Congratulations to everyone in the Class of 2018! We’re excited to be part of an outstanding class of Boothies who will be graduating tomorrow and going out into the world to make our mark. Our time at Booth has been amazing, full of new experiences and successes — from Nobel Prize winning faculty to our very own TBE teammate winning the Social New Venture Challenge!
Speaking of Nobel laureate professors, Richard Thaler will be our commencement speaker this year. We look forward to celebrating this major achievement with such an accomplished yet humble pillar of the Chicago Booth community. And we couldn’t be more proud to call ourselves the newest members of the Chicago Booth alumni network.
One of my goals when I was looking at MBA programs was to develop myself as a leader, and I chose Booth because I recognized the school’s focus on this goal as well. The indicator was that our sole mandatory class is Leadership Effectiveness and Development, better known as LEAD. Taught by second-year students, LEAD is our first class at Booth. It teaches you a range of important leadership skills, from first impressions to cross-cultural communications.
For me, what the LEAD course kick-started in my leadership development during my first quarter — Leadership Practicum truly helped round out as I finish up my second year.
In this second installment of our Booth through the decades series, we speak with Earl Van Zyl, ’07, who works in investment management in South Africa. Earl chose to pursue his MBA despite the observed differences in educational expectations between South Africa and the US. Whilst the chartered accounting qualification is a more popular and recognized post-graduate degree in his home country, Earl saw a unique need for and opportunity in pursuing the Booth MBA: here is his take on how his experience stands out from the rest.
I have always been fascinated by computers. You press a button, and magical things can happen. For example, you can submit an application to business school 5,000 miles away (of course, then you realize there was a typo on your resume… unfortunately, human error is still a factor and time traveling back to fix it is still something computers can’t do). People who could actually write code were like gods to me. At the same time, I never had enough focus to become one myself—instead, I embarked on a business path, getting degrees in economics and financial management, and later working in consulting. And, although I had tried to teach myself to code, without direction and a real goal to work towards, I had never gone beyond the basics. But the passion has never gone away.
Let’s face it, even though business school is a two year vacation, sometimes you’ll want to do something productive, whether it’s shoot out a couple of recruiter emails or plan your Spring Break itinerary. When those situations arise, Booth has a variety of productivity enhancing spots. Here are the Top 10, ranked.
