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JANUARY 2003 MBA JOURNAL: MID TERM REPORT John Liang: The First 10 Weeks of B-School "My first 10 weeks in B-school are in many ways like being in front of a buffet table. I have endless choices in front of me, and each of them-whether academic, social, or career oriented -- seems equally attractive."
But choices also lead to commitments. Only when I began trying to fulfill these commitments did I realize how demanding each of them was and how little time I actually had. Nevertheless, I'm hesitant to give out advice about not over-committing oneself. After all, it is precisely these choices and commitments that stretch you to full potential and make B-school life fun. I see my first quarter at Wharton as divided into three important parts: academic, social, and career. Very often they are interrelated, and at various times one would have to take a back seat to the others. Here's a quick overview: ACADEMICS. First of all, let me say this: do not be intimidated by the reputed quantitative nature of the MBA core courses. Wharton is famed for its rigorous coursework, so I was quite concerned coming in, especially given that I would be competing with some of the brightest future business leaders. A little more than half of my classmates were able to waive out of at least one core course by credential or by exam. Since I'd had little formal business education or work experience, I had no choice but to take every required core. That left me with five classes in the first quarter: finance, accounting, marketing, managerial economics, and statistics. As the quarter went by, I realized that most of the material covered in these courses is reasonably easy, maybe with the exception of accounting. The difficult part is the huge amount of work required-which means that efficiency in time management pays a lot of dividends. The single biggest portion of the workload is homework, which includes practice problems, case write-ups, and a ridiculous amount of reading from textbooks, course packs, cases, and business publications. After a full day loaded with classes, seminars, recruiting events, club activities, learning team meetings and other logistics, many students don't start doing their homework until around 10 p.m. The fact is that it is absolutely impossible to do all the assignments if you are reasonably involved in other B-school activities. Therefore, before long my daily homework routine was reduced from reading everything assigned on the syllabus to simply putting out fires. Fortunately, Wharton has an outstanding support system. Nowadays every school talks about "teamwork," but at Wharton it's a lifestyle -- and the only route to success. Since the school practices a "grade non-disclosure" policy, academic competition is kept at a minimal, which leads to an extremely unselfish, collegial learning environment. It is thus not uncommon for students to share reading summaries and notes among each cohort or learning team. Even on take-home exams, professors encourage group study and discussions, as long as everyone turns in their own solutions. On closed-book exams, we are allowed to each bring an 8-by-11 inch "cheat sheet." The day before my first such exam, I was rather surprised to see my e-mail box flooded with different versions of "cheat sheets" from classmates. These practices might be controversial at other business schools, but at Wharton they are of paramount importance. What impresses me most is that the sharing is not limited to academic work, but also extends to career resources and many other aspects of the MBA experience. The prevailing attitude is that we are all in this together. This mutual support is key to defining the Wharton community and perhaps quite different from what you would see at some other schools. RECRUITING. A second-year student once told me that job hunting would be the main theme of B-school. That couldn't be more true. Two weeks into the first quarter, company recruiters began to descend on campus. Some companies held information sessions in large classrooms in Huntsman Hall, but most investment banks and consulting firms opted to hold sessions and receptions in various hotels near campus. Coming into Wharton, I thought that the recruiting process would be simple and straightforward. It didn't take me long to realize how naďve that thought was, especially given the current adverse job market. Whether you like it or not, many recruiters' evaluation of you starts with the first contact you make with the company's representatives. And, to a certain degree, the recruiting game is not played on a level ground. One of the most mysterious yet crucial components of the recruiting puzzle is the so-called "closed list," a list of students whom a company pre-selects to interview. Firms cannot interview every candidate, so they need some sort of screening system. Unfortunately, this system involves far more than going through your résumé and cover letter. This is particularly true for investment banks and consulting firms, two of the most popular job prospects for Wharton students. The only way to secure a seat on the "closed list" is to resort to that trademark B-school tactic: Networking. That means initiating contact with important recruiters, asking "smart" questions during company presentations, writing "thank you" notes and follow-up e-mails, making "cold calls" to alumni in targeted companies, etc. If you are persistent or fortunate enough, one day you might get an e-mail from a firm asking for your presence at an "invitation only" dinner function or "Day-on-the-Job" (DOJ). At these events, if you are well prepared, ask even more intelligent questions, and impress the recruiters, you might just luck into an invitation to interview with the company. I am grateful that Wharton has a great tradition of helping students cope with the pressure of job hunting. Programs range from Career Management Office's one-on-one sessions to different clubs' résumé reviews and mock interviews. Second-year students help organize some of the best events. For example, the Wharton Real Estate Center and the Real Estate Club co-organize an annual conference that is attended by prominent industry leaders. A week before the conference, I received an e-mail from the Real Estate Club informing me that many second years