Hello, my name is Taavi Herzog. I’m heading into my first semester at the University of Pittsburgh this Fall, although I’m getting a good jumpstart through the Haller Global Honors Fellowship this Summer. Specifically, I will be studying in the College of Business Administration. I plan to double-major in Finance and Marketing, but I’m also considering Supply Chain Management. I always bear in mind that this is all subject to change. There is still much self-discovery left for me to do.

I really enjoy getting lost in my thoughts about random topics, from video game development to physics and philosophy. I can’t say that I am an expert at anything as of yet, but I hope to develop myself as a strategic, forward-looking thinker who can lead businesses and ideas with as much wisdom as I have passion for progress.

Professionally speaking, I have worked the front counter in my father’s takeout restaurant, Chopstix LLC. I have also helped a sustainability-focused nonprofit called GrowTorah with their composting operations, mainly shoveling and turning the compost. This past school year, I had an internship which I attended every Wednesday with a medical research organization known as the Center for Discovery and Innovation. I performed administrative tasks for them, including, but not limited to, drafting legal amendments and managing salary tracking. This Summer, I’ll be taking on a consulting project with a team for a client in Dublin, Ireland.

This program that I’ve now mentioned twice is called the Haller Global Honors Fellowship. It’s a four week program run through the Business Honors College at the CBA. There are seven of us students. We have been taking the Managing in Complex Environments course required for all students in the Business school, and this month for us has a particularly experiential tilt. We go on site visits, we have guest lectures, and we’ll even be flying to Dublin, Ireland, to present a complete analysis and suggestion strategy to our client.

I chose to participate in this program as soon as I was invited to apply. I saw the opportunity and said to myself that I would be leaving knowledge and experience on the table were I not to take it. I can’t sit with myself, knowing I could have done something more. Already, I’ve discovered that I’m becoming acclimated to University-level rigor, and even the broader city. I’m extremely grateful that I’ve had the chance to get comfortable with my environment now, rather than have to juggle that along with the start of the Fall semester. Of course, I hope to gain significant knowledge through the actual project, as there is no better teacher than experience. With hope, this will position me to spearhead many of my future projects and to have the capacity to direct my future the way I want it.