Editor’s Note: From Zion National Park to Whistler, B.C., Goff has had the honor to travel with Business Scholars to facilitate their leadership retreats. Ruchi Watson and Maya Jolley led each cohort through leadership sessions, where they explored what it means to be a leader, discussed how leaders show up for themselves and others, and began to craft our own leadership legacies at the University of Utah. Read on to hear from former Goff Explorer and current Business Scholar Ambassador, TX Harris, on the value he sees in Business Scholars and Goff!
Here at the David Eccles School of Business, the Business Scholars Program is a great opportunity for Freshman and transfer students to get exposed to the various degrees offered from the Eccles School. The program is designed to give students, who may not have been pursuing a business major, the chance to see and participate in the majors first-hand.
Part of the Business Scholars Program is the leadership development opportunities that are offered throughout the undergraduate program. The first trip of the year for all students is our Zion Leadership Retreat. This trip, facilitated by the Goff Strategic Leadership Center, gives students a chance to meet their peers in their sections and develop key leadership skills through hands-on case study analyses. Case studies like these give students a chance to develop unique and creative solutions to real-world problems that are currently being faced. During our leadership retreat, the case was centered around the attendance for Zion National Park, how that value can be manipulated, either higher or lower, and what this would mean for the park itself. Students spent the mornings proposing different ideas and solutions for these topics and then presented their proposals to their peers. The experience gives them a chance to break out of their shell, so to speak, and get some of the “first-year” nerves out.
In the past year, I have been very involved with the Goff Center and am very appreciative for the great work they have done, and will continue to do, in assisting students to develop necessary attributes to be successful. Ruchi Watson and Maya Jolley led our training sessions while we were in Zion, and both discussed integral ideas around what it means to be a leader. They shared thoughts on how we can challenge our traditional perceptions of leaders as well. Conversations like these, early in a student’s collegiate experience, allow for perspectives to change and stereotypes to be erased. They truly have the potential to be formative moments in these students’ lives – I know that the seminars I attended my first year personally changed the way I viewed myself and others as leaders.
While there are many opportunities offered within the Business Scholars Program to interact with the Goff Strategic Leadership Center, there are even more ways to get involved! There are several different courses offered throughout the year that are designed around building strategic leadership skills and emphasizing the importance of “thinking strategically.”
This year. I participated in the Goff Explorers course: the class is during the Summer Semester and pairs you with an internship that is set up through a matching process. The class met once a week to discuss major themes, work through assignments with your peers, and problem-solve as a group on how to improve the quality of your work in your internship.
Nearly every student in the course, including myself, ended the semester with a successful internship and a job offer in hand from their respective firms. Overall, the class was by far a highlight in my career at the University of Utah, and I am extremely grateful for the chance that I had to learn from Dr. Watson. Any student can attest that the more involved the instructor, the better the course – and Dr. Watson was by far the most involved, detail-oriented, and focused professor I have ever had the pleasure of learning from. If you ever want to learn more about the Goff Strategic Leadership Center, please visit their website, or go to the Garff Building on campus and visit the incredible staff!