorry Mom but forget counting sheep. Read an accounting textbook and you'll be out like a light!
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