A Unique Legacy: Video Transcript

Scott Glaser (Miami, 1990) [VP-CFO of Lane Bryant]: I always hate giving advice because the experiences that I've had on which that advice is based are just so narrow relative to everything that's out there. But one thing that I would really focus on is you don't realize when you're here at Miami as a student just what a wonderful opportunity it is. It doesn't dawn on you until many, many years after you've graduated just how unique this experience is. You will never in your life have another time or place that offers what this undergraduate college experience, particularly here at Miami, offers.

You have the opportunity to learn and deep dive into so many different fields, and easy access to great teachers and experts in all of those fields who can really help you figure out what your passions are and help you know what you don't know. That opportunity never comes back to you in life, because after you graduate from here you are increasingly specialized in whatever field or career discipline that you have. Even in graduate school, if you go on that route, you are studying very narrow topic areas.

Your undergraduate years are the opportunity to really explore, figure out what you love to do and what you're good at. And you've got four years here to relish that opportunity and attack it with a voracious appetite, not only in the classroom but by getting involved in student organizations and other activities that can help give you leadership and organizational and project management experience, and then you round that out with a social experience with your friends and the relationships that you build that turn out to last a lifetime.

This experience here is unlike anything else that I or any current student will ever have. We'd all like to go back. Those of us who are long since graduated would like to go back and do it again with that appreciation, and the best I can do now is to try and pass that along to those who are here.

[April 2011]