Angela Meng is a junior majoring in BHP and MIS. This year she serves as the Professional Vice President for the Asian Business Students Association (ABSA). She has been very active in the organization since her freshman year and continues to do more each year out of a love for the organization and a desire to give back.
Angela attended Plano Senior High School and first became interested in the BHP through her older sister who went through the program. She ultimately chose BHP over other schools she had applied to because of the prestige of the program and the positive experience her sister had.
Angela’s sister had encouraged her to check out ABSA, and she was blown away from the very first meeting by the commitment the officers had for the organization. She fondly recalled her first ever general meeting where the officers dressed up in business professional under 100 degree Texan weather to present in front of the organization as a memory that inspired her to grow to become as dedicated as they were. As a freshman, she got involved with planning their company field trip and helping with Scoring Careers, which involved cold calls to companies and a lot of logistics work. The position forced her to get out of her comfort zone. After serving last year in an internal role as social director, she returned to the professional side, serving as Professional VP this year.
In this role, she manages a committee organizing company general meetings, Scoring Careers, professional workshops and company field trips. Scoring Careers is a joint event with HBSA that happens the day before the McCombs Career Expo. It is a more casual event, which aims to put everyone, especially underclassmen, at ease before the official career fair. The event faced many challenges this year, and Angela was proud of the success of the event which she attributes to the hard work of many students who were involved in planning the event.
Her role in ABSA takes a significant amount of time, but Angela says she is more than happy to devote that time to the organization. “I have tried other organizations and been involved across campus, but ABSA is home to me, and no matter where you go, at the end of the day it feels good to go home.”
Angela has also been involved in UT’s Madrigal Dinner for the past two years, singing and acting in a 57-member cast. The dinner/performance takes place over just one weekend, but the group rehearses all of fall semester for it, putting in about 10 hours a week of rehearsals. “I happened upon it by chance, but it is a great source of stress relief for me, and it helped me make friends with students from other majors,” said Angela.
Angela added MIS as her second major after greatly enjoying her MIS 301H class. “I had been interested in Engineering and Computer Science, but when I took my MIS intro class, I was drawn towards the field. It is a cross-functional field. MIS professionals can act as the bridge between business and computer science functions.”
She already completed one internship after her sophomore year with Ericsson, working in sales support, and she will be interning this summer with Accenture in a management consulting role. Sales was never something she thought she was incapable of doing, but she learned from the internship that she was capable and even enjoyed sales work. She also enjoyed learning about Ericsson’s cutting-edge technology.
As a senior next year, Angela would like to continue serving ABSA and spend some time enjoying Austin before graduation. She is trying to stay open to opportunities and thinks this is the best way to make the most of your time at UT. “Don’t be afraid to try anything and don’t be narrow in your view of what you can do,” she says. “You gain something from all of your experiences that end up helping you in ways you might never realize until it happens .”