First Quarter/Semester Experiences of B-school

Kryzak,

For certain career paths, you HAVE to know within a few weeks of school starting so that you can properly recruiting, whereas for other career paths you can wait til your second year to decide.

For instance if you want to do banking or consulting, you need to make it to corporate presentations and other events put on by banks and consulting firms so that they get to know you and so that they keep you on the list of people whom they are interested in.

Even though it may be frustrating to some people that they need to decide so early, it completely makes sense because if you know what you want to do you can make the most of your two years. For example if you KNOW you want to go into consulting, there are a number of school programs that involve consulting. For instance you can consult part-time for small local businesses and get school credit. If you are interested in i-banking you can join this alumni mentorship program that puts you in touch with alums who are working at i-banks. You can spend two years building your resume in a very specific way.

What I have come to understand since I've been at school is this: Career switching is possible if you really really want to switch into a certain industry. If you're just showing up to b-school to window shop different industries and finally say, "Ooh, investment management seems cool," but in reality you have had little interest in equities and markets, then you're not going to be successful switching. So while career switching is quite possible with an MBA, the credential just facilitates that switch for those who are very driven by passion and interest.