Spring is here in Chicago. As spring represents coming of fresh leaves and flowers, here at TBE we would like to welcome the new team. That also means it’s time to say final goodbye from your favorite bloggers. So let’s hear from each of us as we bid our final farewell and express our gratitude at having such a fantastic audience.
Craig Carter
It’s hard to believe that my time here at Booth is almost over but I’m also looking forward to the next phase of my life working in the CPG industry in Dallas, Texas. As I reflect on the past two years, I can’t help but be grateful for the friends I’ve made and the amazing support system I’ve experienced at Booth. While attending business school with a family has been challenging, I’ve loved having the flexibility to schedule my classes around spending time with my family, and the ability to include my family in my experience. I’ve also been amazed at how understanding all my classmates have been about my need to balance family and school life. In the end, the one big piece of advice that I would pass on to prospective students with partners/families, is to set your priorities early. Whether you want to focus more on family, academics, career, social life, etc. working with your partner to figure out how to prioritize everything can be challenging but it’s essential to maintaining balance!
Alex Simon
I’ve really enjoyed writing about things like getting an MBA as a younger student, Wednesday night trivia and my first day experiences over the past year, and I’ll definitely miss communicating with prospective students. As my time at Booth winds down, I’m incredibly happy with how the last two years have gone. The thing that surprised me most at Booth was the quality of my classmates. In addition to being the smartest and most talented people I’ve met, everyone has also been incredibly down to Earth and humble. If I had one major regret from being at business school, it’s that I wish I would’ve taken more chances to get involved with something outside my core interests. In addition to broadening my scope, it would’ve given me a chance to meet and interact with people outside my core group of friends. For admitted students, I’d recommend trying to stretch yourself – Matt Taddy’s Big Data class was probably the most challenging class I took at Booth, but it was also among my favorites. For prospective students, my parting advice is to figure out exactly what you want to get out of your MBA before you apply. It’ll make your applications better and your interview process much less stressful. Next year, I won’t be straying too far from Hyde Park, as I’ll be working for ZS Associates in Evanston, IL. I should be easy to spot, since I’ll be the only guy wearing maroon in a sea of purple. Good luck!
JJ
I can’t believe that it has been two years since I moved to Chicago from Mumbai. I did not know anyone in Chicago before I moved here, and now over less than 2 years, Chicago is the first place that comes to my mind when I think of home. Chicago Booth provided me with a platform to make friendships and learn lessons, which I will cherish for my whole life. For this I will forever be grateful to Chicago Booth. At onset, making a move to a new country looked intimidating. However, the support system at Booth, as well as, the welcoming and open nature of my fellow classmates made me feel right at home. I had a lot of fun traveling and exploring my new home country. Also, resources at Chicago Booth helped me transition from a career in investment banking to product management, and along the way I picked up skills to succeed in my new career. In the end, I don’t think there is anything I would change if given an opportunity to go back 2 years. An advice from me for incoming students would be to give a lot of thought to what you really want to get out of MBA. This will help you make the best use of immense opportunities and resources at disposal at Chicago Booth. I followed my own advice, and will be joining Amazon as product manager after graduation. I will be moving to Seattle with a heavy heart, but excited about new adventures and opportunities ahead, most of which have been afforded to me by Chicago Booth. I will continue to be active on Twitter and Facebook, so feel free to reach out for anything regarding Chicago Booth. I will never get tired talking about my time here!
Darren
What did I learn during my time at Booth? It doesn’t matter if your resume is written in crayon and you’re not prepared to interview with the companies of your dreams when you first get to Booth, because Career Services and your fellow classmates will do everything they can to make sure you’re polished and ready when the time comes (see à My Journey from Soccer Player to Career Advisor). There will always be more events and meetings and speakers and parties than you have time for, but if you know what you want to do and what you want to get out of your business school experience then you won’t get caught following the crowd and doing things that are not important to you. Smooth your spending, which is to say, travel and have fun now and pay it back later because when you’re actually making money again you won’t have time to travel with all of your friends.
If I had to do it over again, I would spend even more time getting to know my classmates and less time stressing over exams. In the long-run, close friendships are much more important than a few points on my GPA and it probably took me too long to realize that. Though I’m going to miss the awesome Flash Mobs in the Winter Garden, the hilarious lectures from Austin Goolsbee, and the Random Walk trips during the summer, I’m looking forward to making my career transition complete when I start doing growth strategy consulting (with 3 other Boothies) at The Cambridge Group after graduation. It has been a pleasure getting to share my Booth Experience with you!
Tyler
Booth went by in a flash. I came to Chicago not knowing anybody here; that’s definitely not true now! The best thing about Booth is the community. I am leaving school with many, many more friends than I came in with.
After school, I’m going to be in Salt Lake City, working for a consulting firm called The Cicero Group. There aren’t too many Boothies going to Salt Lake – so if you’re there, reach out, I’m happy to talk.
Getting to this point has been a journey with a lot of ups and downs. Recruiting does not go as expected for most people – there are a lot of twists and turns along the way – and it wound up with me doing an internship in tech at Samsung in New Jersey before winding up in a different city/industry/job function!
The best advice I have is this: take advantage of as much as you can during your time at Booth, and try not to let the things you miss or setbacks you experience affect you. The average job after MBA lasts 18-24 months; the experiences and relationships you form at Booth last a lifetime.
