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JANUARY 2003 MBA JOURNAL: FIRST SEMESTER WRAPUP Dima Abushaaban: The Second Half of First Semester "I've definitely realized that the focus of graduate school for me, even though it's supposedly a joint-degree program, is business - more specifically, the business of finding a job." After returning from my vacation and having had a chance to reflect on my first quarter, I found that maybe things weren't as crazy as I thought. Everything often pointed to the job search being most important. But often that was because I let the fact that I was a joint degree student (with two summers for internships) slip my mind. After midterms, recruiting events slowed down a bit, and the leadership training seminar was almost over. Theoretically, that meant we should have had more time to work on class work and our personal job search, but it inevitably meant that that I had just enough time to catch up on everything that I had fallen behind on. It's definitely difficult to maintain a balance between class work and job search stuff, especially when I fall behind. I always feel like class work should come first because I am paying for those classes. Then again, the real payoff is the job that I'll get (I hope) after I graduate. Club events also wound down. I joined about 10 organizations (mostly career oriented - Management & Consulting Group, Investment Banking Group, etc.) at the beginning of the quarter. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and didn't want to miss out on anything. Although it cost a lot of money in dues, I figured I might as well take advantage of every opportunity. I knew that these organizations organized recruiting events and brought in speakers from corporations, as well as offering opportunities to prep for internship recruiting with second years. Some of them also organized social outings, but to be honest I only took advantage when it was an opportunity to attend a recruiting event or learn something about the job search process from a speaker or second year. I'll probably continue to maintain that thinking in the coming months and years. I'm also considering becoming a LEAD facilitator. As I mentioned in previous entries, LEAD is a leadership training seminar taught by second-year students and is mandatory for all incoming first-year students. Recruiting for the position of LEAD facilitator takes place in the Winter Quarter of your first year. As a joint degree student, I think it would be a great way to meet first years who are going to graduate with me. The time commitments, however, are stringent and significant and one of the requirements is a class on Fridays. Unfortunately, I already have a class on Friday (Arabic), so I might have to put off that idea until next year. My primary concern for the rest of the year seems to be figuring out what to do this summer. While I've set myself up with a challenging course load this quarter (Macroeconomics, Statistics, Arabic, and Palestine Seminar Part 2 - a.k.a. a 50-page paper due), I feel it should be manageable as long as I don't let myself fall behind. Honestly, though, I wonder how I'll be able to write 50 pages... Anyway, right now I'm trying for a few summer internships with banks, nonprofits, or consulting companies, but nothing too concrete as of yet. And if it doesn't work out for me, I think I'll try to study Arabic over the summer somewhere in the Middle East and volunteer with a business there or at least interview more business people to get a good idea of what's going on with business in the Middle East. Although the career center has been very helpful in offering interviewing workshops and various industry specific resources, for my interests I've found my own networking is what is most useful. Contacts made through professors and friends are especially helpful. My friend Taj, an first year MBA at Boston University, met a guy from Harvard Law School one night who is VP of a non profit that just received funding to do some development work in the West Bank, and was looking to hire interns this summer. Also, Professor Zonis passed along the name of a former student who prior to her graduate work worked in Amman, Jordan for seven years. And I still have lots of other people, including professors and friends of friends, to write/call/email that might be able to help me. I've definitely realized that the focus of graduate school for me, even though it's supposedly a joint-degree program, is business - more specifically, the business of finding a job. But I've also realized that as a joint-degree student, I'm lucky to have an extra year to do it.  Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | JANUARY Learn about your online education options |
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