There are two voicemails that came today.  One from a real-estate agent assigned to Christina by her new job, and another from a donor interested in hearing more about one of three businesses she is starting. Hearing both of these messages confirms to Christina, she may be in over her head. How could she possibly continue to start three businesses when she is going to be starting a full time job that will likely take up 80 hours a week and determine the future of her professional career.

Christina graduated from high school in a class of 14 people.  She was the honor court president, captain of the field hockey and basketball teams, received leadership awards and most notably founded a nonprofit which received extensive press coverage in newspapers, the internet and Reader's Digest.  With the success of the nonprofit and her acceptance into UNC Chapel Hill, Christina learned that with truly hard work, anything is possible. All of the nights she stayed in working in to the early hours of the morning, working every weekend on the nonprofit and finding creative ways to stand out and call attention to herself to the admissions committee, showed her that she could do anything.  Wanting to save the world in every possible way, she went off to college.

Dabbling in many different non-profits, she worked for Medworld and spent her free time boxing medical supplies to send to clinics in developing countries and serving on the school's Honor Council.  She spent the summers abroad volunteering and working with children and environmental protection groups.  Spreading herself thin, but always wanting to saying yes to more, Christina realized that she had become a "yes" person.  Not really knowing what she wanted to do in life pushed her to accept all opportunities presented to her.  In interviews out of college, she repeatedly heard people ask “I see all of this work for non-profits, why do you want this job?” Christina never had a good answer.  So she took the first one that didn’t ask her that question and moved to DC to work as an events planner for an Embassy.

For two years, she worked planning events for the most famous living political figures and shook the hands and took pleasure in small talk with people she had studied in college. The glamour wore off as the second job she took on to make up for the low government pay took its toll.  Christina decided business school would buy her two years of time to figure out a career and give her the tools to make it happen.

She worked hard and took advantage of all of the resources the Career office made available and focused immediately on finding a career.  Christina secured an internship by Thanksgiving first semester.  She did well in the internship and received and accepted a full-time offer almost a full year before she would actually start working for them. 

Christina is moving to NJ to start a job in Brand Management in August.  She's also in the process of starting three businesses she feels could each be full time jobs.  Realizing that doing all four is impossible, but not being able to decide, let alone stop pursuing one of the businesses has become a daily struggle.