At the beginning of my sophomore year I identified assertiveness as a skill that I wanted to work on. I’d also heard many good things about sales skills, so I decided to apply for a position as a Student Caller for Duke Alumni Engagement and Development. At the time asking strangers for money was honestly rather horrifying, but I decided to take a chance on an opportunity to improve myself and get paid at the same time.
As much as I may have disliked making what was a dreaded call for many alumni, I was pretty good at it. Most shifts I would win at least one of the performance bonus categories (Highest Donation Amount, Highest Donation Count). I did not ever enjoy “The Ask” part of the calls, but I did enjoy many conversations with alumni about their time at Duke, and their careers in the years following. I credit the beginning of my interest in Aerospace Engineering to a conversation with an alumni while fundraising for the Annual Funds. In the end I raised over $3000 for Duke.
I left the position after one semester, feeling I had made the most of the opportunity and developed a baseline skillset in sales and assertiveness in a professional setting.