Why The Kids Call Me "Gramps": 2 Years in a Student Organization, and "My" Event on Storytelling With Data

Last year, I decided I would start celebrating the same birthday every year. You know, like how there's a whole section at the local Hallmark Store with cards labeled "50th Birthday" reading "I can't believe you're turning 29 again!" Knowing that I've decided to have a proactive mid-life crisis, you might be wondering what "The Kids Call Me Gramps" refers to. Surely the kids don't refer to me as their grandpa if I'm that insecure about my age? It's pretty straightforward though, some of the kids (in my student organization) call me Gramps. And I embrace it.

Today, I write about the time spent in my student organization over the past 2 years. As I do that, we'll reveal how I've become "Gramps" while leading up to a talk I hosted this week about "Storytelling With Data."

The Business Analytics & Information Management (BAIM) Association

2 years ago, a faculty member from my school reached out to me and about a dozen other students to start an organization for students studying "Business Analytics & Information Management." (We just refer to the major as "BAIM") I didn't have any expectations for what this organization would be, but I saw an opportunity to get involved, and I took it. As we started to build up our structure, I remember explicitly telling the President that I didn't want to take one of the limited roles from the others, but I still wanted to be involved. The other students had eagerly signed up for a role, they had probably done this before...so clashing for the same spot as someone else didn't feel right. Hindsight tells me I should have been a little more confident or assertive in my abilities, but I think I benefitted more from "taking the extra time to cook."

So, during that whole school year, I served on the "Student Council" for our organization, no fancy titles, just a mission to help. I showed up to our board meetings religiously (perfect attendance!) and personally oversaw the execution and planning of several events that we hosted. In that first year, we made many mistakes redeemed only by our eagerness to improve. By the end of the Spring, we could barely pull 10 students to any event we hosted. The organization itself saw dramatic change too, with 7 co-founders and 5 student council members leaving the organization at some point during the year. At the end of the Spring semester, the executive board was down to 5 members. (It's how I simultaneously ended up as the "Vice President of Operations" & the "Vice President of Marketing", having volunteered after no one ran for the positions!) Needless to say, with how little momentum, morale, and people we had, the coming semester would be a critical time to "make or break" our student organization's long-term success.

Fall 2023: Make Or Break

After my relaxing summer of daily trips to the dog park, time spent helping my mom recover from surgery, and a moderate obsession with Remi Wolf's discography, it was game time. I make us sound confident, but I distinctly remember sitting in a building on campus alongside our new president Stephanie Lin at midnight on the Friday night before classes would start. We groaned at each other with angst and regret, asking ourselves what we had "really gotten ourselves into" as we prepared for a club fair coming the next day.

And I didn't want to quit, but let's just say if I had wanted to, it was too late anyways. So, we promoted our callout in every classroom, fair, inbox, and social media platform that we could. For me, I was relentless in my 1:1 approach, telling each student that I was sincere about being accessible and willing to help. I would encourage each one to "actually reach out to me" as I expected many students would feel hesitation to reach out over what could have been just a pleasantry. Stephanie would hit me with a baseball bat if it was legal, just for putting her through the torture of having to hear my earnest "sales pitch" so many times.

Sparing the nitty-gritty details, we would go on to have a pretty successful semester. We partnered with employers and alumni, and hosted a couple of social events. Unfortunately, as the semester came to a close, Stephanie and I had to face the monster in the closet: we needed to make the BAIM Association's structure rely on more than just 4 people. She and I would be graduating the next semester leaving us with little time to implement any changes, let alone oversee them.

So, as part of an initiative to bring in new blood to our leadership teams, we recruited new committee members. I spent the greater part of a week organizing interviews for more than a dozen students. Going into 2024, we would have 10 members on the marketing committee, 6 in operations, 5 in finance, and 4 in strategy. Somehow, we not only managed to keep it together throughout the Fall semester, but we even managed to set ourselves up for success in the coming year.

2024: How I've Become "Gramps"

My committees' combined headcounts tally up to 16 members. If you want to know my secret, there is none. Between my internship, TA'ing, and classes, I'm stretched too thin to have some ingenious system that I meticulously update to track all their (and my) projects, tasks, and more. But I can tell you what's helped: warmth, communication and approachability.

