BUILD Pre-Orientation 2016

Abigail Salas

July 10, 2017

For a video of the program, click here

This year, 13 mentors and five program coordinators came together for BUILD — a pre-orientation program for incoming Georgetown McDonough Freshman interested in developing leadership skills and building a foundation for a successful first year. This year’s program had 28 participants matched up with mentors, who introduced each student to aspects of finance, entrepreneurship, marketing, accounting, real estate, operations and information management, leadership and management, and business ethics.

BUILD (Business Undergraduates Invested in Leadership Development) is an intensive academic and leadership development program in the McDonough School of Business. BUILD focuses on academic achievement and relationship-building and aims for its graduates to become leaders for diversity and inclusion within their field of work. BUILD’s mission is to integrate first-year students into the undergraduate business community academically, professionally, and socially, and to provide them with a foundation for success in business and beyond.

In speaking on her experience at BUILD, Georgetown McDonough first year student Lin Yuan said, “BUILD not only offered a variety of professional development workshops and awesome corporate visits to companies such as PwC, Oracle, and the Verizon Center that helped me transition into the academic rigor of Georgetown and the McDonough School of Business, but also provided me and my fellow BUILDers the opportunity to really explore the multidimensionality of today’s business field.”

“Above all, the most valuable ‘experience’ from BUILD is a group of friends that I can truly rely on,” Yuan added. “I met my best friend here at Georgetown when we were in BUILD. When I have any problems, I can reach out to my friends in BUILD — mentees and mentors, and they’re always eager to help. BUILD’s not just a week of pre-orientation programming. To me, it is an experience that had and will continue to have positive influence to my time at Georgetown.”