Keagan’s World

Alright technically I didn’t lie.

It is tomorrow since I posted my last article at 1:39am Sunday morning. Truth be told, my Sunday got away from me after I had to fire up 4 ejections and 1 indefinite suspension in my final time reffing USA Hockey for at least the next couple of years. Talk about going out with a bang huh?

Things of the Day

Going forward, I’m going to attach a little section at the end that includes some things of the day. Until I figure out what I like best, what exactly the “things” are may change up from post to post. Today you will find:

• Question
• Song
• Video

I would love to have you respond to the question in the comments and hear your thoughts. As much as this is me keeping y’all in the loop on what’s happening on the other side of the world, I want to hear from you too 🙂 If nothing else, think about it, talk to your friends about it, reflect on it.

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Anyways, it’s a doubleheader today so brace yourself. I teased out the fact that today I’ll be getting you up to speed on how the hell I got here on this blog. With that in mind, you’ll find neatly outlined sections below that cover the following:

1. Wait a minute, who are you?
2. College Wrapped – Speed Run

This post is meant more for people who may not have even known I graduated college yet. My second post will outline more about my gap year so if you’re more in the loop you may consider just popping over to read that here (Although you may miss a funny little slideshow below so check that out first)!

1. What’s up with the gap year?
2. Why Argentina/South America?
3. Why blog?

Wait a minute, who are you?

To those of you whom I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Keagan – it’s nice to meet you! Highly encourage you to reach out in the comments or via any of the socials listed at the bottom the page. I promise I don’t bite, and I’d love to get to know you 🙂

For your sake and mine I’m going to skip a long drawn out introduction of who I am and offer you a baseball card instead! Well sorta…

If you still have questions about me you can peep What’s the Deal? or, call me crazy, reach out!

College Wrapped – Speed Run

Got a lot to cover so I’ll do it rapid fire style. I left home for school at the University of Michigan 4.5 years ago. After spending my entire life in the West Michigan/Byron Center (where I’m from) bubble to say I learned a lot is an understatement.

I went into school with plans to be a doctor and get a degree in biomedical engineering. That did, uh, NOT happen lol. I pretty quickly realized I only wanted to do that because (1) I didn’t realize there were life options other than Pre-Law, Pre-Med, pre-PT, and business and (2) I wanted the ego stroke of people saying “wow” when they heard what my major was.

Stupid.

Once I came to this realization, I found myself in my first quarter-life crisis. Those of you who went to college probably know what I’m talking about. The panic moment when you realize you have absolutely no freaking idea what you’re doing with your life. After a bit of panicking, I balled up every pre-conceived notion I had about my future and tossed it in the trash. Square zero.

Over the course of the next year, I “set” myself on 6-7 different majors (I lose count tbh). It wasn’t until the summer heading into my sophomore year that I finally chose a path in Industrial Engineering (Fake Engineering, IOEasy, Imaginary Engineering, whatever you want to call it) with the [tentative] goal of working for a management consulting firm in Chicago. How did I get here? Lots of really awesome peers who pushed me to take chances and be the best version of myself. Specifically those who put me on my career path:

• Bobby Housel + Sofia Keyes
• AKPsi + Nexecon

Shoutout Bobby Housel and Sofia Keyes. Before I get into why, here’s the only photo I could find with all of us three in it (I’m so sorry this is unspeakable levels of grimy but at least the Cordae concert was pretty sick).

To this day I’m not sure what made you decide it was meant to be, but Bobby I genuinely do not know if I’d be in the same field today let alone have the job I do if you hadn’t texted me, “Hey I think you’d like consulting. My friend Sofia is in a sick org. You should talk to her.”

In true “ah, screw it” fashion I said “I don’t have the slightest clue what consulting is, but why not?” (and really I still don’t but that’s kinda the joke with consulting) I got coffee with Sofia shortly afterward where she spent over an hour giving me the low down on what her consulting club (Nexecon) and professional business fraternity (AKPsi – another one Bobby had pushed for me to join) did and why they could be cool.

I did not know her. She did not owe me anything. Sofia, I am still so very grateful to you for that because, as I just told Bobby, I genuinely do not know if I’d be in the same field today let alone have the job I do if you hadn’t given me the time.

Bobby and Sofia’s selflessness to extend a helping hand despite owing it to no one set a precedent for what I would experience in AKPsi and Nexecon when I was accepted into the orgs later that semester. Truthfully, there are too many people to name in this post, but I could go on for paragraphs about the effort so many gave toward my growth. Jon, Minnie, Rana, Annika, and on and on. It was through the selfless amazing people in these orgs and beyond that I find myself with this blessing of writing this today.

All these people inspired me to do my best to live up to the mentorship they extended me. I took on leadership positions in both orgs. I spent time getting to know the underclassmen as I became a sophomore, junior, senior. I busted my ass to be the best version of myself every day.

Also, I can’t give a 4-year speed recap without giving my boys at 1020 Oakland a shoutout even if “professional” is the last thing that comes to mind with us all lol. I could not speak higher of my experience and the people at the University of Michigan.

Fast forward, and I have a job offer lined up in Chicago at what has been my target firm since my sophomore year.

Surreal.

I was going to start this past summer or maybe fall, but (spoiler alert!) I in fact did not. I took a gap year, and now plan to hopefully start this summer.

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I’ll leave you with that. So you’re stuck on the cliff-hanger from yesterday still. Don’t worry – there’s another post coming right in tow that will finally share some insight on my gap year decisions. In fact, it’s almost certainly already up by the time you’re reading this even if you happen to have super-human reading speed.

Alrighty, I’m headed over to the next page so follow me!