It was the “Hoosier Hospitality” that convinced Indiana Gamma Taylor Viti to leave suburban Chicago and head south to Indianapolis for college. She is in her junior year studying Finance and Economics at Butler University (BU). Taylor wants to work for a large corporation focused on government trading. Since BU is a small school in Indianapolis, she has had plenty of doubters saying she will not be able to do it. But she has accepted the challenge to become successful on Wall Street in the future.
Taylor is already making strides. This past semester, she was one of eight students from BU’s Lacy School of Business to visit New York City. They met BU alumni at JP Morgan Chase in Manhattan and spent time at Johnson & Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The experience allowed Taylor to learn more about the stock exchange, hedge funds and network with professionals. The two-day trip felt like a marathon to Taylor. But it was worth it to for Taylor to put her face in front of potential employers and connect the in-person meetings to her resume. Now that’s what I call networking!
Taylor learned many new things during the trip, but she was also surprised by how she connected so much of what she had already learned through her Pi Phi experience. A lot of big corporations are interested in teamwork, as different areas of the company come together on a team to accomplish a project or task. Taylor related her past experience as Vice President of Finance and how she worked closely with the rest of the Executive Board to complete goals for the betterment of the chapter. She used examples of how she learned to bring people together, who usually operate differently, and how they preferred to be managed. Additionally, Taylor brought back ideas learned from her trip to use in Pi Phi as she serves as Chapter President this upcoming year.
As Taylor continues to search for what her next steps are, she looks at a compass as a symbol of significance. She also seeks comfort in the J.R.R. Tolkien quote “Not all those who wander are lost” (a quote I also have on my desk). We discussed how life paths are not always straight forward and how that can challenge us as individuals. But Taylor believes she would not know the things she knows today if she had not taken the time to be lost for a while and explore.