By: Jana Sauma
Naomi, a second year management student, may be small in size, but she’s known for her assertive and witty personality. She also has the best sweaters! But that’s another story…
Although she’s accomplished a lot over the years and is heavily involved in many extra-curricular activities at McGill, she always manages to maintain her cool. And like most of us, she has a huge weakness for sweets! Which means, despite her busy schedule, she will always try and make time for desserts with friends.
All in all, despite her successes, she remains humble and personable, which is why she is a joy to be around. So, without further a do, voici the lovely Naomi!
Hometown: Various Suburbs of Toronto
Concentrations: Marketing and Strategy
HC: Why McGill? And what is your favorite part about McGill?
Naomi: I can really only compare to the other Canadian schools I was considering, but we just have so much more diversity here – linguistically, ethnically – in every way (I also just fell into the business program, but that’s a story for another day).
Montreal’s also a great city, and I can’t imagine what McGill would be without it.
HC: What is your favorite class taken at McGill?
Naomi: I have to plug it, considering it’s awesome and I will be a TA for it next year, but if you’re in management, you have to consider BUSA 499 Case Analysis and Presentation (a.k.a. “case class”). Hopefully though, some of my favorite classes are still waiting for me next year.
HC: What is your best university experience yet?
Naomi: Academically, it would have to be Women in House, a two-day program where I talked with senators, lobbyists, journalists, MPs and many others who feel that women are not represented enough in Canadian parliament and politics at large. I also shadowed an MP for a day.
Non-academically, I can’t think of anything at the moment. Whatever it is, it’s probably not meant for the Internet.
HC: How’s school life outside of academics?
Naomi: Well, I was involved with the Management Consulting Association (MCA) this year as VP Communication (I’ll be a Co-Chair next year), and I participated in a six-week, non-profit consulting project called Accent on the Community.
I also represented McGill at a couple of case competitions including our very own McGill Management International Case Competition (MMICC).
There are actually many more things, but the MCA and case class are the two I will be staying heavily involved with next year.
HC: What is something most people wouldn’t know about you?
Naomi: I eat my pizza backwards. I have preference for certain alphabet… I’m going to scare readers if I keep going and I realize you only asked for one thing…so the pizza.
HC: So what are your plans for the summer?
Naomi: I’ll be bookending a summer internship at The Boston Consulting Group in Toronto with trips to California and a ticket to Gentlemen of the Road (Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros!) I’m looking forward to it.
HC: Congratulations! It looks like you’ve got a fantastic summer ahead of you! Here’s a question we are all eager to ask: How do you balance academic success with everything else?
Naomi: I’m fairly organized and love making lists and schedules and whatnot. The hardest part, which I usually manage, is keeping motivation and focus. Stop whining and worrying and buckle down! That’s sort of my mantra to myself when I fall into the deep hole of time-waste.
HC: And it is clearly working! Now here’s a question about the coming times: do you have any plans for after graduation?
Naomi: Hopefully I’ll be travelling for four-ish months around Asia followed by a grown-up job at BCG (same place I’m interning). But we’ll see – you can’t really plan too far ahead.
It looks like Naomi has an awesome year ahead of her! I am sure there will only be good things coming her way, and it is well deserved!