Last August, I started a doctoral program at the University of Southern California. Thus far, I have really enjoyed all aspects of the program from my fellow students to the incredibly talented professors to the online learning environment that our learning takes place in to everything in between. Even the textbooks that we are required to purchase for our classes are a cut above most of the textbooks that I used in my other graduate and undergraduate studies. Since starting this program, the majority of my free time is now spent reading different studies for my classes and preparing for small group and full class discussions. I am writing this short paragraph about the USC program to show that I am enjoying the program and to state how glad I am that I decided to apply to become a student again for the last time.
Greek State of Mind is growing!
With the start of the USC program at the end of last summer, I opted to stop all of my activities in whatever was left of Usable Web Solutions, LLC. Those activities included keeping several websites updated on a semi-regular basis and working to promote those websites via social media. Before completely stopping my activities with UWS, I was keeping at least one website regularly updated (“regularly” = almost daily) for about 20 years. Stopping those updates and moving away from my online business was a big change for me, though not an entirely bad one. The best part of relieving myself of my UWS duties was freeing up more of my time to focus on my other small business – a small, niche apparel company.
The apparel company that I co-own with another alumnus from my fraternity is doing very well, too. Our company – Greek State of Mind – had its biggest sales year in 2015. However, we are about 10 weeks into 2016 and we have generated more revenue this year than we did during the first 40 or so weeks of 2015. In the world of small business entrepreneurship, this is the type of growth that most companies dream of achieving. We are very happy with GSOM and are excited about expanding our product lines including a shirt celebrating the Monmouth University men’s basketball team and their Bench Mob.
And speaking of the Monmouth Bench Mob, I know that I speak for all Monmouth University basketball fans when I write that we are hopeful the NCAA selection committee will make the right decision and send the Hawks to the big dance this Sunday! #FlyHawks!
