Building Lifelong Connections

Vianney Sotelo ’25 found more than just high-impact learning and career preparation in the Business Honors program. She found a family through caring support from faculty and staff and relationships with classmates that will last long beyond her days at Mays.

When Vianney Sotelo arrived on the Texas A&M University campus as a freshman in 2021, she was nervous. Her family and closest friends were back at home in Arlington, and she felt apprehensive about making new friends and connections. But it was a visit to Mays Business School during her high school senior year that had sealed her decision to attend Texas A&M. A top prospective student, she was invited to College Station to tour Mays, visit the Business Honors program, and meet with current students. She was touched to find the advisers and director of the program had taken the time to know her name and background. 

“They were just awesome. I got here, and they knew my name,” she says. “I was like, Wow, I really matter here, this is so awesome.”

When she returned as a student herself, that welcoming feeling remained, and she says the sense of togetherness continued throughout her years at Mays. 

One reason she seamlessly found friends and formed connections? Business Honors, an exclusive program for Mays’ most promising students that includes small class sizes, personalized support from faculty and staff, and an abundance of professional development and social events. Freshmen accepted into the program declare their major in business honors, but many also declare a second major. Sotelo chose accounting, and through the Professional Program in Accounting, she’s also earning a master’s in management information systems. The program sets students up for success — upon graduating, 100 percent of Business Honors students begin full-time employment or graduate school within six months. 

Sotelo graduated this spring and will start a role in Dallas in the investigations and forensics practice of PwC, but the program gave her far more than career preparation. Sotelo says she formed friendships and a “found family” with other students — meeting some of her best friends through Business Honors.

One of the people she met freshman year is Ben Longoria ’25. The two bonded over both being first-generation students, finding they had shared many of the same experiences throughout their lives. They also happened to have nearly every class the same on their schedule that semester.

Longoria remembers Sotelo approaching him at the Regents’ Ambassador Program orientation and realizing they were in the same class. In his phone contacts, her name has a star emoji next to it. “The universe was like, you have to be friends,” Longoria says. “I really think it was fate that we were meant to be together.”

These days, they see each other all the time, walking through Wehner or Roberts or getting together for dinner or an apartment hang. With another Mays friend, Maria Ramirez Robles ’25, they are planning a trip after graduation, traveling through Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, and Korea.

Business Honors was vital, threading friendships throughout her experience, Sotelo says — and this is purposeful. The program helps students, like Sotelo, Longoria, and Joaquín Lugo ’25, make connections, both for friendships and for future careers.

Fostering such connections is intentional, says Business Honors director Claire Raabe ’16. 

An alumnus of the Business Honors program herself, Raabe remembers being a student and talking with a friend who noted he had expected to gain skills in college, but what he didn’t expect was how the experience would impact the content of his character. 

“That phrase has just stayed with me,” she says. “It really is about whole-person development — that idea that, yes, we care about your intellectual formation, about making you excellent in your field. But we also care about who you are while you do that.”

Toward that goal, Raabe ensures they are intentional about establishing trust early, beginning with knowing every new student’s name. She asks people about their lives, not just their studies. Not every event is specific to business; they host a popular student gingerbread house competition, for instance. In return, students feel they can go to advisers for more than just career questions. “Being there for the fun, being there for the sad and the hard, being there for the really victorious — all of these moments matter in the minds and hearts of your students,” Raabe says. 

Meeting students on an intellectual and emotional level, she adds, helps them build capacity for skills like introspection or crafting a future vision. These things in turn make them better leaders and human beings. They talk about, for example, seeing other people’s strengths not as a threat, but instead cultivating an abundance mentality. 

“It’s not necessarily stuff you traditionally expect to encounter in a business curriculum, but I think it is absolutely critical,” Raabe says.  

Another way Sotelo made friends and gained professional development skills at Mays was through the Regents’ Ambassador Program (RAP) for low-income and first-generation freshmen students. 

As an upperclassman, Sotelo applied and was accepted into Business Fellows. Its high-impact courses and experiences not only boosted her education, she says, but also brought rich relationships. And she became an ambassador for RAP, helping shepherd other freshmen through their beginning stages of being at the university. Sotelo says she felt like a den mother, enjoying being an ear and a help as they encountered things she had experienced, like adjusting to school and facing impostor syndrome. 

“A lot of first-gen students sometimes have a really hard time finding their place at A&M, because it may seem overwhelming,” Sotelo says. 

She likes to help them know they’re not alone. And it’s not only students she has grown attached to. As Longoria and Sotelo became friends, they also formed a close relationship with General John Van Alstyne ’66, executive professor at Mays Business School and director of Business Fellows.

“I call him GVA,” Sotelo says. She met him her freshman year when she was in a business honors class he taught about leadership. 

He’s had so many experiences in his life, she says, and shows a knack for knowing details about each student. And often, students walk up to him and ask him what they should do with their life. 

“He gives such great advice, because he knows every one of us very well,” she says. “He really wants to know people and remember what people have said.”

That ability to connect reminds Sotelo of a transformative learning experience with Van Alstyne. Every year he secures funding and takes RAP students to a horse ranch in Montgomery called The Cowboy Solution for a team building experience. This day at the ranch teaches students that each horse has a different personality. Sotelo remembers learning how to respond to the individual horse, similar to finding out how to work with specific people, responding to individual cues and unique situations. 

Longoria, who says he’s sought out advice from both Van Alstyne and Raabe, says that such a personalized connection with these advisers is “so special.”

“I’ve definitely gone to Claire Raabe’s office and said, ‘I need to cry right now,’” he says. In fact, Raabe was such an inspiration that he’s pivoted out of the business track and is now considering graduate schools for student affairs. “The faculty truly care,” Longoria says.

As Sotelo prepares to move on from Aggieland and into the professional world, she’s reflecting on how her first impressions of Mays Business School — personalized care, meaningful relationships — became the mark of her experience throughout her undergraduate journey. 

At a recruiting event recently, someone asked what she would change about her college experience. She thought about how much she’s learned, the amazing people she’s met, and the great memories she has. 

“Honestly, I don’t think I would have changed anything,” she said.