Hello from the other side of freshman year! I’ve made it a full year and have learned so much. Olin’s core values—excellence, leadership, integrity, collaboration, and diversity—are a lot to strive for. I started off freshman year far from reaching these values, but knew I wanted to reach the level of professionalism that was expected of me. I had to make huge lifestyle changes if I wanted to achieve this. I was procrastinating my work, staying up until 4 a.m., sleeping past my alarms, and having trouble focusing in class.

The author, Sarah Podolsky, poses in front of WashU’s iconic Brookings Hall.

The first value I strived to fully achieve was collaboration. In my first semester classes, Management 100 and Management 150, I was assigned to a business team. I was so lucky to have such an inspirational team. We were all from different states, had very different skills and personalities, but we worked together so well. For them, I decided I had to get my act together. So two full months into freshman year I began to make some serious changes and began to focus on fixing my lifestyle. I started going to sleep before midnight, doing work as quickly as it was assigned, and waking up early to do extra work before class started.

The level of professionalism that was expected of me is not something that came to me naturally, but was something I learned by observing the incredible students and faculty around me. The drive of the community at Olin is truly inspirational and forced me to make these changes. It has given me the opportunity to be a productive and contributing member of this driven community. I am looking forward to starting my sophomore year with these lessons I’ve gained.