Mathew East

One of my greatest assets is my ability to provide a very unique perspective. I grew up in a blue-collar family with virtually no family ties or background in the field of business. Growing up, my mom operated a home daycare and my father worked as a telephone maintenance worker. They combined for a total annual earnings of roughly $70,000 and struggled to support a family of nine. This was a struggle that forced my family to live with my grandparents until I was roughly the age of four. When I was 15, my father died of a heart-attack and left my mother with the burden of taking care of and providing for myself and my other four siblings who were still in school. Since coming to IU, I have worked hard to excel in school, have gotten into an extremely selective MBA program, and hope to one day work on Wall-Street. While my story is by no means a story of rags to riches, I believe that my life has been an accumulation of experiences that has given me the ability to see the world from multiple perspectives. I wanted to join the Odyssey in order to use this perspective to write meaningful and thought-provoking content that will connect with people from a variety of backgrounds and upbringings.