The Wisdom Board: Noah Billings and Nasir Cook

The transition from graduating college into the real world can be a daunting one.

I need to find a job.

Where am I going to work?

How am I going to pay for bills?

How am I going to stay in touch with friends, family, etc.?

David Bradley, chairman emeritus and minority owner of the Atlantic wanted to find out these answers. He created "The Wisdom Board," a research project where he hired a group of Princeton students to find out what were the major problems for people in their 20s.

Two of those students were Football's Noah Billings and Nasir Cook. Some other Princeton student athletes included Men's Track and Field's Cooper Austen along with Women's Lacrosse's Maggie Molnar and Juliana Williams.

What originally started as book idea turned into a start-up company that could help students after college.

Through the team's research, the group distilled down to 75 types of professions. Cook's job was to interview six of the professions such as CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, COOs and politicians. Billings interviewed different types of doctors from orthopedic surgeons, anesthesiologists, etc. The common questions for the interviewers were to find out three main things, what are your core activities, what activities do you do that separate yourself from others and what are the different gifts that help you become top level in your field?

Billings found some of the trends among the people he interviewed to be interesting, "I think almost 80 percent of the people that we interviewed that were orthopedic surgeons were former athletes because that's one of the roles in medicine where you have to be a natural leader," said Billings.

This type of research led to a lot of long days in the summer. Billings and Cook lived together in an AirBnB in the Washington, D.C. area and worked out of the Watergate complex.

"I really enjoyed it," said Billings about living with Cook during the summer. "I was ready to be on my own, but there were some things you take for granted like we didn't have an iron at first," noted the junior running back with a smile.

After over 500 interviews, the project team has drafted over 15 chapters running 40-120 pages each.

"Six months from now, I'm hoping we have a clear basis on what the project is, and we have a weigh station production that we can roll out to college students," said Cook. "In a year or two, we like to have a fully finalized product and start marketing it to students across the country."

Cook and Billings are now into the product development and market research which entails interviewing current college students on what they want out of the product.

The balancing act of work, school and football for the two is always tricky.

"It is a lot, but I've learned that if you put a lot on your plate, you're going to have to figure it out," said Cook. "Not a lot of people can do it, but if you have the drive and want more for yourself, you will get it done."

"I feel like the biggest enemy for me is just procrastination," said Billings. "If you do work when you have time to do it, the balance gets a lot easier. There are always things that'll just pop out of nowhere, no matter how ahead or how behind you are. Those things become more manageable if you're ahead on your work."

Working on the Wisdom Board has been valuable for Billings to plan for life after graduating. "It's helped me in taking in a lot of other things that I would not have considered," said Billings. "This position has helped me dig into what a job entails and what I'm actually doing instead of what it looks like I'll be doing. It's given me more of a direction of what I'm looking for in a job."

The Wisdom Board for Cook is just another step among the many that he has taken because of his Princeton education. "You get a world class education and an amazing college experience," said Cook about Princeton. "Not only from an education standpoint, but the school also sets you up for success if you take advantage of the resources. In athletics, Princeton is always historically at the top of any sport so you can truly have the best of both worlds. It is truly a life changing process that you go through here."

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