One thing I learned at my time at Baruch is that opportunity and success is a friend to no one in particular. You must work for success and be around other with goals bound for success and those who have achieved a level of success. Teachers won’t hand you the “A”, you have to study, participate and perform. Recruiters won’t hand you an internship. You have to do some personal research to answer any questions professionals may throw at you in addition to showing up.

People say that people are lucky when they get opportunities to rise above their current status and succeed, but really they mean things have come together for them and they didn’t neither earn nor deserve their success. That is a misconception. Lucky people work hard to be lucky.

Luck = Skill + Opportunity

You cannot be lucky without any type of natural or hard earned skills. You cannot be lucky when you block any opportunities that come your way, or when you aren’t around when opportunities present themselves. Luck is something you work for. People who are lucky work for their luck and look for any opportunity to be lucky. When people study for the material in from their classes, they build skills around that material to be used in the class environment. When a pop quiz takes place, they are lucky enough to have studied to pass the surprise exam. When people use the career center to build their interview skills, develop their resume and cover letters, and develop their soft skills, they are developing professional skills to be used in time they meet an actual professional. So on and so forth.

In the end, it does not matter who you are. There are no rewards for any people in particular just because they are “special”, in the end only the one with the skills and opportunities succeed in Baruch.