Recently, Facebook joined our small group of sponsors and it happened in an unlikely fashion.

During one of my recent trips between Palo Alto and Chicago, I sat next to a bright, young Paypal exec named Wenbo. He spotted me working on my presentation for NIU’s SEEK conference and began asking about my work.

To be completely honest, I was tired and not particularly excited about starting a surface-level conversation; but my extroverted reflexes kicked in. We quickly found ourselves in an interesting banter about higher education. Wenbo was flying from SFO to ORD every weekend to complete his MBA at University of Chicago, so he had a lot of interesting feedback about his experience thus far. An incredibly kind individual, he showed a genuine interest in Ei and asked if he could make a few introductions on our behalf. Of course, I agreed.

Within a few days, we were on the phone with his friend from Facebook’s marketing division. We shared our hopes of finding 25 bright individuals to join our Fall Class and continue building Ei. Our newfound friend, Junyan, worked her magic and helped us acquire a sponsorship for all Ei ads during this season of open applications.

We were thrilled to receive the news and are now knee-deep in learning more about the platform’s tools.

So, if you see an Ei sponsored ad on Facebook, share the love and know that it was made possible by some generous people who stepped in at the perfect time.

And, if you haven’t applied to join our class yet, don’t wait much longer. The deadline is getting closer.

Thanks for celebrating these moments with us. We're excited to continue learning and growing with you in the coming weeks and months.