Surviving the Start of B-School

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When you spend five hours debating the finer points of interest expense and income on a pro forma income statement, you realize that how your team accomplishes group work can be just as important as what it accomplishes. What surprised me most was the moment I discovered I was not merely learning with my team, but also learning from them.

Bullet lists are good. Here's another one that captures some of the key takeaways from my first business school classes.

• B-school professors are sadists. They enjoy giving you quizzes, and they do so fully knowing there was no possible way you could have finished all the assigned reading last night.

• You know you're wrong if your professor responds to your comment by asking, "And how did that work out for you?"

• The probability that you will be cold-called about the one case you didn't have time to read last night is 100%.

I may have given you the impression that business school is more demanding than necessary. This is not correct.

Business school is as demanding as possible and on purpose. It's far too cruel and scheduled to be otherwise, and all of it is for a very good reason: To succeed in business school and the workplace, you need to be an expert at time management. This skill cannot be taught, only developed. And the best way to develop time management is to be beaten round the head with it. Repeatedly.

I recently attended the MBA Veterans Career Conference in Chicago. Organized by two MBA students (and veterans), the conference celebrated its second year by opening with remarks by two veterans from platinum-level sponsor Google. I had the chance to speak with recruiters and representatives from General Electric (GE), Procter & Gamble (PG), Google (GOOG), Credit Suisse (CS), and a dozen other companies. This was a great chance to network and begin the all-important process of securing gainful employment. That relates to the aforementioned concept of perspective—an MBA is not an end unto itself, but rather a means to finding a rewarding career.

Still, I've never been happier (except for that one great day—see definition above). I'm in a challenging academic environment, being exposed to new material on a daily basis. I am being tested and stretched, and I am learning. This is exactly the kind of experience I hoped for in a business school, and I'm glad I found it at Wake Forest.

Andy Rinehart is enrolled in the full-time MBA program at the Wake Forest Schools of Business. Hoping to become a JD/MBA candidate, which means four years of school, Rinehart is expected to graduate in 2013. Before pursuing an MBA, Rinehart served his country by leading more than 50 Army combat missions in Baghdad and taking part in noncombat activities including local economic assessments and fuel ration distributions. Earning his undergraduate degree, magna cum laude, from Wake Forest in 2005, Rinehart began his eight-year military service in the university's ROTC program

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