My MSBA Certificate of Completion sits proudly atop my fridge; it’s the only piece of decoration up in my new apartment, and it’s just enough to make it feel like home. The same four signatures that graced my initial acceptance letter also validate the bottom of this certificate, and the events that occurred between receiving these two pieces of paper still have my head spinning.

In this short window, I have interned with a professional baseball team, signed a yearlong lease in New York City, and joined a network that will nurture me for the rest of my career. I say this not to boast, because I well know the sentence above would not exist without the Manhattan Sports Business Academy; rather, I say it to display just what this program does for its students. And while this summer provided plenty of new bullet points for my resume, the biggest takeaways have been the things I can’t put on paper. My classmates and I are now living, breathing testimonies of the profundity of this program, and I want to shout it from every rooftop bar in New York City. The next step is sharing the story.

“I knew this program would help me get my foot in the door, and it did so successfully. But I was not expecting it to steal my heart.”

Instilled in my memory is an exchange I had with Lorne at our Commencement Celebration. Towards the end of the night I hugged and thanked him for the incredible summer, to which he responded, “now go give it to someone else.” This really struck me, and I encourage my entire MSBA Class of 2017 to follow this same call. It’s on us to share the knowledge we have been given this summer. It is up to us to spread this flame. We set the bar high for ourselves when we were applying to MSBA, and now that we are alumni (weird!) we must raise it even higher.

I knew this program would help me get my foot in the door, and it did so successfully. But I was not expecting it to steal my heart. To the Manhattan Sports Business Academy, thank you for bringing me to the city of my dreams. To the Class of 2017, thank you for making it so easy to call it home.