And the Nominees Are...

It's been a long day.  I just returned home from performing in Booth's annual Follies showcase (with three hours of class and an hour of LPF preceding it).  On such a full day it's just like me to forget my phone at home.  So imagine my surprise when I finally see my Samsung's beautifully cracked screen and it's displaying a message from my buddy Hamm0 saying, "I voted for your blog in the ClearAdmit thing." "What ClearAdmit thing?"you ask.  Well, it turns out that it's time for Clear Admit's annual Best of Blogging awards and I am happy to announce that The Brain Dump has been nominated for one of this year's best blogs.

Easier Said than Done

I chose to pursue an MBA for one reason: to change my career.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do after business school long before I was even accepted anywhere. I want to create and manage social impact partnerships between private and social sector organizations.  I want to start in the corporate sector in either a foundation, sustainability, or CSR role (social impact in the corporate sector doesn't look the same at every company so there is variability in what department the jobs I'm interested in are staffed). My career goals played a major part in choosing which school to attend.  Deciding to attend Booth ultimately came down to determining that it was the school where I'd receive the best support in terms of recruiting.  I was absolutely correct in that assessment.  The career services team at Booth is phenomenal.  Career coaches helped me plot my target list of companies.  Second year career advisors gave me great feedback on my resume, cover letters, and interview skills.  I had access to every company I came to school knowing I wanted to target and many more that I hadn't even thought of before getting here.  I found job openings that weren't posted.  I interviewed through both on-campus and off campus recruiting methods.  In February I landed an offer from the world's largest retailer for the exact job I came to business school to get.  Three weeks after receiving the offer I declined it in favor of joining Google in a role very similar to what I was doing pre MBA. *Insert loud record scratch sound* What happened?

School Ties

One of the questions that I am often asked about Booth from prospective students and recent admits is, "If there are no cohorts and students live all over Chicago does Booth really have much of a community?"  According to Poets and Quants' article Chicago Booth vs. Kellogg, "The school purposely lacks core cohort groups and has no residence halls for its MBAs, factors that make it harder for real community to occur. Some Chicago students say the school still lacks the camaraderie you’ll find at many other b-schools, especially Kellogg, and that some students graduate from Chicago with only a handful of people they would call friends."  I've also repeatedly read comments like, "the flexible curriculum does not allow for bonding," and "Booth is a commuter school."

We Ghana Party!

I'm chilling in a hotel room in Addis Ababa with 5 other Boothies right now.  We're ordering room service and watching Naija music videos right now.  I may or may not be doing a mean chair dance right now, but I admit to nothing.  Classes started today but we extended spring break for another day or two.  All good things must come to an end and in another hour or so we will be on our way to the airport to start the nearly 20 hour voyage back to Chicago.  Spring break 2013 is coming to an end and goodbye to Africa we must say.

Quick Update

Ladies and gentlemen, we are in the middle of final exam week. Lucky for me none of my classes had finals this quarter.  But wait! Before any of my fellow MBA students throw daggers at me I do have a huge final project due on Friday for my marketing research class. I don't even want to get into the hellish clusterfuck that assignment is.

Alas, I do not have til Friday to finish it. It needs to be out the door tomorrow because by 7p.m. I will be on my way to O'Hare to begin my voyage to Ghana for spring break. Thirty of my classmates and I are heading to Ghana and Ethiopia for Chicago African Business Group's annual Africa trek.Africa isn't new to me since I've been to Cameroon many times to spend time with my ridiculously awesome (and awesomely crazy) family. However, this will be my first time going to Africa's east coast and I can't wait. I love me some Ethiopian food and I'm about to eat that country out of all injera I can stomach. 

I will likely be away for the week of spring break (but that's not unlike most weeks lately) so I want to say good luck to Booth's R2 applicants and a hearty CONGRATULATIONS to the new admits. 

When I get back I'll update you all on the haps in Ghana and Ethiopia as well as do some poetic waxing about career choices in business school. Til then, may the odds be ever in your favor. 

Already?

Less than a year ago I was sitting in Harper Center 104 amid a sea of several hundred admitted students listening to Kurt Ahlm, Dean of Admissions, welcome all of us to Chicago Booth.  Me and my future classmates were like newborn babies in a family.  Booth lavished us with attention and adoration, constantly congratulating us on the accomplishment of gaining admission and welcoming us into the Booth community.  Fast forward 10 months and just like that there's a new bunch of babies on the way and we're the not nearly as adorable older siblings.  It feels like class of 2014 just got to campus and we're already welcoming the class of 2015.  People were right, business school moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.

Tell Me About a Time

Since January the halls of Harper Center have been alive with the sounds of recruiting.  From calls of "good luck" as friends march toward the temple of doom (interview rooms) to the hushed condolences after a botched case interview recruiting is all around us.  In fact, it's even spread to the applicant pool as schools have now released (or are releasing) the round 2 interview invites.  Inevitably, after the cheers of joy for moving on to the next phase in the process, the panic of moving on descends.  In honor of this festive season of nerves, paranoia, and ocassional nausea I would like to recount my interview experiences from last application season and give some advice for this year's applicants (Booth's in particular).