Events & Promotions
|
|
GMAT Club Daily Prep
Thank you for using the timer - this advanced tool can estimate your performance and suggest more practice questions. We have subscribed you to Daily Prep Questions via email.
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
Not interested in getting valuable practice questions and articles delivered to your email? No problem, unsubscribe here.
Nov 2007:30 AM PST
-08:30 AM PST
Learn what truly sets the UC Riverside MBA apart and how it helps in your professional growth
07 Apr 2019, 18:40
Kudos
Bookmarks
This article is written as part of the MBA Chronicles project. For more such articles, check MBA Chronicles
A Day in the life of a Kelley 1st year MBA student!
November 2014: A friend of mine who was attending a well reputed business school in India & I were catching up after his first 6 months of the MBA experience. What’s the first thing he says? “Dude, it’s a crazy schedule!! The assignments, midterms, quizzes, recruiting and exams never end!! I am hardly sleeping for 5 hours. In my head, I was thinking “Hmm…He must be exaggerating at some point. There’s no way anyone can survive such a schedule for such a long time”
Fast forward March 2019: Having lived the MBA-life for 8 months now, I humbly accept my ignorance and see the truth in my friend’s words. Not that I have been sleeping 5 hours or less ever since I started my MBA in August earlier last year. But a good part of that period was a challenge that I never thought I would be able to complete. But hey, I survived and, in the process, pushed my limitations a bit further.
Here’s a peek into how a typical day of the MBA Core at Kelley looked like:
7:00AM-7:30AM
I start my day at around 7 after a couple of snoozes depending on how late I have slept last night and would do my morning routine.
7:30AM-8:10AM
Reading WSJ and a quick look at my schedule particularly any important appointments/networking calls/ assignment or application deadlines – basically, anything that needed specific attention.
8:10AM-8:30AM
Everyday breakfast date with my lovely wife.
8:30AM-9:00AM
Taking the bus to school. It’s just 12-14 mins journey to school and usually the time after that is spent on catching up with friends in the atrium of the Godfrey building.
9:00AM-12:00PM
Two back-to-back classes of 80 mins each with a 20 mins break in between.
12:00AM-1:00PM
A rather long but welcome lunch break which is usually spent partly having a fun-filled lunch with a bunch of classmates in the MBA lounge and partly finishing reading or assignment for the next class. It is often cut short if I have a meeting or a networking call with a second year or an alum.
1:00PM-2:20PM
The final class of the day!!
2:30PM-4:30PM
This time is usually for recruiting!! Usually a company webinar or office hours on campus or a presentation by alums. If nothing of that sort is happening, I would dedicate this time for networking calls and meetings, online research for a role/company, and/or LinkedIn networking.
4:30PM-6:30PM
Core Team meeting or Club events! My core team is one of the coolest teams I have ever worked with!! We never had a fixed schedule for the meetings but most of the time we ended up meeting at this time and the meeting frequency was set on “as and when required” !! These meetings were dedicated to working on group assignments. If we are not meeting, there would be one or more club events happening at this time on any given day during the week. I am on the Leadership team of Net Impact club at Kelley and have been a regular at the events organized by Consulting Club, Supply Chain Club (aka SOMA at Kelley), Toastmasters Club and Asian MBA club. So that kept me busy!!
6:30PM-7:00PM
Heading back home with a bunch of friends!!
7:00PM-9:00PM
Working on an assignment that is due the next day. Or for the most part of the Core Semester, it was spent on Happy Hours sponsored by companies recruiting on campus.
9:00PM-9:45PM
Dinner date with my wife!!
9:45PM-12:00AM (or more often 1:00AM)
Finish the balance assignments or study for an exam (which at Kelley, is never more than 3 days away) or class readings for the next day’s class!!
Also, if it’s a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday, this is the time when we head for D-Bars. A unique tradition of Kelley when all the MBA folks who want to go out, meet at a designated bar (hence the name D-Bar) in the town and party till we can!! Of course, not everyone goes out every single evening. I usually go once a week or two.
Usually, I crash between 12:30 to 1:00 am.
You can easily get overwhelmed with the workload and the number of activities going around you. And if you try to attend each and everything, you would burn yourself very quickly. So, prioritizing & knowing things that are important to you are extremely critical. But, I can tell you, it is an amazing experience!!
Archived Kelley Discussion
Hi there,
You've stumbled upon an old discussion from our Kelley Forum
that's now outdated and has been archived. No more replies are possible here.
Interested in current discussions? Feel free to dive into our dedicated Kelley Forum
for all fresh things related to the Kelley MBA program.
Thank you for understanding, and happy exploring!
Moderators:
