Wilch wrote:
Now that I officially finished Fall 1 (1st quarter), I feel like I can answer these questions to a reasonable degree.
School & Curriculum
• Describe your typical day.
Between 2 hours and 40 minutes of class to 4 hours of class; a bunch of recruiting events, presentations, and club/social events between or after classes
• What are some of the best classes you have taken?
Negotiations with Barry Nalebuff, Game Theory with Zhou Jidong and Power and Politics with Heidi Brooks and Michael Kraus - I feel like I can answer this more sufficiently after Fall 2 or Spring 1, because that's when the more interesting courses roll around.
• How do you select what courses to take? Is there flexibility in what courses you can take? Are there courses you think are most helpful for students interning or recruiting full-time for your area of study (eg, finance, consulting, marketing, ops)?
Fall 1 and Fall 2 (Aug-Dec) are all core courses. After that, there's a ton of electives to choose from. You can also take stuff from Yale College or even Yale Law.
• Do you feel the program is a better fit for students looking for a specific career? Do student preferences tend to learn towards a particular area?
It's very strong for banking, investment management, consulting, non-profit, social, sustainability, entrepreneurship and healthcare. For stuff not in those fields, such as tech, Yale is very strong in the the Northeast.
• How would you describe the student community?
Just the friendliest and loveliest people in the world. It sounds cheesy, but Yale spends a lot of effort and time drilling the whole "coopetition" thing into our heads. We're not fighting each other for spots in McKinsey, we're looking to beat everyone else out there. I've heard some companies love this aspect so much, they'd open up extra slots just to let Yalies into their firms.
Internships
• From what you’ve seen, what types of intern programs/companies were students most interested for their summer internship?
Consulting is hands down the most popular choice here. I'm not going for consulting, but we have a ton of resources here to prep students for casing and other relevant skills.
• When does the summer internship search begin and when does it end?
Varies for sectors - Consulting and banking starts about 2 weeks in, get taken or dinged around February.
• What support does the school provide for finding an internship and understanding the internship search process?
The Career Development Office here offers resume review, interview coaching, etc. It's pretty standard and most schools should have this. The clubs provide a ton of resources on top of that.
• How did you prepare for your internship recruiting process?
Getting my resume torn apart by second years at the moment. Going to start hustling soon.
Recruiting
• From what you’ve seen, what types of full-time roles were students most interested? Was there a shift in what people were looking for in the summer internship to what they were looking for in full-time roles?
Still consulting. I came from banking and have 0 interest in professional service firms.
• How did most people find their full-time role (e.g., on-campus recruiting firms, off-campus recruiting, the extended school/alumni network, etc)?
For banking, consulting and big tech firms, it's done mostly through on-campus recruiting. For the small start ups to mid-sized publicly traded firms, it's done off campus through contacting our awesome alumni.
• Describe the networking opportunities available to help you learn more about your career options (e.g., job treks, student club-led activities, company-sponsored events, conferences, etc)
There are events everyday. The big firms all visit campus (MBB, BB banks, big techs). You really have to pick and choose here.
Social
• What are the “fun” events that you should not miss out on (e.g., happy hours, formals, Olympics, follies, etc)?
Too many to list. Seriously. If you don't have some kind of commitment, you're going to have a ton of fun. New Haven is a small town, not too far away from NYC and Boston, but just far enough to stop people from drifting away into their own circles.
• What opportunities are there for students to work on-campus or off-campus while in school?
TA - I won't be doing that because there's a ton of resources supporting entrepreneurship stuff on-campus.
• What is something not mentioned on the school’s website that an applicant should know?
A lot of stuff. If you have specific questions, ask me. I'll try to get back to you if I can.
Wilch , thanks for your sharing here.
Just want to ask a question here :
Is it common that candidate from sales and marketing background (or in other areas outside banking, consulting and non-profit) change to a social-impact or non-profit sector here? We've already known that Yale emphasizes a lot in social impact. Is there any preferable typical background for Yale's candidate?
Thanks!
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