The First Entry That Never Was

Last year, I started working on this blog (and the associated Web site) with all sorts of ambitions – I was going to use this blog to document my years in b-school, from the first days to graduation, and perhaps beyond. The site was a place where I'd round up the resources that helped me in my research, as well as any other interesting stuff I found along the way. And, of course, I still plan to do all of those things. But boy, did I underestimate my first year! Soon after writing the post below, I got swept up in orientation, the dreaded Math Camp, and, finally, school itself. As a result, my first blog entry never got published, and the site has only just gone live in the past couple of weeks.

But even if it's from a year ago, I think it’s too illustrative of my mindset at that time not to post it. Hopefully another year won’t go by before my next entry!

~ mbagirl


4 Weeks and Counting Down… (from July, 2006)

So I’m exactly 4 weeks away from my first class, and it’s been at least 12 years since I’ve set foot on a University campus. I have to say, I’m both nervous and excited. Really excited, actually. I’m looking forward to meeting the people in my class and just getting started with this chapter of my life.

I am hoping to complete this program in 3 years, which I can do if I register for 2 classes a semester for fall, summer, and winter each year. On the other hand, I’ve already told myself that it’s ok if I want to take a summer off, or scale back to one class in a given semester. I tend put a lot of pressure on myself, so giving myself permission to scale back if my life situation demands it takes off a little of the weight, even if I know that I probably won’t. I just like knowing that option is out there.

Actually, that sort of flexibility is one reason that I chose the program I’ll be attending. At first, I’d set my heart on a Very Big Name program that used a cohort system – in other words, you go through school at a given pace, with a prescribed curriculum each semester (aside from electives) with the same people. At the time, dazzled by the Very Big Name and ivy-covered campus, I liked the idea because it reminded me of law school. Most of my friends are lawyers and I’d listened with a little bit of envy to the war stories of their law school years, while my twenties were a bit more, shall we say, free-spirited. And I really am glad that I took the time to “find myself” - in fact, one of the things I discovered about myself during those post-college years was that I have a competitive and determined nature. So even though I have no regrets, I still have a tiny little ambitious chip on my shoulder that they all went to law school and I didn’t. I felt like Big Name School’s tough cohort approach would most closely approximate the law school experience I’d envied. I didn’t look too closely at the curriculum – I just figured I’d buck up and endure, no matter what.

But after all of that, Big Name school didn’t take me. In retrospect, I know that it was because of what I wouldn’t admit – I really wasn’t a good fit for them, and they weren’t a good fit for me. I had a liberal arts education and a rather… err… varied transcript, and Big Name is a very traditional and rather rigid school. I won’t make any excuses or apologies – when I was young, I wanted to try pretty much everything, from Russian and Religion (solid grades) to Geography and Physical Anthropology (not so much) and my grades reflected it. And math… oh, math. I didn’t actually finish a math class. I tried one semester, but dropped it. I am guessing that math will be a recurring theme in this blog, so I’ll save the background for then (remind me to tell you about my GMAT quant scores…), but let’s just say that the program that I had my heart set upon had a strict math requirement. The truth is, if you aren’t a good fit for the program, they will probably reject you. Business schools, impressed though they might be by your resume and professional credentials (and mine do rock, if I say so myself), won’t accept you if they don’t think you’ll do well in their program. You might very well excel in business school – just not theirs.

So there are two things I did wrong in selecting a program right there – I looked at the name above the fit, and I overlooked the fact that the program placed a heavy emphasis on proficiency in an area where I struggle. My sister pointed this out during a tear-soaked phone call I placed to her upon receiving my dreaded skinny envelope, and it actually made me feel much better. It wasn’t anything I’d done, and I wasn’t stupid or a loser - I’d just picked the wrong program. As a friend and current MBA student pointed out, the admissions process can be like dating: a program (or a guy) that rejects you wasn’t going to be the right program anyway. Lesson learned and point taken, I moved on and began researching programs carefully based upon what I really need and want: flexibility, a supportive culture, a campus experience (as opposed to a satellite), and the ability to focus my studies on more than one concentration - right now it’s Marketing and IB.

What was funny was that once I’d found a program that really seemed like a perfect fit, the application process seemed so much easier… less forced. I felt like my essay just poured out of my fingers, instead of racking my brain for what I felt “they” wanted to hear, who “they” wanted me to be. When the school called me for an interview, the woman on the phone sounded like My Kind of Person, and I sincerely enjoyed our conversation and learned from it. Happily, I was accepted soon after that. And having gone back and done my research and searched my soul for what I want in a business education, I had a good feeling about enrolling

Is finding the right MBA program like love - when you “know,” you know? Or is it just a matter of buckling down in whatever program takes you? I think that I have picked the right program… I guess we’ll see.