Category Archives: Diversity

Boothie Life, BoothMBAs, Community, Diversity, Trips and Treks

Travelling with locals – Discovering Lebanon

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Roughly 30% of Booth’s full-time program is composed of international students, hailing from all corners of the earth. Over the years, international students have planned “unofficial treks” to their home countries and invited fellow Boothies along for a glimpse of their rich cultures, customs, and stomping grounds.

Before heading back to Chicago to start classes, I travelled to Lebanon with a group of 11 2Ys for a week-long country tour. My classmates, Jad Houry and Stephanie Saade, grew up in Beirut and were the perfect guides to show us all that Lebanon has to offer. We got the opportunity to not only visit Lebanon, but experience the country through the eyes of locals.

And what better way to share this Booth experience than to show you?

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Boothie Life, BoothMBAs, Community, Diversity

Being an Introvert in the MBA

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Last year, TBE blogger Oma Nwabudike posted an article about being an introverted MBA student. It turned out to be one of our most-read blog posts of all time! 

Whichever way you lean on the Myers-Briggs scale, this is a raw look into how the less extroverted types thrive in the business school environment, especially at Booth.

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Admissions, BoothMBAs, Community, Diversity

Intense Curiosity in Common

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Our Class of 2020 has arrived on campus and they are finishing up their first week of Orientation. In true Booth fashion, this class is made up of a diverse group that represents a wide range of industries and functions. For example, one incoming student, Grace Zimmerly, was previously a lead for overdose reduction initiatives with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in New York and New Jersey.

While we may all come from very different professional backgrounds, Grace says there is a common factor across her Booth classmates, “Intense curiosity, broadly applied.” Hear more from Grace’s interview with Poets & Quants about her past job, what led her to Booth, and what she’s most looking forward to during the next two years. 

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BoothMBAs, Chicago, Community, Diversity, Leadership, Outside the Classroom, Partners and Family, Student Groups

Reflections of a Booth MBA: Family, Student, and Alumni Community

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As I’m wrapping up my last quarter here at Chicago Booth, my mind is running through a whirlwind of what seems like far-off memories.  The drive from Colorado, first day of classes, investment banking recruiting, trips across the world, and the list goes on.  Contemplating what I imagine will eventually seem like a small glimpse in time, I find myself reflecting on one aspect of this experience that I feel is illustrative of the whole.

My first year at Business School was tough.  Awash with a number of competing tasks—moving to a new city, navigating the waters of recruiting, maintaining a family, nurturing lifelong friendships—it was critical that I had the right network in place to help alleviate some of the stress, so that I may successfully emerge from this experience.  More often than not, I came to find that members of the African American MBA Association (AAMBAA) were more than willing to fill this gap.  AAMBAA has served as more than just a professional resource, it has been my family. 

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Academics, Careers and Recruiting, Diversity, Outside the Classroom, Private Equity, Student Groups, Trips and Treks

Booth through the decades: Impact of an MBA in Africa, with Earl Van Zyl ‘07

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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.

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