Get to know the Vice President of 180 Degrees Consulting UCLA
Nawa is a fourth-year with a major in Economics a minor in English. She joined 180 Degrees Consulting in her third year and has been involved with numerous projects, from a project with an artificial intelligence startup to a web development project before becoming the Vice President for 2018–2019. Read this short interview with Nawa to get to know her better!
Q: How did you hear of 180 Degrees Consulting (180DC) and why did you join?
I actually heard it from my friend who was in the club, and I thought the club was really cool because you actually have real projects. I also wanted to get to know people who are also interested in consulting who will be going through the same recruiting process so we can help each other by reminding each other of deadlines, or just by being in the know. Once I joined, I think everyone was so supportive and it wasn’t competitive at all within the club even though we were all recruiting, which is a really big plus point of 180DC.
Q: What are you passionate about?
I really like food, so trying out different food at any type of restaurants is really fun for me. I like to visit different restaurants in LA and I actually keep a word document with the list of all the places I’ve visited.
Fashion is also one of my passions — I spend so much time exploring the newest development in fashion. Looking at things that just came out and asking why people would style something this way or how they would style certain things.
Q: When you first came to UCLA, what did you want to do and how did that change over time?
Although I came into college thinking that I was going to do something business-related, at one point I was being rebellious towards my parents and ended up joining a pre-law fraternity, hoping that law school is what I would be interested in — just because I’m interested in English, Literature, debate, and things like that. Despite that, I realized that business really is my passion, and after going to an information session with Bain, I found out that consulting is what I’ve been actually going for and what I have been trained to do, since when I was growing up my grandfather would always ask me case-like questions and I’ve always thought they were really interesting.
Q: Why are you interested in consulting?
It’s just really fun for me to go through the different factors in business. Questions like “How would I market this?” and “How can something be done more effectively and more efficiently?” always come naturally to me, so consulting fits really well with how I think about things.
Q: What did you do last summer?
Last summer I interned at Bain for 10 weeks. I really enjoyed it — not only because of what I learned, but because everyone there were people I would love to be great friends with. My internship class was amazing, we would still hang out after work and even now after the internship ended. After Bain, I went to Europe to travel for a bit and then went back to Thailand where my parents are.
Q: If you could give your freshman year self one advice, what would it be?
I think I’ll tell myself that it is perfectly fine to give yourself time to explore your interests for a bit, but also to set a timeline for yourself on when you will get things straight and focus on your goals.
Q: You find yourself coming home from campus earlier than expected and you still have a whole day ahead of you. What is the most likely thing you’ll find yourself be doing?
If I have that much free time, I would definitely go to a cafe, get a nice cup of coffee, and then start writing this thing called Essays of Reflection. This is a habit I got in high school, which is basically just writing about a certain topic that’s been bothering you or has been really affecting you. You write it out as if someone would read it, and this really helps you reset your mind and help you analyze your problems and see think about how to solve that problem.