Deacon Spotlight: Tori Smith
Tori Smith (2020, BS Business and Enterprise Management, Minor in Psychology)
Senior Consultant at EY in New York, NY
Tell us about your current job role/employer and what you’re currently working on.
My current client is a Fortune 500 company that wanted to professionalize and expand their Innovation Center of Excellence in order to develop customer products and services that both support customer needs and desires but also help reach their corporate goals!
What was the most challenging aspect of your first “real world job” and what did you learn from it?
Starting my first job was honestly really humbling! I felt like I had no idea what I was doing for about 6 months and was in somewhat of crisis mode until I started on a team with a strong manager that really took me in and helped support me. The experience of onboarding virtually to a massive company and that feeling of being lost has driven me to reach out to new hires that cross my path and join internal initiatives that support our new hires in the hopes that I can help just one person not feel the same way I did!
What advice would you give to new Wake Forest graduates about developing their personal life habits after college (finances, health, values, work/life balance)?
My favorite quote is, “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” Consider this as you start your life after college. Do the little things you do/say/think/eat/save align with your goals? Your priorities? Your values? Think about this as you plan your minutes and hours and days. These quickly turn into your years and decades. 🙂
What advice would you give to current Wake Forest students and/or young alumni who are about to start their first professional job?
Navigating life after college is not without challenges. I think one of the biggest things my friends and I talk about it ‘feeling behind’. It’s so easy to look around to your peers and friends and see posts about what everyone is up to and feel as though you’re not doing enough or not where you should be or perhaps just not where you thought you’d be at this point in time. If that resonates with you, you’re soooo not alone! Following graduation, it is more important than ever to think about what matters to you and what your own goals are and focus on yourself and your journey without comparison, as hard as that can be.
Story published in October 2024. For current updates on Tori’s career path, visit her LinkedIn profile.