Andrew Gonczarow ’22 — Wabash College’s Business Innovation Program has been very educational. This week, we focused on the financial side of business. Orr Fellow and recent grad Zachary Carl ’18, who works for Lacy Diversified Industries, came to Fusion 54 to show us how to make a financial statement in addition to giving us a tutorial of Excel. For example, I learned a useful short-cut in Excel called “v-lookup.” I can now confidently say that I can make a financial sheet. We focused most of our time learning how to make a cash flow statement, balance sheet, and an income statement. I also learned a lot of new financial terms in the process. I had the opportunity to practice my critical thinking skills by answering case studies which are complex mathematical/logic problems. My group had to figure out how much pizza is eaten per day in the United States. After looking up the population of the United States, we were able to estimate that about seven million pizzas are consumed in a day! I’m looking forward to this coming week where we will be discussing case studies on leadership in addition to giving a four-minute presentation on a topic that we are passionate about.
One lesson I have taken away from reading about the different types of effective leadership is that a good leader must have emotional intelligence. The keys to unlocking emotional intelligence include motivation, self-awareness, social skills, self-regulation, and empathy. We will also begin making our business plans this coming week for a food truck. I am very thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the Business Innovation Program and would like to thank Wabash College’s Center of Innovation, Business, and Entrepreneurship. I would also like to thank Alejandro Reyna and Roland Morin for the opportunity to take part in the Business Innovation Program. Lastly, I would like to thank Zachary Carl for taking time out of his busy schedule to teach us the basics of finance. I am looking forward to these next six weeks of learning and applying the skills that I have acquired over the past week.
