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25 Nov 2008, 02:39
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I think this is a pretty common phenomenon. Put a bunch of accomplished and competitive people together, and there's bound to be some intense pressure. The pressure I've observed, though, hasn't been academically derived. There's certainly a fair amount of work in business school, but the workload is far higher at most med schools and law schools. Further, at least some of the top schools have grade non-disclosure, and that policy really lessens the academic pressure. Finally, I haven't seen much of a reluctance to ask questions. Perhaps it's because Stanford has so many people from non-traditional backgrounds.* No one really expects the artist/fighter pilot/physician/teacher to have the same finance background as the bulge-bracket IBer. So when one of the non-traditionals (I'm one of these, by the way) raises his/her hand and asks where the beta came from in an equation, everyone's cool with it.
The pressure I've seen is more of the social variety. There are so many amazing people, and you want to get to know as many as possible. So you go to every party and beer-a-thon. But you worry that you're spreading yourself too thin, so you decide to concentrate on hanging around with a few close friends. Inevitably, you then end up wondering whether you're missing something at the big parties. So you go back to the bigger crowd. All the while, you're getting very tired and thinking it might be nice to spend an evening by yourself watching TV. I think it takes a few weeks/months to find a happy medium incorporating all of the above. The adjustment period can be difficult.
We had an exclusive academic period until the beginning of this month and won't really get into full-tilt recruiting until January (IB and MC are the exceptions), so I can't comment much on that aspect of things.
River raises a good point with respect to relationships. Make sure you really want to commit before heading to school. And understand that time devoted to your relationship will take time away from social activities, studying, sleep, or some combination thereof. There's really no way around it. I'm doing the long-distance thing, and it's going pretty well... I talk to my girlfriend at a pre-specified time every day, but she understands there are days when we'll only be able to talk for a few minutes (thankfully she has a pretty intense job herself as well as plenty of friends who attend or went to business school).
Finally, I want to echo River's point about fun. Business school, overall, has been a blast for me. I haven't regretted coming to b-school for a moment. As with anything, there are bound to be some tough times. Just keep in mind that everyone else (yes, everyone) is having some troubles too. Don't feel alone.
*- I hope everyone here understands I'm not putting down any other schools. Just offering up my own viewpoint.
The pressure I've seen is more of the social variety. There are so many amazing people, and you want to get to know as many as possible. So you go to every party and beer-a-thon. But you worry that you're spreading yourself too thin, so you decide to concentrate on hanging around with a few close friends. Inevitably, you then end up wondering whether you're missing something at the big parties. So you go back to the bigger crowd. All the while, you're getting very tired and thinking it might be nice to spend an evening by yourself watching TV. I think it takes a few weeks/months to find a happy medium incorporating all of the above. The adjustment period can be difficult.
We had an exclusive academic period until the beginning of this month and won't really get into full-tilt recruiting until January (IB and MC are the exceptions), so I can't comment much on that aspect of things.
River raises a good point with respect to relationships. Make sure you really want to commit before heading to school. And understand that time devoted to your relationship will take time away from social activities, studying, sleep, or some combination thereof. There's really no way around it. I'm doing the long-distance thing, and it's going pretty well... I talk to my girlfriend at a pre-specified time every day, but she understands there are days when we'll only be able to talk for a few minutes (thankfully she has a pretty intense job herself as well as plenty of friends who attend or went to business school).
Finally, I want to echo River's point about fun. Business school, overall, has been a blast for me. I haven't regretted coming to b-school for a moment. As with anything, there are bound to be some tough times. Just keep in mind that everyone else (yes, everyone) is having some troubles too. Don't feel alone.
*- I hope everyone here understands I'm not putting down any other schools. Just offering up my own viewpoint.
25 Nov 2008, 07:20
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Thanks for sharing terry. I agree that social pressure is generally more intense than academic pressure at most schools.
kryzak
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25 Nov 2008, 21:12
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Great stuff river and terry, and thanks agold for posting this up. Hopefully our (first years) perspectives can help relieve some stress of the applicants. 
I won't repeat much of what river and terry have already said (they are much more eloquent than me, and have always been), but the one thing I have to stress is, get your priorities right before you start school.
Once school starts, you'll be washed away by a storm of academics and activities and you'll never really have the time to sit down and figure out what is important to you in your 2-years at B-school. By the time you do figure it out, it may be too late. What I mean by this is, are you in b-school to mainly form a network to get into that hard-to-get-into-industry? Are you there mainly to learn the material very well? Are you there to learn more leadership skills by running clubs? I'm not saying that any of these are mutually exclusive (quite the contrary), but you have to figure out which one is more important to you, and when you have conflicts (which you definitely will have), it will be easier for you to pick the thing that matters more to you.
