I attended the Rose Café this week and Lisa Nishii was the speaker. I looked up her credentials beforehand and I was happy to find out that she is part of the ILR school, as I am an ILR major. Throughout the talk she told us about her life and started off by saying that it was not a straight-set path as many think people’s lives are. I found it interesting that she turned down a fast-track 5 year program at UPenn to focus on what she wanted to figure out with her life. I also found it fascinating how her bicultural background really affected her interests and guided her to what she really wanted to do – organizational psychology.

From her talk, I learned two important lessons from her which I intend to keep with me. One, is that life is not a straight path and we’re going to take steps forward and steps backward and steps to the side and that’s okay. As long as we keep learning and keep growing, I think we’re on the correct track anyway. The second lesson is to get in touch with our faculty and professors as they are here because of us and to serve us. I feel as many of us get intimidated by the people who want us to help us the most.