At my first meeting with each committee, I told them that I am a friend. I encouraged them to reach out to me. The spiel usually goes something like this: "If you need someone to look at your resume? I'm your guy. Need advice on an internship application due at 11:59pm and it's 10 in the evening? Shoot me a text or email, I'm probably still awake. Need a trip to urgent care but none of your friends have a car? I can get you there."

From day 1, I encouraged them to communicate, to let me know if they have scheduling conflicts, to "never be hesitant to reach out." We're flexible, and I make a sincere effort in letting them know they can come to me for a chat, whether it's professional, or small talk/friendly banter. And banter it can be, a few of them have signed on to calling me Gramps (In their defense, I've really rolled with the titles "Grams and Gramps" for the president and I in the last two weeks, but more probably, they just call me Gramps because I'm older than them.)

I embrace my newfound title as gramps, because it's who I've become. When I kick the bucket (graduate) in about 10 weeks, I won't be remembered for all the times that I decided to avoid the spotlight because "being the center of attention makes me look self-absorbed." I'll be remembered as Gramps, the example I try to set for others in how to be a mentor, and a friend.

"Becoming Gramps" is a result of my growth in confidence, leadership, and knowledge as I have attended school and helped build the BAIM Association over the past few years. Gramps isn't just a title, but a representation of the things I've done that have built my reputation, brand, and personal identity.

Storytelling With Data: "My" Event

I originally set out to write today to talk about "My" Event, an event that I not only hosted, but really took ownership of. I can host Jeopardy without feeling like Jeopardy is "about me" but in hosting a skills workshop, I really had to tap into my "qualifications" for going up to the front of a classroom and teaching students something new as if I'm some authority on the subject.

But elections were coming, so I decided the easiest way to balance an event alongside the election timeline was to just "deal with the event" myself. Give the rest of the organization a week off to focus on the elections. This posed a challenge, because even if I am sincere in my intentions for taking the stage, just the thought that some uninterested bystander might see me as conceited can be enough to turn me away from an idea. Putting myself at the front of the room and presenting as a self-proclaimed qualified speaker makes me uncomfortable. But when I planned for an event this week, I was thinking like the person that "Gramps" is.

"You've worked your tail off to build this organization. You can have one event for yourself." I repeated to myself so many times to justify the discomfort I feel at putting myself on a pedestal.

On Tuesday night I went to bed at 5 in the morning making sure my presentation was perfected. Going to bed that late had nothing more than the bitter-sweet promise of working my internship at 7:30am instead of sleeping in. (Yes, I could have flexed my working-hours, but I try to keep a consistent work-schedule.)

After work, I finally did it. I presented my work, and I loved doing it!

Giving myself the free pass to do what I wanted for this activity led to one of the most enjoyable events I've gotten to host at Purdue. That night, I spoke to the attendees about effective and ineffective elements in data visualization, ways to think about your dataset that allow you to make better visuals, and some of the key considerations in "understanding the context" while storytelling with data:

1. Identifying your audience
2. Determining what you need to communicate
3. Understanding how your data can be used to support this

We referenced a number of different visuals, while discussing the context behind the data being visualized. We also spent a good amount of time talking about some of the principles within storytelling for when students make that "first dashboard" that they inevitably get tasked with at their future internships or jobs.

After I finished presenting, I got an enthusiastic "Great job, Gramps!" from Laju A. Eribo (The one who said "WE LOVE YOU GRAMPS!" after an event last week.) In fact, many of our committee members went out of their way to say something kind, which is something I hope they'll continue after I'm gone, no matter who is speaking, presenting, or hosting.

And I think (for the most part) I did a pretty good job that night. The content was rich (pulling from real-world examples, and my own experiences) while my presenting got weaker towards the end. (It might have been better if I'd slept more than 2.5 hours the night before.) All-in-all, I'm pleased with how my work came out.

If I can leave the reader with any takeaways from this, just remember who you're working with. Generally, I think people don't like to inconvenience others, so you can't put the responsibility of reaching out to you on another party. The responsibility lies in yourself. Make yourself someone that the people around you are willing to approach. Treat every interaction with your folks as meaningful. And if you're ever "Gramps" (in a leadership role)...well you can't tell the kids what to be when they grow up, but you can at least raise them with the values that will give them success for when they do.

As I close this out, a shout out is in order to all my wonderful ducklings! (Committee Members) I'm looking forward to see where you all take the organization once I'm gone, and I'm certain that they will go on to be excellent leaders, and mentors for the next generations of our major.

Thanks for reading.

Gramps, Out.