Bilal Moon
What we’ve always been and will continue to be are students. And even in our pursuits that don’t amount to milestones, we become more than what we were yesterday.
– Bilal Moon
Throughout my life, I have been asked several times what I wanted to be when I grow up. I can think as far back as second grade when I said I wanted to be a scientist and attend UT Austin. As you can plainly see, I basically did the exact opposite of that by majoring in business at UTD. And in 12th grade, I wanted to become a lawyer, but that wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the TV shows. But it’s fourth grade that sticks with me the most. Our teacher asked us to write down what we wanted to be, and when she got to mine, she read, “Bilal wants to be a basketball…”. She flipped the page and there was nothing more. That’s all I’d written. I want to be a basketball. As you can plainly see I am not orange or round. Maybe a little full of hot air. But while none of those dreams ended up being a slam dunk, it wasn’t all for naught.
When I enrolled in the MBA program at UTD, I was given a piece of advice that made me reflect on my various pursuits, and I’m hoping you’ll join me in reflecting on your individual journeys that brought you here today. That piece of advice was to go beyond what you think you want to do. This immediately resonated with me because after graduating with my bachelor’s and working for five years, I found myself stuck. So I came back to this school for answers and what I learned were three things:
- Always double-check that you’re muted and video is off on Teams.
- Get to know others because their perspectives can challenge the assumptions you have that keep you from growing.
- Do something you didn’t see yourself doing or doesn’t fit your skill set or makes you uncomfortable. For example, it may come as a surprise to you that I am perhaps one of the most introverted people in this building. Yet here I am giving a speech in front of thousands of people staring at me. But I will grow from this because isn’t that what we do?
I think most, if not all, of us during our time in school, were challenged to be more than we are accustomed to being due to two catastrophic events. The first of course is the pandemic. When the pandemic hit, we were thrown into a situation we had never nor may likely ever see again and were asked to completely change how we lived, and, as it relates to our academic experience, forced to change the way we learn, the way we interacted with professors and students, the way we built our networks. Then, along with COVID-19, came WOVID-21 — which stands for winter outage VID — and we were forced to rise above a lack of electricity, water, heat, basic necessities as we continued our pursuit to learn. And maybe you’re like me and don’t remember some things from one class or another, but you certainly remember going beyond what you thought you were by muscling through a world health crisis, the worst winter storm of Texas, and a pretty rigorous program to get to where you are today.
Today, we have reached a milestone in our journeys. Some of us will go on to become marketers, accountants, supply chain analysts, managers, executives and lawyers. All these, most of these, are worthwhile pursuits. But the milestone is not the finish line. I know it seems so formulaic, so happy ending: Go to college, get a degree, land a job. But I never believed a job to be the primary benefit of going to college. For me, it was more about continuing to learn and conditioning our minds into minds that are receptive to learning so that even when we leave here today, we don’t stop what we’ve started in these school walls.
I am not a scientist, I am not a lawyer, I am not a basketball, you may not be what you thought you’d be even as recently as when you started your time here at UTD. But what we’ve always been and will continue to be are students (don’t worry, the tuition bills are gone). And even in our pursuits that don’t amount to milestones, we become more than what we were yesterday. So, apply for that job that requires more experience than you have. Go beyond your job description. Take an online course unrelated to your job. Stay in touch with this school and mentor tomorrow’s students. Cook a cuisine you’ve never tasted. Help your kid with their science project. Shoot some three-pointers even if you’ve never made a foul shot. Because all we know is all we try. All we are is learning to be.
Bilal Moon is graduating with a Master of Business Administration, analytics concentration, as a scholar with high distinction. Previously he earned a bachelor’s in finance and economics at UT Dallas in 2015. He has worked for various companies such as Texas Instruments, Disney and Legends. During the MBA program, he interned at Toyota, participated in the CometX Accelerator program for incubating entrepreneurial ideas, served as a teaching assistant in operations, and earned his graduate teaching certificate.