(upbeat music)
- Hi my name is Alexis Ivander-Malcolm.
- My name is Peter Ojo.
- Hi my name is Amber Williams.
- Hey everybody, I'm Dawit Gebresellassie.
- Hi, my name is Jordan Williams.
I'm a sophomore here in the Wharton School.
- I'm the president.
- I'm the current co-president.
- Vice President of External Affairs.
- The director of marketing.
- The chair of Howard E. Mitchell memorial conference.
- Of the Black Wharton undergraduate association.
So the Black Wharton Undergraduate Association
is essentially a pre-professional development organization
for black students on campus.
We host numerous different events during the year
essentially to help students get jobs,
help them prepare for those jobs, help them academically,
socially, so on and so forth.
- So there actually a mentor of mine,
was the president of Black Wharton,
and he kind of dragged me along,
but it was something I kind of stumbled into
because in high school, I was mostly around a lot
of white kids, then I came into Penn,
and I was like I wanna do something different,
I wanna have some black friends along with
friends of every race,
and in searching for that, I found him,
and he brought me along and now I'm here.
- So Black Wharton was very interesting to me.
I think that it really brings a
familial environment on campus,
so it's a great way for me to network
a lot of black students on campus,
particularly in regards to
professional development and business.
Although I'm majoring in Communication I do have an interest
in business as well, so I thought a great way for me to
explore that interest was through this organization.
- Freshmen year, I was just a general body member,
I went to all the different events and sort of
just took in all the resources that Black Wharton had,
and it was really helpful for me.
I think it made me feel comfortable at Penn,
especially coming from Atlanta, being far away from home,
it sort of had that family feel.
- And so, the biggest events that we have
over the course of the year
are the HEM conference,
which is the Howard E Mitchell memorial conference.
- The conference is a two-day business conference event
that was established in honor and remembrance
of Howard E Mitchell, who was the second tenured
African American professor who's a scholar in management
and advocated for diversity in the workplace.
- Essentially it's professional development conference
where people go to a career fair,
learn from various different companies,
they have a celebratory luncheon where they get to
interact with different representatives
from these companies and hear from a great speaker.
- We had more than 20 speakers come from
writers for Empire to people in communications
to startups and real estate
to show everyone like these are your opportunities
and we wanted to make sure there's no recruiting aspects
of the conference, it was just about
listening to powerful voices.
There's a black business showcase where you could hear
from entrepreneurs, the black community,
it was just about building community,
empowering our community, and showing everyone
what they could work after.
- Well, I think that the thing that makes
Black Wharton unique is that it's the good mix
that it is gonna be a lot of professional development.
It's gonna be a club that actually focuses on developing
the students, not just giving them fluffy information,
and things like that, but actually doing real events
that are gonna help them and make an impact
in their career.
- Just the amount of messages that I got from
the president of this club, he's a junior at the time
and I'm a high school senior.
Like, you can take the time to continue to like message me
over the course of the summer, saying like,
hey just checking to make sure that everything's going good
so I've kinda tried to like pay that for him,
since I've been in the organization and,
that's a big part of why I've been so involved
since freshmen year.
- At the same time, they know that it's not all about
professional development, it's also about
just being there for people and the community,
being there to support them
in whatever they're going through,
helping them with classes,
family situations, things like that,
so I think that what makes it different
is it really is a family-feel,
and I think you can see that in the GBMs
and the different events that Black Wharton has.
- For students who want to be involved,
I'd tell them that if you want a place
to feel safe to ask stupid questions,
this is the place for you.
And additionally, from my Penn experience
I've come to find that comparison is like
the thief of all joy, which is quote that I really find
enduring, and so I feel like this is a place
where you can find that joy and just realize that
everybody might be failing right now,
and that everyone might not be getting a job,
but everything's okay and these people are here
for you and your highs and lows.
- One piece of advice I always try to give freshmen is
authenticity's a lot more appreciated than relatability,
finding a place where you could really be
your authentic self, and that doesn't necessarily mean
you have to be black, that doesn't necessarily mean
you have to be in Wharton,
but just being able to be comfortable in your own skin
and be authentic is probably most important thing
I would say for freshmen looking to get involved.
- I think that it's made me more confident
in myself as a leader, I've had the opportunity to
exemplify my leadership skills through this role
as a HEM conference chair and through that I've become
more confident in my ability to lead a lot of people
and I think that's really translated as well
to my application process in terms of finding jobs
for the future.
- I think it's really unique to be able to
learn these different lessons in my classes
and be able to apply them in a club like this,
to get real-life experience that
actually helps me at my resumes,
that helps me get skills that
I'm probably gonna be using a lot in my future career.
- I think that above all, like we do focus on
making sure that our constituents,
like at the end of the day do well in school
and can get a job when they graduate,
but for me personally, I think for a lot of constituents,
it's much more than that, it's a lot more like this
family feeling where it's like I don't necessarily know
like what I'm gonna be doing this evening.
I say alright, well, Black Wharton's having this
quick event, like we can hop by and like
I say that a lot of times, like I'll go do like
the study hours as more of a break than anything
for like when everybody else just kinda continuing
to connect with those people within Black Wharton.
I think that that's like something that we're constantly
trying to push more and more since I've been fortunately
at this school, it's that that idea of like more of a family
than just like focusing on pre-professional development.
- And another thing is that we give people
opportunities to shine, so even with me being able to
say I wanna do a conference and like having that freedom
to start it within the organization,
so many people are taking that initiative
to do something within the club, which I think
makes us really, really unique.
(upbeat music)
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