Daniel Bair
Account Manager at Ecolab
Pledge Class: Alpha Rho
Graduation: June 2020
How has Alpha Kappa Psi impacted your college experience?
I would say first and foremost it forced me to consider and plan for my future a lot sooner than I would have otherwise. Throughout my time in the fraternity, I learned so many hard and soft skills that have been so important in and out of college. This put me in a great position and made success much more likely when recruitment began and I had to start planning for my post grad life. Outside of professional and academic success, most of my best friends in college are from Akpsi. During my time at Cal poly and after gradation, our group of friends is still close and the fraternity played a large role in bringing us closer together. I honestly don’t think college would have been as fun or memorable without all of the people I met in the fraternity.
What are your plans after graduation?
I am working for Ecolab in San Francisco. I will be doing sustainability consulting for various food and beverage manufacturing plants in the bay area. These manufacturing plants all have very complicated operations that ultimately produce the products we all eat and drink. My role will be focused on going in and analyzing their operations to make sure the process is safe. Also, by working with these plants I can identify ways that they can save water, energy, chemicals, etc. and make their overall manufacturing process more sustainable.
What are you excited for after graduation?
I think I am most excited to get into the real world and actually start working in the industry I have been studying for so long. It is one thing studying business and another thing to put everything you learned into practice. All my mentors and managers have given me so much advice and knowledge and I am definitely looking forward to finally start working alongside them.
Any advice for current college students?
This may sound counterintuitive, but I would tell college students to care a little less about your grades and have more fun. I am not saying grades don’t matter at all. But, so many college students live their life from project to project and assignment to assignment. And then they leave college with a fantastic GPA but not as many experiences as they should have had. These experiences, both professional and social, are what allow students to gain important skills and figure out what they truly want to pursue. Not to mention they can look back at college and feel content in all the memories and friendships they made. Instead of focusing all of their effort on grades, college students should remember to prioritize gaining experience in the field they want to enter and having as much fun a long the way as possible. This outlook will allow them to leave college with truly relevant experience and skills and a solid network of connections built around them that are willing to support them no matter what.