Why I Love Darden: The Prologue

A few things over the past few days have completed affirmed my decision to head off to Darden in August. This post may be premature, but I think this reflection can still be good.

A few weeks ago, there was a discussion in the Darden Class of 2011 Facebook group regarding the best option for cell phone plans. I posted a question about whether anyone had information regarding calling plans/text messages to Canada. A week ago, one of the current students who is from Canada posted his advice about calling plans. Since I had a few other Canada-specific questions (i.e. do I need to register my car in Virginia?), I sent him a message asking if I could ask him some questions. My intent was to just send one or two questions and he could write back some quick answers.

Of course he was willing to answer my questions. But he didn't need for me to email them, he just offered to call me. So last night he called, and being wary of his time, I tried to make my questions quick, and focussed on questions about being a Canadian at Darden. Instead, he kept asking if I had any more questions, and we had a good conversation about all things Darden. He even offered to go to Best Buy with me to get a cell phone, since they took a long time to figure it out when he went last year!

And, as great as this is, it's not even remotely an anomaly. I have found absolutely every Darden student I've come in contact with to be absolutely generous with their time. And, oh yeah, they are all incredibly friendly people. There are a number of current / recently graduated / future Darden students on Twitter, and if I have a question, I just post it in my status, and it gets answered very quickly. Ditto that for the Facebook group, and even student blogs.

The Darden Dean, Bob Bruner, is also on Twitter. He posts his blog updates to Twitter, and every time I read them, I get excited about going to a school that is genuinely focused on ethics and integrity. This latest outbreak of excitement is based on a blog posting that was reposted on Forbes.

Anyway... I have already been trying to pay this abundance of assistance forward as future applicants have been messaging me for advice on the application process in general. Hopefully I can get more involved in helping future students next year. Maybe I'll volunteer as a student host, or join the admissions committee or something. I already feel compelled to give back!