Walking the Tightrope

I don't just check my e-mail before I go to bed. I check it when I wake up at 2 a.m. and can't sleep. And I leave my cell phone on during class

by Danvers Fleury

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Danvers Fleury
UNC - Chapel Hill
MBA Class of 2008

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It's hard to tell when your pre-MBA career is over. Sometimes it happens and you don't know it. But immediately preceding this unexpected fissure, you will display symptoms. You start checking your work e-mail before you go to bed. Then you miss three phone calls while you're returning two other calls. But you can't return the calls you missed because you have to answer more e-mails. Sweat appears on your forehead, as you walk a perilous tightrope of deadlines and deliverable specifications. Right as your feet start to slip, realize that all of the things you're doing don't reflect who you really are. And finally, you decide to Google "GMAT Preparation." A calm washes over you. You've found the net below the tightrope.

In many ways, I went to business school because I got caught in bad habits, bad cycles, and bad positions at bad companies. Sometimes the paycheck fit but the lifestyle didn't. At other times, the company was right but my position was just a knockoff of an earlier, better job.

I had stopped growing. Now, it was time to figure it all out. I headed to business school with the dream of a brighter future—going green. That first semester, I doggedly pursued skills like net present value calculation, derivative analysis, and networking etiquette. But my eyes kept darting to this shimmering, hazy oasis glimmering and fading on the horizon: the summer internship. By landing the perfect position, I would prove to myself that my choice had purpose and value.

Great Expectations

The pressure that Kenan-Flagler MBA candidates put on themselves to land just the right internship is staggering, and the program's emphasis on teamwork makes that pressure as contagious as a virus. Some of my friends had 20 interviews in 20 days. Others spent weeks in groups of eight people, preparing diligently for I-banking jobs. One classmate found a job in the exact field he had left to attend business school, but this new job was now at his dream company and offered a dream salary. He took it without interviewing anywhere else. It just goes to show that there are many paths to success at Kenan-Flagler.

I had some great interviews at the Innovation Challenge that led to mind-blowing offers. But my dream is to stay in Chapel Hill and work for a green business, so I passed on them. But passing on opportunity meant raising my own internal expectations for success and perfection during the summer. If I were walking a tightrope, no net would save me from a wrong-footed fall. This has influenced my behavior with my peers.

I started telling lies. Not big ones, just the little ones you tell to get by. When my friend "Joel" got five rejects in a row, I said, "I'm sure it's all going to work out." Then there's a student—I'll call him Lucas—who doesn't like finance, isn't good at finance, and will probably never be fulfilled by finance, but desperately wanted an internship in the field. When he finally landed a position after months of failure, I said, "Great Job!" He was happy, but to me, it's like someone gave him a noose, and all I could say was "Have fun bungee jumping!"