Rocky Mountain High

Every year, Deloitte holds an event for its former consultants who are away at business school to reconnect them to the firm. The event is also an opportunity to network with peers at different schools around the country, as well as firm leadership. Obviously the six of us doing this global internship program provided a logistical challenge for the retreat organizers, but we received approval to attend. Fortunately, spouses were also invited, and the company paid for Melinda’s trip as well. Although unexcited about traveling 40 hours roundtrip for a weekend in the States, we weren’t about to miss out on the weekend - Especially since it was being held at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.





Flights from Hong Kong to Colorado Springs don’t happen every hour, so in order to get to COS in time for Friday’s dinner, we actually had to book flights that arrived the day before. This extra time in the Springs allowed us to (1) adjust to the time change and (2) go to the Colorado College campus. Melinda had not been back to campus since her graduation, and it was fun to see what had changed. Aside from Pepperdine’s perch over the Pacific in Malibu, I don’t know if you can find a prettier location for a college. Melinda’s freshman year dorm room looked right out on Pikes Peak and the foothills of the Rockies.



The rest of the weekend was great, and I had a blast seeing friends from UCLA and my time at Deloitte before school. 4 of the 5 members of my team from Week 2 BA training in 2005 were in attendance, and we had fun reminiscing about our group. We also enjoyed talking with the other global interns about their experiences in Brazil and India. Team India in particular had some crazy stories – they were even battling GI issues at the retreat. As Jonathan Felix said, his body was rejecting all of the clean water he was drinking. On Saturday, we went white water rafting, which was an absolute blast.



After the fun weekend and amazing stay at the fantastic Broadmoor, it was time to leave. Melinda actually flew to Wichita to spend a few weeks at home before going to London. I boarded the flight to Chicago and on to Hong Kong with Eric, and we were off to the other side of the world.