1 - 4 month mark: share your rants, raves and war stories

The CORE semester at MIT is over! MIT really lives up to its quant repuation on the Street. My cohort mates celebrated by having shots of Tequila right there in class immediately after the last exam.

Thank you guys for you honesty. Keep it coming! I am applying this year for sure, and I am not sure about staying NYC because there is so much going on and commuting in this city is HELL!

updated rants:

rant:
1) !@(#!! !@# this recruiting !@(#!(@#. I'm sick of it already. Here's how it should work: 1@#! you, put me in a room for 8 hours Monday-Thursday and just make me do it all in one week. Companies rotate from room to room interviewing whoever they want and then on Friday I get my answers. None of this drawn out multi-month dinner-every-day crap.
2) I want my sleep back.

I am readily finding that the break between semesters doesn't really exist, and is in fact just "no assignments" time.

I had another bank event this morning (4 hours, there place), a full day on valuation tomorrow, and then all the interviews begin next week. Not too sure what to make of it all right now - it seems like the deadlines don't stop until maybe 20 Jan, then we start up again around then anyway.

I better have more time to go drinking next semester, but am assured that I will have.

Same here. I got back from my one week of skiing and have done nothing but cover letters, job applications, interview prep, pre-term assignments for marketing and accounting and practice fit questions and case interviews with other people. I was less busy during finals week than I have been this week... and school starts next week.

holy moly!

looks like I'm avoiding the consulting and banking craze when I go to b-school. I was tempted to check out the consulting thing like rhyme is doing, but at this point, I think my efforts are better focused on building connections with startups and VCs...

Yea but... keep in mind that breaking into VC is hard and they hire very late in the recruiting cycle.

I understand. VCs generally hire in the spring for internships. I don't even know if I want to do it yet, but for the suggestion of a UCLA alum who originally wanted to do entrepreneurship but found VC interesting in his first two quarters at UCLA. It's just something I could look into, but won't be devastated if I don't get it (similar to you and consulting, rhyme). My first and foremost goal is still entrepreneurship, international business, and strategy (short term), which I'm glad does not have this crazy interview process like consulting/banking.

This is the major problem for planning to recruit for VC, PE or Hedge Funds. You need balls of steel. You will be pretty much the last person to get an internship, and will watch all the others interested in Finance get themselves set up while you wait.

I don't know many people who can quite manage such a brave move given the past six months. I am sure there are some, but I won't have seen them at recruiting events, will I?

true, though I'll also be gunning for startups internships (whether through the school or personal connections) while everyone is doing consulting/banking interviews. VC/Hedge Funds/PE are just something I might try out.

Rants:
- budget totally screwed. Lots of unexpected expenditures (having never traveled abroad before B-school sucks)
- time management is a pain. LOTS of things happening; wherever you are, you're missing something cool elsewhere.
- being 'second-tier' sucks. I want HBS's 800-pound-gorilla feeling.
- career office is struggling to sell us, but I feel they could do much better job.
- most clubs are totally disorganized.
- some professors are booooooring.
- some classes are too basic - looks like same class at Wharton has a 3 times longer syllabus.
- some classmates are retarded. (just a few though.)
- my study group was full of hardcore 4.0 maniacs.

Raves:
- my study group was full of hardcore 4.0 maniacs. With some skill, it eases things up.
- LOTS of collaboration and positive attitude. People are incredibly laid-back.
- most people are damn smart. Some are totally razor-sharp.
- looks like MUCH less stress, pain and frustration than other schools.
- most times, I sleep stable 7-8 hours, work out 3 times a week and travel the roundabouts on weekends.
- LOADS of interesting things to learn. Marketing class was awesome.
- LOTS of clubs - which, being quite disorganized, are an excellent opportunity to exercise your leadership skill.
- 5-week break ROCKS! I'm pretty much idling for 2 weeks now, and will idle more.

Overall: if you don't want to stress your a$$ off, West Coast is your spot. The smell of pot is the most characteristic thing about these places, if you know what I mean,

very informative rants and raves braindancer! Thanks!

Could you expand on the feeling of being "second-tier"? Is it something that people just think internally or is it something that surfaced when recruiting or interviewing or something else? Right now Haas is definitely one of my top choices, but I am just curious where the "second-tier" feeling comes from.

As for career office, what can they do better? Also for the clubs. Just wanted to understand Haas more. Thanks!

aaww...braindancer, you hurt kryzak.

kryzak-there, there, you poor baby

haha, nah, just curious about the details, since it's something I would like to know if I do get into Haas and somewhere else.

1) Well, there is no factual support of us being a second tier, but it's pretty much obvious for everyone that we're not H, not S and not W. By far. And even not Chicago, Columbia, or MIT. Everyone keeps telling us "prepare super-hard, as you have to win against those branded guys". All the major companies (I can only talk consulting, didn't pay attention to other stuff) do recruit here, and invest quite a lot of time, so I can't say we're treated as crap. It's mostly internal perceived second-tierness. You can't just think "okay, I'm from a cool school, go hire me fast". Not gonna happen.

2) Career office could do more to prepare us for battle. The single introductory "case practice bootcamp" was put together by Consulting club. The advanced one I had to put together myself. (Not alone, but that's not the point). There is some activity, like mock interviews and career advising sessions with hired professionals, but I feel it is totally not enough.

3) For clubs - they're just chaotic No one really controls what's going on there, which is good for independent action, but bad when people just don't do anything. Given the overcommitment of many active people, it often happens that they are elected to leadership positions but don't have enough time to actually drive things. (It's not the same for all clubs though.)

P.S. I've painted it black somewhat; it's not my point, most of things are really awesome I just specifically highlighted several things that could be better.

Thanks for the details braindancer! As for "second-tier", that was what I expected. No wonder Haas students always work so hard and are extra "gung ho" about things. I think it's a reality that at this point, Haas is still working its way up and "second tier" to the M7s, especially in consulting/IB (I think Haas is probably closer to the M7's in stuff like entrepreneurship and non-profit). But it's still nice to hear that the companies do spend time at Haas and don't outwardly treat the students as "second-tier".

As for the career office, I think if Haas follows the GSB model for preparation (they have some amazing prep programs there for interviews!), they would probably do better.

Finally, I think the student-run everything does plague schools like Haas when everyone is overextended. I got the same comments from students at UCLA and Kellogg, two other schools where the students decide how to run all the clubs, and if no one is taking the lead in one of them, that club falls apart for that year.

Thank you again for bringing out the "needs to be improved" areas of Haas, as these kinds of information are hard to get from infosessions or talking to "official" students and faculty.

Woo....braindancer, you just severely lowered my perception of Berkeley. As an international outsider, I know that Cal is not QUITE up there with H/S/W, but to me that was always only a perception thing, not based on the real quality of the school. (The same way you keep trusting a brand such as say Apple, even if they screw up a few products and are already on the downturn)

Still, I thought Berkeley DOES carry some weight being one of the best schools in the US, and there IS reason to be proud of getting your MBA there. I thought it would open doors.

H and W never seemed to fit my goals, nor my style, S seemed like a place full of arrogant mofos so I refrained from applying.

Hmm...of all my applications, I guess Kellogg still is the best brand then...

Any thoughts?