B&T Trek is all about fun

For this post, I interviewed one of my friends, Surya Kapur who is also a first-year MBA. He is originally from India, and has been living in the U.S for the last few years.

I wanted to know more about his experience at the B&T Trek in Seattle and I thought it would be a great opportunity to learn while writing for the blog.

Q: What is the B&T Trek?

It is basically a trip organized by our Business and Technology Club and the Career Opportunities Center (COC) at Tepper, for students to visit tech companies. We were a group of around 50 MBAs, guided by Steve Rakas, our COC Director. The experience was even better because Steve was with us and could improve our connections with companies. We had the opportunity to visit T-Mobile, Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, Tableau, and Boeing. We built close connections with many alumni, besides petting the dogs at Amazon, experiencing Hololens at Microsoft (pretty cool), tasting coffee at Starbucks and listening to the history of Tableau told by its CPO.

Q: What you liked the most?

That is a really hard question to answer. We have a lot of fun! I would highlight the alumni happy hour in downtown, where we interacted with around 20 alumni, including the CFO from Amazon, Brian  Olsavsky. We spent 2 hours with them, learning from their experiences and receiving advice about the school and career. This was a unique opportunity to learn from such successful people.

Q: What have you learned?

I realized that I really like tech firms. They are very innovative, willing to take risks, and they have a healthy work-life balance. This is the type of community that I want to be part of.

Q: Interesting fact?

For me, visiting Boeing was awesome! We toured at Everett facility, which is the largest building in the world! Also being close to the production process was really exciting. It is a high-tech process with huge equipment. It is impressive how precise they build such complex machines.

Q: Anything else you would like to add?

I cannot forget to mention Bainbridge Island. It is a traditional event hosted by alum Geoff Entress, where we all get a ferry to the Bainbridge Island and we go to a nice restaurant for dinner with alumni. Now we are all laughing, but we nearly missed the ferry back to Seattle.

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Luisa Felix Souza | MBA 2019

Summer Associate at McKinsey & Company

Luísa was born and raised in Brazil and knew her entire life that she was going to be an engineer, as her grandparents and parents inspired her to be. She developed her passion for beer while working at AB-Inbev and then switched to IT consulting, where she was a project manager. She spent her summer at McKinsey in Brazil. Luísa loves to travel, run outdoors, watch movies with her husband, and is a former competitive swimmer. She is also an angel investor, on the advisory board for a healthcare startup in Brazil, a Forté Fellow, member of the Board of the Latin America Business Club, and of the Consulting Club.

Latest posts by Luisa Felix Souza | MBA 2019 (see all)

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• B&T Trek is all about fun - November 1, 2017