Every day at the VCU Brandcenter presents a new challenge, failure, and every now and then an accomplishment. I came to grad school to further my education, get a master’s degree, and hopefully land a job by graduation. I wasn’t expecting to be confronted by my own assumptions, biases, and worldviews in the process. The daily Brandcenter abruptness has forced me to consistently re-calibrate to keep my balance. I have been knocked down and forced to jump right back up with a punch. I have been forced to raise a white flag in defeat. I have been forced to step out of myself and table everything I know to be true about the world to understand a point of view I didn’t realize existed.
I’ve learned something through this process: how to think.
-Mishaal Abbasi, strategy track, class of 2017