Senior Wayne Nash was introduced to collegiate life through Haslam’s Business Education for Talented Students (BETS) Program. He’s spent his university years since giving back to that community.

Nash’s passion for the college began when Tyvi Small, Haslam’s director of diversity and community relations, came to his high school in Memphis to talk about BETS. The program hosts high school students on campus for 10 days, exposing them to college and business norms through social events and corporate site visits.

“I wanted to get involved with Haslam because BETS meant so much to me as a high school student,” Nash says. “I wanted to continue that feeling. I felt immersed in the culture. I like the people here, and I know all the faculty.”

As a freshman, Nash joined Venture, the business living, learning community. Venture offers roughly 80 first-year business students the opportunity to enroll in similar classes, live on the same floor, and serve the community through volunteer opportunities.

“I’m so connected with Haslam because Venture made me be involved,” Nash said. He became a peer leader for BETS the summer after his freshman year and later went on to be the lead counselor for BETS after his junior year.

Nash is majoring in supply chain management with a collateral in international business. Nash has also found time to serve as a resident assistant for two years, volunteer with the Office of Access and Community Connections and even win the Best Presenter award at the ninth annual Keybank Leadership and Creativity Undergraduate Minority Student Symposium.

Nash will complete his degree in the fall, but he is set to embark on a three-month internship in Prague prior to finishing his college career. He will be working in the marketing department for Agave, a high-rated restaurant.

“I’ve never been out of the country before,” Nash says. “I’m looking forward to getting a new perspective and seeing a new culture.”

Nash is excited to start working in the supply chain field after graduation, but it will be bitter sweet to leave the relationships and experiences he has had with the college. “I take pride in being a Haslam College of Business student. It’ll be hard to leave,” he says.