had volunteered to help with first years' résumés before they were posted on the conference's "résumé book." I immediately turned in my résumé through e-mail. The next day, I found my printed résumé back in my mail folder, with red lines, comments, and corrections all over it. This definitely meant a lot to me, because I knew that second years were job-hunting themselves and probably busier than we were. Second-year students also held many industry- or firm-specific information sessions and panels aimed at helping first years gain insights into summer internship opportunities in various industries. The best thing about a session put together by the Real Estate Club, for instance, was the variety of the speakers' experiences. Two of them spent their summer with an investment bank's real estate group in New York; another had worked for a private equity firm. The final two speakers had construction background but little formal business training before Wharton -- yet landed great positions with major real estate developers. The panel spoke frankly about typical intern assignments, lifestyles and told a smattering of other "war stories." THE SOCIAL SCENE. If you think studying and recruiting already take up too much time and energy, wait until you get a bagful of flyers on Wharton Club Day. Club Day is an annual event put together by the Wharton Graduate Association for the sake of the already information-overloaded first year MBAs. Dozens of Wharton Clubs sent representatives with loads of information on every possible professional, athletic, ethnic, and social activity under the sun. One caveat: Signing up for one club means not only receiving twenty club e-mails each week - each of them has the highest importance, of course - but also tens of hours of commitment, responsibility, and hard work. Still, most of my classmates are in at least one of the two most popular professional clubs: The Finance Club and the Consulting Club. The Real Estate Club has been gaining popularity recently, and I also became a proud member. The Wharton Greater China Club is one of Wharton's biggest ethnic organizations and attracts people of different nationalities who are interested in Chinese culture and career opportunities. I was elected a club vice president. Another student organization that particularly piqued my interest is "Rebuilding Together," whose mission is to prevent homelessness by partnering with the community to rehabilitate the homes of elderly and low-income residents. As an architect, building homes has been my life-long mission, and I couldn't see any better way to contribute to the society than by joining this initiative. Any account of the Wharton social scene would be incomplete without mentioning the array of parties organized by various student groups. One that everybody kept talking about was the Rainbow Party at Pub, an annual tradition that this year hosted by Out4Biz, Wharton's club for gay and lesbian students. It certainly was the most outrageous pub experience to date. Where else could you witness a Vice Dean in drag, an economics professor in a tutu, and a cross-dressing comedian all dancing on stage, cheered by 200 MBA students in colorful costumes? It was also at the Rainbow Party that news of the latest BusinessWeek B-school rankings broke. My initial reaction to Wharton's drop in the rankings was one of shock and disbelief. But apparently the shockwave did not reach far enough to spoil the party. The majority of the student body's reaction is represented by a school official's comment: "Last time when we were ranked No. 1, the celebration lasted for five minutes, and everyone went back to work. It'll probably take a little more than five minutes to reflect on the new rankings, but life goes on." After all, we are attending the exact same school, with the exact same faculty, and the exact same talented group of classmates now as when we were ranked No. 1. And most students really don't think companies are going to say, "Gee, we can't go to Wharton now - we have to recruit at the new number one school instead." Looking at the individual pieces of the overall ranking, it is clear that poor student rating is what caused the drop. Most of that is probably related to the parting impressions of leaving Wharton in a crummy job market. The job market has not been kinder to graduates from other schools, yet over the years Wharton has cultivated incredible expectations - expectations that may not even be realistically attainable for many students. If students do not find jobs, their wonderful MBA experience ends with a sour aftertaste and they tend to point their fingers at the school administration, especially career management. There certainly were problems in career management due to an over-dependence on finance jobs. I personally believe that previously Wharton did an inadequate job in ridding itself of the "finance school" stereotype and promoting its strength across all disciplines, from marketing to strategic management. When I volunteered to host prospective students, I realized that many of them were unclear about what Wharton could do to advance their general management career and leadership skills. Many of them viewed Wharton as merely a vehicle to carry them into Goldman Sachs in two years. That probably explains why students were so ticked off when much fewer investment banks recruited last year. The good news is that the school just announced the appointment of a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable new director of its career management center, with plenty of new ideas and lots of energy. Career Management has also made significant progress in reaching out to a bigger variety of industries. On the other hand, I think the fact that Wharton students are so much more involved in shaping their MBA experience is coming through in the rankings. As one of my classmates pointed out, in times when the mentality is "let's change something because we can make it better," you're going to hear more about what's "wrong" with the program versus that about what works well. We all know complaining will get us nowhere. If we want changes, we have to make them happen. And we have two years to do so - well, less than 20 months to be precise....  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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