CLASS OF 2000 GRADUATE COMMENTS
Editor's Note: BusinessWeek collected graduate comments in 2000 during its ranking of full-time MBA programs. The next ranking is scheduled for fall, 2002.
Most of my education in elective coursework has revolved around investment finance and the Golden Gopher Growth Fund, where I worked as a telecommunications student equity analyst. That experience put me in front of senior management at the companies I was researching and covering. The growth fund provided an educational medium that is not available at most other schools around the world. Where else can future investment professionals have the training grounds to learn and grow, where students are provided the room to make mistakes and grow from them without jepordizing their careers on Wall Street? More than not jepordizing their careers, the Growth Fund opened doors into the investment community that would not have otherwise been available. --Finance
I believe the Carlson School is undervalued relative to its peer group, considering the tremendous opportunities that exist here for enterprising students. The faculty is top-notch, the Golden Gopher Growth Fund gives students access to some of the brightest minds in the investment community, and the emphasis on experiential learning exceeded my expectations. This is the school for the future's success stories today. --Anonymous
I feel very strongly that I have received an excellent education at the Carlson School of Management. I feel that several things made my education here the best I could have hoped for: 1) The faculty and staff have an attitude of continuous improvement and have made tremendous strides since I have been here, even though it was an excellent place when I started. 2) The local business community is extremely strong for both marketing and entrepreneurship, my two concentrations. The exposure that I have gotten to the local players has been far beyond anything I expected. 3) The graduate business career center has hired an additional 2 counselors, and we all have individual career coaches. This has been a great improvement for all students. --Marketing
One of the best decisions I have made to date was to attend the Carlson School of Management. The deciding factor was the school's credible commitment to turn the program into one of the best in the country. In comparing my experiences with those of friends currently in programs like Tuck and Wharton, I realized that I was in an enviable situation. I am surrounded by 110 classmates who will be friends long into the future, and I am on a first-name basis with the majority of faculty with whom I had contact. My friends attending these other institutions may have had more investment banks visiting their schools, but they impressed upon me their lack of personal fulfillment at the overall MBA experience. If I had to experience my MBA education all over again, I would not change a thing. It was fantastic. --Entrepreneurship
Higher expectations are helping the school. The increasing scores, and so forth, of students are raising standards toward private-school quality, pulling forward the public school inertia. The school has not concentrated on the social aspects of business school. They hold some events, but there is not a strategy to increase the value of the MBA experience by engaging the students with each other. --Nonprofit
The experience at Carlson was a fabulous one for me. The school offers many options to customize your experience, and is taking large steps to improve the program. The Minneapolis business community is very underrated, you have the diversity of firms much like a big city, but because of the city's size you are able to interact with the local firms on a much more intimate basis. I can't imagine such interaction in New York or Chicago, with the same level of attention. The school should continue to improve in the future, and it is a program I would highly recommend. Based on my experience and in looking at other programs, I think the school matches up well with several top 20 programs. --Finance
I'm walking away from my MBA experience with no debt, my dream job, and an entire new network of friends. Looking back, I believe the risk that I took 2 years ago -- quitting a well paying job -- was great. The rewards have been worth it. I feel very strongly that there's a positive momentum going on at Carlson School and that there is quite a bit of positive change. Even over the 2 years that I have spent there, the amount of listening being done by both administration and faculty has improved, and the school has benifitted tremendously. For an overall experience -- money spent, job acquired, student body, educational experience -- Minnesota has a great balance that in my opinion make it an undiscovered jewel for non-Midwest people (I moved from New York).
In particular, the Carlson School has focused on the strong Minneapolis financial community to leverage alumni relationships into jobs for graduates. While many of the top-name firms -- Goldman, Alliance Capital, Lehman -- do not recruit at Minnesota, Carlson grads from this graduating class have jobs at each of these firms. Overall, the Carlson MBA has been a very positive experience. --Anonymous
I applied to 5 schools and put effort into 2 of the applications (Berkeley and Carlson). After visiting many of the business schools, I was turned off by a number of reasons, and decided to focus my efforts on the previously mentioned schools. I was very dissapointed that I did not get into Berkeley at the time, but I am very happy with my experience. --Anonymous
I decided to pursue an MBA education to learn the business fundamentals, switch my career, and get a chance to meet dynamic people who I can learn from and network with in the future. I've accomplished all my goals at the Carlson MBA Program... However, there's still room for improvement. One particular area is in the information and decision sciences (IDS) concentration. For many years, the needs for MBA students in the IDS concentration were not satisfactorily met. Even today, much of professors' teaching efforts are shared among the MBA, evening MBA, and undergraduates, creating inconsistent teaching quality.
But the IDS department has already begun to change things around. Probably the most impressive response to student needs was an IT studio, a dedicated lab in which students can freely experiment with computer software and hardware. It was awesome to get an opportunity to do some creative things, such as build computers from scratch and then network them. With this lab, tackling more exciting projects such as creating an Internet commerce site, for example, is very much a reality. With the e-business concentration, things are really looking up.
Another area that needs improvement is the career placement office. While the automated recruiting process has drastically improved the overall interview process, and site visits to New York (investment banks) and Silicon Valley (tech management) have provided some unique opportunities, the office has not been able to attract some of the more prominent national companies. I don't think it's due to the lack of efforts by the people in the placement office, but I hope they would reevaluate their strategy and really try to take advantage of this sizzling economy and bring in some more prominent companies which have not traditionally recruited at Carlson.
No program is ever perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Carlson and as I look around, so did most of my peers. I couldn't be happier about the students in the program, the camaraderie, and the growth opportunity as Carlson continues to get only better. --Information Technology
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