Thursday, July 30, 2009
My 1st Year Flew and Yours Will Too!
Since now that I have officially brought to closure my first year as an MBA, almost including now my summer internship as well, I cannot help but reflect and consider how I have changed personally and grown professionally even in the relatively short period of the past 12 months. My first year at Johnson was pretty awesome and although in some ways last summer feels almost like an eternity ago, in some other ways it feels like only yesterday that I bid my farewells at my previous job, closed on the sale of my home and drove my Budget moving truck back to my parent's home in Cherry Hill, NJ. Until last summer, I had not lived within a 12 hour drive of my family in about 9 years and I was excited to be back on my old stomping grounds. Catching up with family, friends, and working through my summer reading made for an easygoing summer and after staying at my previous job for a few years longer than I should have, I was honestly excited just to have more than a couple of days of recreational time for a change.
The downtime was restful and I needed it to get prepared for core classes. One thing I could have done differently was reach out to core professors and ask them for direction on best preparing for the first seven weeks of core classes (core professors can be found on the Johnson website under current students). Core professors are able to offer specific insight on what would be helpful prerequisite learning depending on your background and speaking to them before class starts would be a great way to differentiate yourself from your other 270 or so classmates. Things like getting to know your professors are important lessons in business school that not everyone manages as well as they should. Professors can be an incredible source of information for researching your career interests and even putting in a good word for you with recruiters. Many core professors have been teaching the same core classes for a dozen years or so and because alums are those coming back to campus for recruiting, those professors have good relationships with them and it would be in your interest to ensure that your professors not only know you but also have something positive to say about you.
Winter break and second semester was all about recruiting, keeping my options open and setting myself up for long-term career success. Because I am considering careers in both the private sector and academe, my career development approach was a little different from that of some of my peers. First, I used the break to attend conferences and talk to as many people as possible about my interests. I generally have no problems with meeting new people, introducing myself, and building relationships that expand my personal and professional networks. With respect to the latter, the key to networking is taking an interest in other people and figuring out how you can be of some type of service to someone else. With that approach you will be a better and more focused conversationalist and position yourself as someone with respect to whom you are speaking might also consider including to their network as well. Overall, using the break to be deliberate about building new professional relationships is a good idea.
Second, I created a detailed gameplan for using my coursework to my best advantage. I chose the customized immersion and then tailored my curriculum precisely around those experiences that I thought would be most beneficial to me both for the summer and beyond. For example, I took Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling because I knew that whatever firm I joined for the summer my role would likely include a significant amount of work in Excel. By the way, all immersions are designed to take the guess work out of doing this in your second semester but given my unique interests, the customized immersion was the best way to go for me. I took 18.5 credits, which was 3.5 credits or about 3 classes more than the requisite 15 credits per semester expected. But, there was a ton of stuff that interested me and I had a hard time deciding and so I just decided to take them all. In retrospect, that was a heavy load but I tend to perform better under pressure and what is more, I came to Johnson for exactly that type of challenge. Consider doing the same but make sure that you know your limits and strike the right balance.
After that end of the semester, I took about a 3 week break, travelled a little, and started my summer internship. This summer has been very positive though right now I could use another short break to do a few administrative things for my club responsibilities, take a couple short outdoor trips, work on a few service projects, and spend some time with my dog. That reminds me... In your first year of business school, do not forget about your dog, life partner, kids, or even just your hobbies. It will be important to stay balanced given the ton of stuff that will be going on but do not lose sight of those who love you and are supporting you through your academic experience. Have fun, land the job you want, work hard, and etc but stay grounded and never forget those people and things that make it possible for you to be who you are and to reach the next level. My niece and nephew are that for me!
The downtime was restful and I needed it to get prepared for core classes. One thing I could have done differently was reach out to core professors and ask them for direction on best preparing for the first seven weeks of core classes (core professors can be found on the Johnson website under current students). Core professors are able to offer specific insight on what would be helpful prerequisite learning depending on your background and speaking to them before class starts would be a great way to differentiate yourself from your other 270 or so classmates. Things like getting to know your professors are important lessons in business school that not everyone manages as well as they should. Professors can be an incredible source of information for researching your career interests and even putting in a good word for you with recruiters. Many core professors have been teaching the same core classes for a dozen years or so and because alums are those coming back to campus for recruiting, those professors have good relationships with them and it would be in your interest to ensure that your professors not only know you but also have something positive to say about you.
Winter break and second semester was all about recruiting, keeping my options open and setting myself up for long-term career success. Because I am considering careers in both the private sector and academe, my career development approach was a little different from that of some of my peers. First, I used the break to attend conferences and talk to as many people as possible about my interests. I generally have no problems with meeting new people, introducing myself, and building relationships that expand my personal and professional networks. With respect to the latter, the key to networking is taking an interest in other people and figuring out how you can be of some type of service to someone else. With that approach you will be a better and more focused conversationalist and position yourself as someone with respect to whom you are speaking might also consider including to their network as well. Overall, using the break to be deliberate about building new professional relationships is a good idea.
Second, I created a detailed gameplan for using my coursework to my best advantage. I chose the customized immersion and then tailored my curriculum precisely around those experiences that I thought would be most beneficial to me both for the summer and beyond. For example, I took Managerial Spreadsheet Modeling because I knew that whatever firm I joined for the summer my role would likely include a significant amount of work in Excel. By the way, all immersions are designed to take the guess work out of doing this in your second semester but given my unique interests, the customized immersion was the best way to go for me. I took 18.5 credits, which was 3.5 credits or about 3 classes more than the requisite 15 credits per semester expected. But, there was a ton of stuff that interested me and I had a hard time deciding and so I just decided to take them all. In retrospect, that was a heavy load but I tend to perform better under pressure and what is more, I came to Johnson for exactly that type of challenge. Consider doing the same but make sure that you know your limits and strike the right balance.
After that end of the semester, I took about a 3 week break, travelled a little, and started my summer internship. This summer has been very positive though right now I could use another short break to do a few administrative things for my club responsibilities, take a couple short outdoor trips, work on a few service projects, and spend some time with my dog. That reminds me... In your first year of business school, do not forget about your dog, life partner, kids, or even just your hobbies. It will be important to stay balanced given the ton of stuff that will be going on but do not lose sight of those who love you and are supporting you through your academic experience. Have fun, land the job you want, work hard, and etc but stay grounded and never forget those people and things that make it possible for you to be who you are and to reach the next level. My niece and nephew are that for me!
# posted by Tory Ragsdale @ 11:54 PM 