The Care of Professors

I’m 24. I’m engaged. I’m ADD when it comes to career interests. I’m easily bored. I’m obsessive. I’m high energy. I’m cynical. I’m an eternal optimist. I’m constantly thinking of the travesties of business as well as the ways in which business can change the world.

As you can imagine, a personality like mine needs frequent venting and conversation in order to remain sane.

I’ve already mentioned Dr. Bill Petty in another post but he’s yet again this week proven to be much more than a professor. In sorting through job offers, career options, and relational dynamics that make the decision even more difficult, I had approached Dr. Petty with a desire to both get some things off of my chest as well as seek some humble advice on how to respond to offers I was receiving. We had an email exchange that went like this.

“Dr. Petty, would you be willing to be a reference for me for a development program.?”

“Absolutely. I’d be honored.”

“Thanks I appreciate it.”

“You doing okay? –b”

Now, most would stop at a simple, “Yes, I’d love to help.” Call it perception. Call it inside information. Call it intuition. I don’t care what it is. The point is Dr. Petty took a step towards me knowing that a request for a reference, at least for me, was much more than a request for a reference.

I won’t sit back and assert that things like this don’t happen at other universities. They might. I also won’t sit back and assume that they do happen. My experience grants me zero insight into either of those assumptions. However, my experience does tell me that Baylor is the kind of place where the Dr. Pettys of the world come and plant themselves, actively seeking out students who need much more than a set of homework problems and an exam.

This blog series, I think, is meant to serve as a window into the life of an MBA student at Baylor both for recruiting purposes but also for alumni and other Baylor affiliated individuals. If you could walk away with any tidbit from this post, know that any teacher can instruct on finance or accounting. Hell, a book and a stack of scratch paper could teach finance. But, it takes a place committed to faith, committed to community, committed to students that creates an environment for people like Dr. Petty to thrive and exist. It takes this kind of place for students like myself who have used their time at college to ask far harder questions than what the pre-money valuation is of a tech start up.

I thank God for Baylor. For Waco. For cinnamon rolls and coffee with retired professors. For warm smiles, bear claws, cottonwood trees and the Brazos. Today, I especially thank God for Dr. Petty.