Jan 05, 2015

Beyond Tuck: South American Adventures Edition

By Maryn J. T'15

Maryn is a T’15 originally from Seattle, WA but is loving the adventures of her two years on the East Coast. At Tuck, she is involved in a variety of activities—from serving as quality of life chair (yes, that really is a real role here) on the Student Board, to teaching group fitness classes, to leading the Triathlon Club. She was lucky enough to travel to South Africa with Dean Stocken for a Learning Expedition during spring break of her first year. After interning at Goldman Sachs in Seattle this summer, she plans to return there to pursue a career in private wealth management.

One of the most magical parts of Tuck is the time off students receive during the winter of their second year. When applying to business schools, I never analyzed or compared this part of a school’s program. As a prospective student, second year felt like light-years from the then-current state of self-reflective admission essays and GMAT practice problems.

The seven weeks off from mid-November to early January afford the opportunity to explore the world. Most Tuck students participate in an enriching aspect of the global curriculum through the OnSite Global Consulting program, working on a small team of Tuck students for an international company, scattered around the globe in locations from Ethiopia to London to Tokyo to Uruguay and more. Others use the seven-week break to explore the world on our own, adventuring with fellow Tuckies and crossing off many-a-bucket list items. I chose the latter option and am still on a high from the best five-weeks of my life.

Our group assembled in Cuzco, Peru. We spent a couple days exploring the historical capital of the Incan empire, getting acclimated to the 12,000 foot altitude. From there we loaded our sleeping bags, clothes, and headlamps into our packs and set out along a four-day climb across the Inca Trail, ending in the surreal site of Machu Picchu. After a well-deserved hot shower, two-hour express laundry of everything we hiked in, and the best night of sleep in a real bed with a mattress (standards are lowered after four days of sleeping on the ground and communing with nature, as our guide so poetically described going to the bathroom outside), we boarded a plane heading south to Chile. A few days of city life in Santiago, followed by a few days of vino, sunshine, reading, and hammocks, led us to Patagonia. We journeyed through the W Circuit, hiking hut-to-hut and relishing in the purity of the water—you can fill up your bottle straight from the running streams!

Instead of boring you with further vignettes of our travels, in true business school fashion, I’ve summarized four key takeaways, lessons learned that I will carry with me back to Tuck and beyond:

1. Have fun—it’s the only option. We spent the first four days of the journey scaling the Andes across the Inca Trail. A native Quechuan, Edgar, led us across our first trek, his 814th trek. He was amazing: passionate, calm, happy, wise, and an incredible leader.  Every morning, I asked Edgar “Are you having fun?” And each morning he responded, “Of course, it’s the only option.”  I loved his simple and honest reply—wisdom that his words and actions taught us.
2. Ask questions, be vulnerable, and share. When you travel for several weeks with the same people, you might predict that conversation topics would diminish after the first three days, especially when you eat every meal together and spend a good 95 percent of waking time together. But when questions get creative, and people are willing to open up, a new world awaits.  We instituted a fun tradition—a question of the meal. The questions ranged from telling a story about your first concert, to racking your brain for your earliest memory, to sharing tales of the best vacation. 
3. Take time to relax. In between two epic backpacking adventures, we took a few days to recharge at a winery in Chile. Situated between our physical conquests of the Inca Trail and Patagonia, this time was crucial to recharge, both physically and mentally.
4. Tuckies will rule the world someday (if they aren’t already). I am consistently amazed by the intelligence, passion, and ambition of my friends. Getting away from our crazy-busy-always-on-the-go lives at Tuck, afforded us the opportunity to delve into deep conversations, learn intimate details of one another’s goals; share, question, and develop entrepreneurship ideas; discuss specific details of projects from our summer internships; pontificate on the future of the oil industry; and more.

I came home inspired.

 

Tuck takes on Machu Picchu.

A bit breezy in Patagonia.

Tuckies at 14,000 feet in the Andes.

We left a bit of Tuck in Patagonia.