By Megan Farrell T'17
After finishing up my pre-term canoeing trip and orientation, I was ready to begin the school year. Meeting my study group for the first time was something I had been anxiously anticipating. Our first assignment was to act as consultants for a local nature magazine. The company was asking for a plan as to how to get its print content online. Each person in my study group was able to 
bring a unique perspective to the project, given our diverse backgrounds and experiences. After that first “warm up” assignment, we continued to work together through Fall A on all our group assignments and case readings. The group dynamic was more than I could have hoped for and we continued to gain efficiencies and cultivate our group learning throughout Fall A, into Fall B. It was nice to have a core group of people to bounce ideas off of and to ask questions to in my first term back in school, after over five years of not being in school.
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During Fall B, recruiting began to pick up and you could feel the excitement buzzing around campus. As an aspiring investment banker, I attended company briefings hosted by banks, a wine tasting event hosted by a bank and also various office hours and happy hours hosted by banks. I also attended company briefings in other industries, such as sports, tech and consulting, just to get a feel for other types of career paths. There are so many students with such a diversity of career aspirations here that the number of industries represented on campus on any given day in the fall, was astounding. It was amazing to see how excited company executives were to be at Tuck (many of which were alumni!) and how available they made themselves to Tuck students.
There were also many exciting activities, outside of the classrooms, that I participated in during my fall term. Tripod hockey is a blast! I was a little bit nervous to play at first, because I had not skated since I was a kid, but after struggling with my classmates through “try-outs” (everyone makes it), I was hooked. I also joined the Women in Business Club and helped plan the WIB conference in October, became a member of the Tuck Asset Management Club and learned how to pitch stocks, taught lectures to the Smart Women Securities Club at the undergrad campus, participated in spin classes with the Triathlon Club, and led tours and hosted coffee chats for prospective students.
On top of academics, recruiting and extracurricular, there were also so many social events that I really felt made the fall term a great chance to bond with my classmates and the T’16s. In the fall, we had Fall Formal, a Halloween party, Wine Night, a 90s party, and more! In addition, I had the opportunity to have some smaller group dinners with my study group, hockey teammates, and WIB, which enabled me to build strong relationships with classmates.
The fall term was such an amazing experience and I was so anxious to get back this January to start the winter term (after a five-day trip to Mexico with 34 classmates)! Recruiting has really picked up and my classmates and I are looking forward to securing summer internships and then enjoying all that the winter term has to offer. From Winter Formal at Killington, to Tuck Winter Carnival, to traveling on international GIX trips in March, I can already tell that the winter term is going to rival the fall!
Megan Farrell is from Hopkinton, MA. She graduated from the University of Notre dame in 2010 with a major in finance and a minor in theology. At Notre Dame, she was a member of the Women’s Varsity Swim Team for four years and captain of the team her senior year. During her time swimming for Notre Dame, she won four Big East Championship titles and she competed at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. After college, she spent five years working in Boston in finance, most recently at Bain Capital for three and a half years. After Tuck, she hopes to get back into a finance role on the east coast.