Current Student
Joined: 05 Sep 2011
Status:Student
Affiliations: University of Notre Dame
Posts: 6
Given Kudos: 0
Location: United States (IN)
Schools: University of Notre Dame (Mendoza) - Class of 2013
Re: Notre Dame MBA Candidate - Taking Questions
[#permalink]
27 Oct 2011, 13:36
Since I started at Notre Dame in August, there have been a lot of great experiences. Students here are kept pretty busy with core classes and career development, but also strike a good balance. Football Saturdays are a blast, while the course work is really interesting and challenging at the same time.
One of the best experiences so far has been interterm. Interterm takes place over the two weeks between modules in the fall and again in the spring. As a first year, you're required to participate in a case competition during the first week. During these competitions, major companies will present a challenge they're facing to MBA students and provide vital information pertaining to the issue. Your team then works for a few days to create your own solution to the problem, and will present to company executives at the end. There are usually prizes to the top teams, and often times the winning plan, or some variation of it, is actually implemented by the company.
There's a little more flexibility with your second week. Here you're either able to go on fall break, or take advantage of a career trek. As a finance major, I took the week long trip to New York City that was set up by the MBA office. Taking advantage of the extensive Notre Dame alumni network, the office worked to set up meetings with 16 financial services firms/offices. Several of my classmates and I were invited to the New York Fed and banks such as Morgan Stanley and Citi for presentations and networking opportunities. Similar trips took place in San Francisco and Chicago. These are great ways to boost career development.
One you're out of your first semester, you have the opportunity to take advantage of international trips during interterm. For instance, during spring interterm, I'll be heading to China for two weeks, while several classmates will be heading to Chile and Argentina. Both are organized through the school.
As for class size, it is a smaller, personalized program. We have about 135 students in my class, and the overall program (first years, second years, and one years), is just over 300. During your first two modules, when you're taking core classes, you're in one of two sections with 65 or so students in each class. That's the largest class you'll be in while at Notre Dame. When you start taking concentration-specific classes, the class size gets much smaller. I personally like it because the smaller class sizes and better access to professors.
The smaller class size also means we have a very close class. I know the name and background of nearly everyone in my year and a good chunk of the second years and one years. Everyone gets along really well, but that isn't to say we aren't still competitive. It's a great environment because while you are competing with your classmates, its done in a respectful way where we're not undercutting or going after each other. Rather, you're able to build off the experience of others.
Happy to answer any other questions.
Go Irish!
Joe
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