A highlight of the semester so far was an informal networking event I attended this week. I was really fortunate to be awarded an Aspire scholarship and we had our first ‘Aspire burger night’ on Monday in the Waterloo, a bar in town. It was fantastic. The current and past Aspire students now number in excess of 40 and well over half of us were able to make the event. The premise was for us to have an opportunity to meet each other informally and to have a Q&A session with some Irish business leaders.
Brian Hogan of KSG chatted to us and offered insights from his long and distinguished career. He was inspirational and I could not believe he had not done this type of thing before. He is a natural public speaker. We then had a further chance to pose questions to a wider set of business leaders present. It was great to hear that these titans of industry had made mistakes, it was great to hear that they had doubts. There is hope for us all.
The best thing about the evening was the positive attitude in the room. Everyone was hopeful about their future and about Ireland’s future. I left the Waterloo inspired and ready to take on the world. I am really looking forward to the next event. If any of you are interested in finding out more about the scholarship you can click on the link below. I am incredibly grateful to have been awarded such a scholarship and would urge any of you thinking about attending the Smurfit School to consider applying for it.
Full-time MBA 2014
Ireland