A week into orientation, the thing I keep coming back to isn't the schedule or the sessions. It's the people.
I came in expecting classmates who were smart and ambitious. I didn't expect them to be this kind. Almost everyone I've met actually wants to do something good with their life, and means it. I've spent the week quietly inspired by the people around me, which isn't how I thought orientation would feel.
The people in the room
What surprised me most was how little of the week felt like performance. People were open about what they're unsure of and what hasn't worked out, not just what they've done. I met classmates doing work I'd never have thought to ask about, and almost none of them led with their résumé.
By design
None of that closeness happened by accident. You could feel how carefully the week was put together. GSB has a particular culture, and orientation is where you first run into it: warm, open, and direct about the values underneath it. A lot of it is set up to encourage vulnerability, to get people past small talk and into real relationships quickly.
I was a little skeptical of that going in. Closeness on a schedule can feel forced. Mostly, it didn't. Being a bit more open than is comfortable, in a room where everyone is trying to do the same thing, turns out to work.
You don't get close to people you're performing for.
How rapport actually gets built
One session broke it down almost mechanically. If you want to build rapport with someone, a few things help:
- Physical touch, even just a handshake.
- A shared secret, down to a literal secret handshake.
- A shared success, or a shared failure.
Written out, it sounds almost too simple. But looking back, that's most of what the week was quietly engineering: a lot of small shared secrets and small shared failures, on purpose.
Making us human again
The framing that stuck with me most was that the point of all this is to make us human again. The logic goes: once you know yourself better, you can build a life that's actually yours, and go after goals that are yours instead of borrowed.