For example, I decided before school started that as much as I like to lead and influence the direction of a club, in order to participate in all the clubs that I'm interested in, I will not run for co-chair/president of any club, just many VP positions. Academically, I have already gone through the "grades matter most" engineering undergrad experience, so I told myself that as long as I'm learning the material, I will always sacrifice my school work if I need to get a club event done or do something that will help my professional skills.
Make a mental list like that for the different things that you may face in school (best way to know is to talk to current students and learn about the things that pull us in different directions). Also know your limits. Again, this is best learned by talking to the 2nd years. I probably would not be alive right now if I didn't talk to a lot of 2nd years and learned from their "mistakes" of over-committing. Because of that wisdom, I am forcing myself to only commit to 3-4 clubs (doing VPs for everything) and just being a member for the rest. I'll still be super busy next year, but I'm pretty sure I won't be so busy that I won't deliver on my promises.
So far I've been loving every single day of my experience here at Berkeley Haas. I just remember every morning, when I was still working, waking up dreading going to work. But now, even though I'm even more sleep deprived, I look forward to a full day of exciting times ahead of me. Like all the other 1st years have said, the people are AMAZING. One of the reasons I chose Haas is because of the "confidence without attitude" culture we have here, and it's true. I'm still surprised by the intelligence, experience, and the amazing things that some of my classmates have done, 3 months into the school year. People are just so unassuming, as if all the great accomplishments they've done didn't mean much. The class interactions have been wonderful, full of respect and friendliness (to the point a couple prospectives doing class visits have commented about it), and no one is afraid to ask those "stupid" questions.
Figuring out which social events to go to and which ones not to is still tough, but you just have to pick a few where you feel you'll get to know the most amount of people intimately. If big parties are your thing, do just that. If small intimate gatherings are your thing, then have more dinner parties or wine and cheese nights. I feel that there's a place for everyone at any of the top schools, and the people you meet will eventually become friends that last a lifetime. I don't regret a moment being here in b-school.
P.S. There is a joke here that a 2nd year showed us during Orientation Week. 75% of the people come in as in a relationship/married. By 2nd year, 75% of the people are single... kind of scary because there is some truth to that!
I won't repeat much of what river and terry have already said (they are much more eloquent than me, and have always been), but the one thing I have to stress is, get your priorities right before you start school.
Once school starts, you'll be washed away by a storm of academics and activities and you'll never really have the time to sit down and figure out what is important to you in your 2-years at B-school. By the time you do figure it out, it may be too late. What I mean by this is, are you in b-school to mainly form a network to get into that hard-to-get-into-industry? Are you there mainly to learn the material very well? Are you there to learn more leadership skills by running clubs? I'm not saying that any of these are mutually exclusive (quite the contrary), but you have to figure out which one is more important to you, and when you have conflicts (which you definitely will have), it will be easier for you to pick the thing that matters more to you.
For example, I decided before school started that as much as I like to lead and influence the direction of a club, in order to participate in all the clubs that I'm interested in, I will not run for co-chair/president of any club, just many VP positions. Academically, I have already gone through the "grades matter most" engineering undergrad experience, so I told myself that as long as I'm learning the material, I will always sacrifice my school work if I need to get a club event done or do something that will help my professional skills.
Make a mental list like that for the different things that you may face in school (best way to know is to talk to current students and learn about the things that pull us in different directions). Also know your limits. Again, this is best learned by talking to the 2nd years. I probably would not be alive right now if I didn't talk to a lot of 2nd years and learned from their "mistakes" of over-committing. Because of that wisdom, I am forcing myself to only commit to 3-4 clubs (doing VPs for everything) and just being a member for the rest. I'll still be super busy next year, but I'm pretty sure I won't be so busy that I won't deliver on my promises.
So far I've been loving every single day of my experience here at Berkeley Haas. I just remember every morning, when I was still working, waking up dreading going to work. But now, even though I'm even more sleep deprived, I look forward to a full day of exciting times ahead of me. Like all the other 1st years have said, the people are AMAZING. One of the reasons I chose Haas is because of the "confidence without attitude" culture we have here, and it's true. I'm still surprised by the intelligence, experience, and the amazing things that some of my classmates have done, 3 months into the school year. People are just so unassuming, as if all the great accomplishments they've done didn't mean much. The class interactions have been wonderful, full of respect and friendliness (to the point a couple prospectives doing class visits have commented about it), and no one is afraid to ask those "stupid" questions.
Figuring out which social events to go to and which ones not to is still tough, but you just have to pick a few where you feel you'll get to know the most amount of people intimately. If big parties are your thing, do just that. If small intimate gatherings are your thing, then have more dinner parties or wine and cheese nights. I feel that there's a place for everyone at any of the top schools, and the people you meet will eventually become friends that last a lifetime. I don't regret a moment being here in b-school.
P.S. There is a joke here that a 2nd year showed us during Orientation Week. 75% of the people come in as in a relationship/married. By 2nd year, 75% of the people are single... kind of scary because there is some truth to that!
