Tuck Bridge Stories: Tamara Gomez-Ortigoza
WHY TUCK BRIDGE WAS ONE OF THE BEST DECISIONS I HAVE EVER MADE
By Tamara Gomez-Ortigoza Dartmouth’21, Bridge ’18
Thinking about finding your first job after college and setting out on your independent adult life can be intimidating. Or at least it was for me, especially because as an immigrant I did not understand the US job market nor the type of opportunities it might hold. I applied to Tuck Bridge before starting my sophomore year—right around the time when I first started to worry about having to find a job in a few years and about not knowing what I wanted that job to be. I had just started to settle into the idea of majoring in economics, so I thought perhaps something in the business world might be a good fit, but the terms so often being thrown around by older students—“private equity,” “consulting,” “venture capital,” etc—were mostly meaningless jargon to me. At least they all just kind of blended into this image of a corporate job taking place in some high-rise building somewhere. I felt confused and overwhelmed, and yet I knew that I wanted to somehow get ahead and start familiarizing myself with a profession that might be a good fit for me, and this was where Bridge seemed to come in, so I decided to take a chance and joined the Bridge 2018 Winter cohort.
I will not lie and tell you it was simple and wonderful, because it was not. Bridge was challenging and stressful, but also life-changing. The three weeks both crawled and flew by, but at the end of it I could hardly believe just how much I had learned and changed in such a short period of time. All these storm clouds of confusion and doubt somehow cleared so that after Bridge I had a good idea of what I wanted and where I wanted to go after graduation. I finally had a clear understanding of all the different career paths I could pursue and how well they fit with my interests and personality. And in addition, through courses with some incredible Tuck faculty, I had also gained valuable skills in subjects like Excel and accounting. Not to mention that throughout the entire program I was able to interact with remarkable Tuck MBA student mentors who would continue to stay in touch with me and to help me when I finally went through the corporate recruiting process.
Looking back, I could not be happier about deciding to be part of Tuck Bridge. It truly was what helped me find my path in many ways and what provided me with the confidence and support to seek out opportunities that I might once have thought inaccessible. If you are on the fence like I once was, take the leap. It will change everything.
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Designed for top liberal arts and STEM undergraduates and recent grads, the Tuck Business Bridge certificate program delivers a comprehensive business curriculum taught by top-ranked MBA faculty from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, a capstone team project, recruiting services, and one-on-one career guidance. Business Bridge provides students with essential business skills by combining an intensive classroom experience at a world-class business school and the hands-on training of an internship–all designed to help launch a rewarding career.
