Category Archives: Outside the Classroom

Admissions, Boothie Life, BoothMBAs, Community, Outside the Classroom, Trips and Treks

A Guide to Random Walks

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When you’re considering Booth as an option for your MBA, you’ve likely also heard about how admitted students like to go around the world with their future classmates on trips called Random Walks (or RW). [Let’s take a moment to snicker at the name, it’s very Booth – data-driven, analytical, “punny” – and you should probably just get used to it.]

Whether you’re strongly committed to going on Random Walk, or mildly flirting with the idea, here’s TBE’s (ok mostly mine) unofficial FAQs about everything RW.

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Admissions, Boothie Life, Chicago, Community, Outside the Classroom, Student Groups, Trips and Treks

MBAs: Masters of Baller Ambitions

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Basketball is not just my favorite sport or form of exercise.  It’s my favorite… everything.  If I have a chance to watch TV, I’m finding whichever NBA game is on.  If I’m listening to a podcast, it better be one analyzing the previous night’s games that I watched.  And if I’m surfing the internet, my browser history is littered with ESPN, HoopsHype, Basketball Reference, and any other site you haven’t heard of.

I remember as I was preparing for my interview at Booth in November 2014 (wow that was a while ago…), I was reading through the classes and clubs offered, making mental notes of which ones to excitedly bring up.  Sure, there was Quantitative Investment (didn’t take it) and the Analytics Club (didn’t join it), but when I read up a little more about the Booth Basketball Club, I was captivated.

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Academics, Boothie Life, Careers and Recruiting, Chicago Approach, Entrepreneurship @ Booth, Outside the Classroom

NVC Series: A few words with Professor Kaplan

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New Venture Challenge (NVC) is possibly the most well-known competition at Booth as well as one of the most famous entrepreneurship competitions in the business school circle. As part of our ongoing series dedicated to the NVC, I sat down with Professor Steve N Kaplan for a brief conversation about the New Venture Challenge, which he helped co-found in 1996.

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Community, Outside the Classroom, Pay it Forward, Student Groups

Learning teamwork through laughs

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You’ll often hear current students say that “being a team player” is an important value to highlight in MBA applications. More often than not, students at Booth work in teams – for classes, as part of clubs and other extracurricular responsibilities. However, not everyone has been exposed to extensive team-based environments in our pre-MBA careers.

Thankfully, it’s an easy skill to build. First-year student Vikram Sivakumar reflects on his journey in teamwork that he learned in a unique way – through the ten-week Improv course offered by Booth’s Public Speaking Club. And what better place to learn than in the city of Chicago – home of Improv legends like Second City and Up Comedy Club!

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