As We Stumble Along

By: Cafui Awasu

In one of my favorite niche musicals, The Drowsy Chaperone, (a musical about a musical), there’s a song called “As We Stumble Along,” which, in retrospect, feels like a hidden ode to Kellogg. Not because we were all prohibition-era socialites with martinis in hand (although, depending on the quarter, maybe not entirely inaccurate) but because business school is, at its core, two years of highly collaborative “stumbling."

After easing into school with a lighthearted MMM summer, followed by a manic fall quarter of party buses, coffee chats, [insert club] exec applications, checking Canvas, and party buses again, winter quarter finally felt slow enough to do some introspection. I realized that most of us arrived at Kellogg believing that everyone else had a plan. Other people seemed polished, intentional and strategic; speaking confidently about recruiting timelines, their five-year plans, the right amount of olives in a martini, with the ease of seasoned pros.

Meanwhile, the rest of us were quietly Googling what the other companies in FAANG actually were.

That was the strange magic of Kellogg. Beneath all the polished resumes and carefully curated LinkedIns, most of us were improvising in real time.

We stumbled through recruiting cycles that felt emotionally turbulent. We stumbled through group projects where someone always discovered the assignment was due way earlier than expected. We stumbled through networking events, birthday parties, theme parties, afterparties, and the uniquely Kellogg phenomenon of somehow seeing the exact same people in class the next morning looking suspiciously functional.

Yacht Week

We all tried on different versions of ourselves here, and somewhere along the way, we realized that that was perfectly okay. From recruiting for one thing and ending up in something entirely different to discovering new hobbies and interests, invention and… reinvention became part of our process.

And through all of it, there was this quiet realization happening beneath the surface: nobody fully had it figured out. Not the people with the “perfect” internship. Not even the people who for some reason keep their Slack notifications permanently on. The beautiful thing is, we were all searching for certainty in each other while quietly building it for ourselves in real time.

Then sometime during second year, the energy shifted: many of us found new ways to share our passions with others, we took bigger risks, and through all that experimentation, we felt free enough to let go and just be, even just a little bit.

This year, it feels like everywhere I turn, Bad Bunny is reminding us in DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS that we should have taken more photos. And I think part of why that album hits so hard is because it understands something uncomfortable about nostalgia: you usually don’t realize you’re living the good part until it’s already ending.

Business school trains you to optimize everything. Your schedule. Your recruiting strategy. Your leadership positions. Your networking opportunities. It becomes very easy to treat every moment like a stepping stone toward the next thing.

But now, approaching graduation, I don’t think the moments I’ll remember most are the ones I spent the most time trying to optimize.

Black Ski

I think I’ll remember yelling huzzah! at Medieval Times with the hoMMMies, leading a KWEST to my childhood home, triple dippers at Chili’s (rip), begging for the Butterfly code for E2,  laughing 'til I cried at Black Ski, and island hopping in the Adriatic Sea with Kellogg’s very best.

I’ll remember the people who became family so gradually I barely noticed it happening.

I’ll remember how easy it became to knock on someone’s door and talk and giggle for three hours.

I’ll remember that for two years, our lives existed in this weird, compressed little ecosystem where everything felt both deeply chaotic and strangely meaningful at the exact same time.

And maybe that’s why “As We Stumble Along” feels like the right song after all.

Because despite everything Kellogg teaches you about leadership, strategy, negotiations, and career paths, I think the most valuable thing many of us learned here is that uncertainty is survivable, that being a “functional adult” is 60% improvisation, and that confidence is rarely something people arrive with fully formed.

You build it slowly through conversations and friendships, and the shaky moments where people show up intentionally for you. Most of all, you find confidence in the freedom of realizing you can reinvent yourself and still remain fundamentally you.

We may still be stumbling along after graduation. In fact, most of us probably will.

But at least now we know we’re not doing it alone. Read Parting Notes from the Class of 2026:

The Least Strategic Parts The Boy Behind the Smile Kellogg is its People FOHMO: The Fear of Having Missed Out Great Things Start from Small Beginnings 10 Things I Didn't Expect to Get Used to at Kellogg The Shape of Two Years The View Between Graduations