“Splash——” I lost count of how many times I plunged into the Little Tennessee River. Each time, I skimmed the surface like a hooked fish, clutching the rope for dear life as the boat dragged me along.

Finally, I let go of the rope and watched the boat sail away before turning back towards me. I swam to the swim platform at the end of the boat, eager to climb aboard. But Leon, a MasterCraft leads coordinator and our wake surfing coach for the day, stopped me with a firm gaze. “You got this, Betty,” he insisted.

Behind him stood my team, with whom I had spent the last five months with this group of people, including six weeks working on a capstone project culminating our MQM experience. We supported each other through a lot of ups and downs. Now, their cheers were spurring me on, as I contemplated another attempt at wake surfing, our team’s serendipitous celebration with our client MasterCraft, the high-performance boat maker. I knew I had to give it another shot for my team.

I loosened the rope, drifting away from the boat and readying myself for the next round of waves. Despite trying as many times as I could, but I was still a hair’s breadth away from standing up on the board. Rome was not built in a day, I guessed.

Visiting Our Capstone Client

None of us imagined being invited to our client’s headquarters after our capstone project. Yet there we were, marveling at the array of MasterCraft boats and trying to match them with the ones we saw in pictures during research. We walked along the production line in the factory that produces MasterCraft boats worldwide, touching the fiberglass made up of the boat body and feeling the unique “cool-feel” fabric.

We were invited to tour the MasterCraft facility and enjoy a day out on the water completing our capstone project. It was a unique invitation that our group was eager to accept. While we were dedicated to performing well on our capstone and working together as a team, we also developed an affinity for boats.

We excitedly scoped out other nearby boats on the river, calling them “the enemy” if they were from a competitor brand, Shelby, our point of contact throughout the capstone project and also MQM alumna, remarked, “Look, I trained them well.”

Our weekly meetings with Shelby and the opportunity to present our findings to the sales and marketing teams made us feel integral to the company’s growth. When the sales team expressed gratitude for our insights, we knew every late night and early morning spent at Fuqua had been worth it.

A True Team Fuqua Experience

While I cherished all my teams throughout the MQM program, this team capped off my journey at Duke on a high note.

• 23 team projects
• 150+ hours of team meetings
• Countless McDonald’s deliveries to Fuqua

What expanded more than our waistlines was the camaraderie we shared. We worked diligently, laughed heartily, debated fiercely, sang shamelessly, and cheered each other on relentlessly under pressure.

At times, team meetings were filled with random activities: conducting an improvised water-tasting blind test, bursting into spontaneous renditions of “Sweet Caroline”, or just ordering McDonald’s once again. Don’t get me wrong, amidst all the fun we had, we always delivered high-quality work without missing a single deadline.

Even now, as I sit at my desk recalling those moments, I can still feel the sun beating down on me on the Tennessee River, the exhilarating rush of wind as we sped across the water, and the loud country music that just kept us dancing.

From coursework to wake surfing on the Tennessee River and staying afloat in the boat of life — we supported each other through it all. This is what Team Fuqua meant to us.