I'm Alive...and Moving

It's been some years since I've written a post for this blog. I often forget that it exists...that is until I get an email from a prospective MBA student. It's nice to know that more than half a decade after I embarked on my journey to business school that others are still reading all of my neuroses as they forge their own path to an MBA.

Alas this chapter of my life closed when I graduated from Chicago Booth in June of 2014. Since then I stayed in Chicago, found a job doing exactly what I wrote about in my essays, and quit that job after 7 months to go back to doing what I did before business school. Now I'm getting ready for another career transition. I've also started a new blog to capture that journey. Come on over to my new site Open Mouths Get Fed to read my musings on the money part of adulting. Get an idea of what life looks like after the MBA.

A Few of My Favorite Things

I'm sitting on MBAOver30's couch watching him nurse a case of malaria (as he calls it) which is really just a good old fashioned hangover (as anyone else would call it).  I'm in Philly for a wedding and I dragged him to the outdoor ceremony and reception on this especially humid day.  I find it amusing that he thought drinking from 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. was a good life choice at his age. Old men should know better.

Working Girl

Last week I ended my one year streak without gainful employment.  As much as I love Booth I was definitely ready for the school year to be over (as evidenced by my inability to conjure even an ounce of "give a shit" for my ops class).  However, not wanting to be in school does not equate to wanting a job.  Anyone who knows me is well aware of my strong aversion to the actual process of going to work.  But on June 17 instead of hitting snooze three times, surfing the net for an hour, and grudgingly dragging my ass to an office 20 minutes late, I actually woke up before 6, went for a jog, and showed up 15 minutes early.  Why was I so eager?  One word: GOOGLE!

Victory

I woke up yesterday morning to an e-mail from Clear Admit notifying me that the Brain Dump is this year's Best of Blogging winner.  I would like to thank everyone who reads, comments, and lurks on my blog for all of your support.  When I took a hiatus from blogging back in 2007 I could have never imagined that an MBA would be the impetus for reviving The Brain Dump.  I had no idea that a few posts to get me back in the habit of writing in preparation for b-school essays would turn into something  that is appreciated by so many people.  I know that I do not update as often as some people would like (I'm looking at you Mr. MBAOver30), but I hope to keep up with writing throughout the summer while I'm on my internship.  I'd like to congratulate MBAOver30 and Julianne for placing 2nd and 3rd in this year's competition.  I'm a fan of both blogs.  Also congratulations to all of the nominees. I'm really hoping that Str1der blogs about his time at Tuck and I can't wait to see where hamm0 ends up after the upcoming application cycle.  Thank you again everyone.

 

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."