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| FROM Tuck Admissions Blog: Time ... AKA Priority Management |
By Morgan Holl T'16![]() Morgan hails from the Washington, D.C. area. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Virginia where he majored in economics and Spanish. Prior to arriving in Hanover, Morgan was a civilian employee in the Department of Defense, most recently in Germany, where he led financial planning efforts for military programs in Africa. After Tuck, Morgan hopes to transition into a management consulting role before eventually returning to the public sector to lead change management initiatives. A prominent consulting firm describes it as a “virtual baby.” It is your red line. It is the thing that no matter how busy life gets, nothing gets in the way of it. For some, their virtual baby is squeezing in a workout during the day. For others, it could be a Wednesday night happy hour where they reminisce with old college friends. For me, my virtual baby, at least at the moment, happens to be a real baby. About 5 percent of my T’16 classmates entered b-school with children—but only about .3 percent entered with a three-day-old child: that would be me. Yes, my partner and I welcomed a beautiful baby girl into this world—our first ![]() child—just three days before the start of what most people already consider a veritable gauntlet of time sapping activities that make up the start of business school here at Tuck. That gauntlet, or “Fall A” for us Tuckies, is a four-week mini term that, from an academic perspective, encompasses four complete classes including three midterms (yes, we have midterms after two weeks of class!), four finals, three projects, and multiple graded homework assignments. Fall A is also the time to get to know your 280 new friends in your Tuck class—not to mention the entire second year class that just arrived back in Hanover—over beers at Murphy’s (the un-official, but really official, Tuck bar), at Toga parties, and through tripod hockey tryouts. Tuck’s 50+ clubs all kickoff during Fall A, giving students yet even more opportunities to explore a professional or personal interest. Did I mention recruiting—that reason many of us came to school in the first place? Yes, recruiting kicks off in full force just two weeks into the start of school. Company presentations, networking events, office hours, and recruiting treks all provide fantastic opportunities to explore new industries and interests. Exactly 699.5 hours lie between the kickoff of Fall A classes on the 1st of September and the turning in of your last Fall A exam on the 30th. One of the things that you will learn during this whirlwind month is that you cannot do it all. 699.5 hours simply is not enough time to: Thoroughly read through every business case AND Join every club that interests you AND Meet with every company that sounds interesting AND Socialize with all 280 classmates AND Spend time with your partner or family AND Actually sleep at night. You get the idea. Effective time management is not what will propel your happiness and success, but rather effective prioritization. There is only so much time in the day, and no matter how you manage that time, it will never be enough without first establishing clear priorities. As I reflect on Fall A, I think about the new friends I have made, about the world of employment opportunities, about interesting coursework, and most of all about how that new addition to my family has altered my priorities for the future. It may be cliché, but when you consider everything important, nothing then is important. Discover your virtual babies and let those important things drive the allocation of your precious time. My baby takes up a lot of my time, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Look at that face and tell me you’d rather spend an extra hour at a TA review session than with this cutie! |
| FROM Tuck Admissions Blog: Tuck Pride @ ROMBA |
![]() ![]() Joe DeBonis is a second-year student at Tuck, where he is the co-chair of Tuck Pride, a co-chair of the 2015 Tuck Winter Carnival, and a Tuck Admissions Associate. Originally from Glen Rock, New Jersey, Joe graduated from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in French Studies and, prior to Tuck, spent three years with Bain & Company in their Boston and New Delhi offices. This past summer, he worked as a strategy intern at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and will be returning to the New York office of Bain & Company after graduating from Tuck. Outside of the classroom, Joe enjoys running, traveling, and developing his trivia skills in architecture, geography, and pop culture. 1,400 LGBT MBA students, professionals, pre-MBA candidates, and MBA admissions officers; 3 days; 6 incredible keynote speakers; dozens of panels, workshops, career fairs, and networking receptions; 12 months of planning and preparation. Earlier this month, the 16th Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) conference took place in San Francisco, and four of ten ROMBA organizers, myself included, were proud to call themselves Tuckies. ROMBA was founded 15 years ago with the goal of educating, inspiring, and connecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender MBA students across the United States. As first-years at Tuck, Cara, Jesse, Jasper and I were impressed with what we saw at last fall’s conference in New Orleans: an incredible community of smart, driven, ambitious LGBT MBA students learning about careers, connecting with employers in meaningful ways, and discussing issues that affect our community in and out of the workplace. We bonded with a fantastic group of students from Wharton and Rice and, within a few weeks of returning back to Hanover, had submitted a 35-page proposal to run the 2014 conference. When we were lucky enough to be selected as co-organizers, we embarked on a year of planning retreats, Google hangouts, content brainstorming, and programming development. Planning the 2014 ROMBA conference proved to be an intense education in event planning (on a massive scale), networking, and, most importantly, relationship- and community-building. Acting on the opportunity to expand and nurture the much-discussed pipeline of LGBT talent headed to business school, I spearheaded a reinvigorated Pre-MBA track at ROMBA, working with admissions representatives at almost 40 top MBA programs from across the country to create a Pre-MBA Expo and panel discussions with students, alums, and administrators for prospective students. I greatly expanded my professional and personal networks; most important, I gained nine close friends (my co-organizers) whom I will always respect and trust dearly. This particular ROMBA also made me very proud to be a Tuckie. Given our small size, our presence at the conference this year was inspiring. Four of the ten co-organizers, two members of the ROMBA Board of Directors, five first-year attendees, several professional representatives, alums and admissions officers at the Pre-MBA Expo—smart, engaged, and incredibly fun Tuckies were around every corner at the Hyatt San Francisco this year. As a co-chair of Tuck Pride, our student LGBT organization on campus, I talk to many prospective LGBT applicants about what it’s like to be proud and out in the woods of New Hampshire; this year’s ROMBA conference, while a personal achievement and unparalleled learning experience, was further proof of the tight-knit, engaged, and overwhelmingly supportive community that I and my LGBT friends and classmates enjoy up here in Hanover. |
Success stories and strategies from high-scoring candidates.