Hey gunster, thanks for the quick synopsis of your day. You mentioned that the people are the difference between business schools and you specifically mentioned Booth and Kellogg. Can you dive a bit deeper into the differences you found in people attending these two schools?
gunster wrote:
Sure! Feel free to message me for more precise descriptions but I'm in the midst of recruiting so I may be very slow getting back to you.
Right now for most first years, life revolves around recruiting. I have classes for 3 out of the 5 days, and spend the majority of my weekdays on campus for recruiting reasons (coffee chats, formal events, lunch and learns, etc.). I spend my remaining time doing homework and watch TV (I'm unfortunately a huge TV binger).
A typical day where I have class would go
Wake up, grab breakfast if I have time, then commute for my morning class
Get out of class, go to a lunch and learn.
After the lunch and learn, I would either head back or stay at Harper depending on what late afternoon and evening events I have. For the afternoon, I will do some studying or work on homework. There's usually a coffee chat or some sort of an information session in the afternoon that I'd attend.
Then, at night, most of the time I attend a firm networking event.
By the time I come back from the event, it'll be around 8-9 PM. I usually try to review my class materials and send out thank you notes until 10-10:30. Then, I"ll watch some TV for a quick break.
I also participate in groups where I work on consulting cases or projects as well as case competitions. I work on these side projects usually from 11 all the way to 1-2 AM ish, then go to bed.
Weekends are reserved for homework or events. I'm in a LDR with my partner and dislike drinking, so I don't attend many drinking events or go out to bars other than to watch sports, which I love, and for major socials that I have FOMO about missing. I love playing board games so I try to do a board game night every weekend when I have time. Otherwise, I spend the weekend visiting my partner so I index heavily on the weekdays.
At the beginning, you'll find that a lot of your schedule revolves around recruiting events, especially if you recruit for banking, consulting, or big tech. There's definitely been some late nights (including tonight), but this fast pace life was exactly what I was looking for coming into business school and it's encouraged me to work more efficiently than when I worked in large corporate.
The one thing I wish I had done before coming to Booth was do more industry research to figure out exactly what I want to recruit for. I had spent probably weeks researching the industry I want to recruit for and decided it's what I wanted to do. However, what I didn't spend time on was looking into alternative industries that may interest me, and I'm getting a lot of these information about these industries that I never really considered before. I'm not wavering in my recruiting decisions, but I regret not taking more time to figure out my alternatives instead of just researching what I thought I wanted to do.
On the flip side, my favorite thing about Booth so far have been the people. I have always had the mindset that MBAs in general are very similar and I still think this way, but the people are the biggest differences between Kellogg and Booth (the two schools I applied for) to me and that fact still remains true. I also say this as someone who don't really have many super close friends since I don't attend as many events and socials as everyone else. I still feel like I recognize most of my class and I enjoy speaking to everyone.
Oh, last note - I encourage everyone to travel during the summers. I know Startup Summer is a great program and I encourage anyone who wants to try it to do so, but I traveled for 2 months and I have no regrets besides the fact that I wish I traveled for 3-4 instead.