Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The RIMS Apprentice: Day 4

Hello Lucky People Who Are Still in San Diego,

It is 3:00 a.m. and I am finally home in Philadelphia, Pa. What an incredible journey. I will do a final recap later. For now, my final day at RIMS:

We all got up very early for a breakfast meeting at 8 a.m. Ed Troy, the CEO of GAB Robins, spoke at our school a few weeks ago, and we made plans to meet up for breakfast at the conference. All of our students and our professors met up with Ed and Andrew Miller, his co-worker, for an informal breakfast.

Ed talked a bit about his experiences in life, and offered advice to us students. He really had some inspirational messages. He told us to love what you do every single day, and to always act with integrity. He also encouraged us to network and meet as many people as we could and to never lose contact. It really is an amazing experience to have the CEO of a company take time out of his busy schedule to sit down and talk with you face to face, with no schedule or rushing.

After our breakfast meeting, we headed down to the exhibit hall. It was HUGE!!!! I saw the massage booth, and I was ecstatic! Mind you, we are college students, so we were sleeping 5 people to a hotel room at the Best Western. Read: Crammed. Plus, I had a 6+ hour flight still stuck in my neck, so the kind workers at Dubai made my day! I teamed up with 2 other students, and we checked out almost every single exhibit. There were a lot of neat giveaways, and a lot of ... interesting ... ones. My personal favorite was the zebra print bag from Vericlaim! I am using it for everything from now on!

It was interesting to see people's reactions when they heard I was a student. Some were very excited, and told me what a wonderful industry I was entering and how there were so many opportunities! Others were actually kind of rude; basically, they told me they had nothing of interest to me, weren't hiring, and to move along.

Mind you, I have already accepted an internship, and I am not job hunting! I was there to meet new people, network, and see what kind of companies are out there for my future. Those companies gave me the impression that they only cared about the bottom line and money, not their employees. So to all you companies out there who attend conventions: be careful how you treat the people who visit your booth ... they may be your future employees or customers some day, even if they are young now!

For the most part, the exhibit hall was amazing. There were some very interesting companies. I was running out of business cards, but I dropped mine in to try and win the spy kit! I'm assuming that I did not win :-(

Another neat idea was the magician, David. We hung out there for quite a while seeing all of his tricks. Some of them were amazing! I don't know how someone can read my mind, but he did it! Also, one of the companies had Rock Band, which was amazing. For those of you old heads out there, Rock Band is a new video game that comes with instruments, and you play them along with the music. I was on drums, and another student played guitar, and we rocked out! We actually had quite a crowd gathered by the end that was cheering and clapping! I was definitely a fan of that booth.

I was visiting the exhibit for more than free stuff! I met so many industry people from so many states and countries, it was such an incredible experience. As I was walking, a cardboard airplane zoomed past my head and I had to duck to avoid a collision. A lady who worked at the Alinter booth came over and apologized, and handed me an invite to their company party later that night. I went over to talk with the company, and met Francisco Xavier Casanueva Perez. I know, long name, but doesn't it just roll off of your tongue? As it turns out, Francisco works out of Mexico City, and hablo un poco espaƱol! (I speak a little spanish). He began telling be about possible internships in Mexico City, and recommended I come to the party later. Gracias, Francisco!

I stopped by the Risk & Insurance booth, and got my picture taken. I had a green sweater on under my suit, so my shirt looks like it is actually printed with part of the harbor! I love it! I am probably going to hang it up in a nice frame and trick my guests into thinking I was actually on the cover! My friend and I also got our Hawaiian-themed picture taken, complete with a surfboard!

After we finished visiting as many booths as we had time, all of the students met up for the educational round table. OK, as a blogger, I will give my honest opinion: I was not a fan. I missed an amazing speaker at 2:15 to play "imaginary broker" for 2+ hours. I skipped classes to come to the conference to meet people, see speakers, and hear about insurance issues. Instead, I ended up back in class. I guess it would be a good session to attend if you didn't have an insurance background, but oh well.

After the session, we rushed back to the hotel to pack up our suitcases and get ready. We were supposed to be at a party at 5:30, but by the time we got to the hotel in Old Town it was 5:15! We were rushing to get changed, showered, packed, etc. and FINALLY made it to the Omni hotel for the Bermuda party around 6:45. We ran into a few other students, as well as our friends RPost. We mingled around the party, but kept away from the rum drinks the wait staff was peddling ... they were SO STRONG! I guess that is how they do things in Bermuda! By the time we left that party, the Alinter party at the Ivy had started.

The Temple crew and the RPost crew headed over to the Rooftop at the Ivy and WOW is all I can say. Apparently, the hotel had just been built and it was incredible. The roof had a HUGE fire pit and plentiful heat lamps so I didn't regret my outfit choice! I quickly learned that we were pretty much the only Americans there. It was amazing to meet people who literally hailed from all over the world.

I accidental mistook a man named Richard Snow for someone I had met earlier, but he didn't mind. He ended up introducing me to his friends Stephan and Edoardo, who were brokers from Zurich (the actual city of Zurich, although they do business with the company Zurich).

After chatting with them for a bit, the RPost crew invited more of their RPost friends, bringing the American count up to about 10. We were about to leave and head over to the Aon party at the House of Blues, but I got a text from a student from another school saying it was packed and they weren't letting more people in until other guests left. Back to the Ivy we went! I ended up talking to a man named Graham who worked for Arthur J. Gallagher in London. Of course, he introduced me to all of his friends, who introduced me to their friends, and next thing I knew there was a huge group of us laughing and having a great time.

The party at the Ivy was by far the most fun I had at RIMS. It was a smaller party at a great location, so I really had the chance to meet almost everyone there. It was amazing to meet people from other countries and hear about how the insurance industry is different where they live.

After speaking with all of the British guys, I am definitely going to focus my efforts on getting an internship and full time job in London. They spoke of the industry with such passion and had made lasting relationships through their jobs. The way I see it, I am young and unattached. If there is ever a time to pack up and change my whole life, it is now. I would love to live in another country and change my life. I am young, I'm not married, I have no kids, and the only thing really tying my here is family and friends. I am ready to move on to bigger and better things. I was in London over Thanksgiving break, and absolutely loved it. Maybe I will be blogging from there next summer, who knows!

After the party, I went home and wrote last night's 3 a.m. blog. A cab came for us at 6 a.m., and I was flying pretty much all day. I finally got back to my house in Philadelphia around 9 p.m. I had A LOT of homework to catch up on, so it is now 3 a.m. and I am again finishing up a blog.

Tomorrow, I will post a final reflection on my whole RIMS experience. I am SO jealous of everyone who is still at the conference! It is cold in Philly, and it is supposed to rain tomorrow.

Until next time,

Chelsea

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good luck, Chelsea! You seem to have the right attitude.