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I am here in beautiful Pasadena at Stanford+Connects. Stanford has just packed up its
gear and brought Stanford to us here in Los Angeles. So not just a chance to reconnect
with classmates, with alums you may never have met - whether they're from classes way
before or classes well after you. It felt exactly like the first day that you come in
to Stanford. Like, everybody remembers your name, they welcome you, you feel like you
belong there. This is an opportunity for me to reconnect with the best decision I ever
made which was coming to Stanford University. So the main room was very exciting. A giant
auditorium full of Stanford Alumni - people that are movers and shakers in the Los Angeles
area and they're all here and they're excited to be around each other. It's always exciting
to see the representatives from our campus come and talk to us about what's happening
there. A range of ages, a range of ethnicities, a range of disciplines. It was just very stimulating
and then when we broke down into the different seminars, it was also very stimulating because
it was very interactive. And I don't think I was expecting that as much as I was expecting,
maybe, a more of a lecture format. Tina Seelig's session on creativity, which reminded me exactly
of - I mean - I took a lot of those types of classes at Stanford. About learning how to
think and how to work with people, be creative, brainstorm. It felt like being in the classroom
again. To have access to Stanford Professors with students of all ages sitting in there.
We're learning amazing things and then they throw it open for Q&A, and the questions that
are coming out are so brilliant that you wish you had an entire day in each of those short
sessions. It was incredible. I found a lot of it just inspirational. And I'm proud to
be associated with this institution that brings this kind of flavor out of so many people.
There were all these instances, today, of synchronicity. Where there would be one person
saying one thing, and it would connect with another person saying something else. Those
kinds of signals that you get that it's kind of like a sign post on your road - on your
path - that's like this blinking light saying, "You are going the right way!" Of course I
know it's already great but I re-realized that there's this excellent community everywhere
and no matter where you go - this convention, I'm guessing, goes to many different cities
- but they came here to LA and I discovered that there's a giant Stanford community here
that I could get involved with. We like to learn, we like to innovate, and we like to
be inspired by each other. The most surprising thing is always getting to interact with the
current students and to know you would be just as excited to sit down and have dinner
and conversation with them as you are with the mini-reunions you're having with all the
folks from your class that came to Stanford Connects. Go Stanford!