Within the next week, the final additions to the class of 2014 will receive their acceptance letters, and with the acceptance process comes one of my favorite programs — Fuqua Buddies!

I can remember when I received an email and soon after, a phone call, from my Fuqua Buddy when I was accepted to Fuqua last March. I was already thrilled to receive admission into the business school, but the experience became so much more personalized with a current student dedicated to answering all my questions, especially since he had been in my shoes just a year before.

My Buddy was Tim Javidi and we exchanged emails before I came to Fuqua, but beyond that, the fact that I instantly knew that I had a friend once I came to Fuqua was very reassuring. We first met in person at the Blue Devil Weekend diversity lunch, and from that moment, we became great friends. Tim introduced me to many of his second-year friends and gave me some tricks of the trade to excel at Fuqua. He was a great resource, especially during the first few terms when I was still getting acclimated to B-school life.

And now I’ve come full circle, because this year, I was paired with 5 incoming students! Although I’m not sure whether they’ll all enroll at Fuqua in the fall, I have enjoyed getting to know each and every one of them. I already met two of my Buddies in person — one flew to Durham from Romania with her husband for a campus visit, and I met another Buddy during Blue Devil Weekend in April. I have spoken to my other three Buddies on the phone. It’s amazing to think that just a year ago, I was in their shoes, but now I’m the one with the answers. I hope that I’m as helpful to them as my Buddy was to me, and hopefully all of them enroll in Fuqua by August!