And now, the end is near, and so I face my graduation...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's only March at the time of writing this, but Tuck's program office is already pumping out a steady stream of memos about the weekend of June 10, and I've had graduation on my mind for a couple of months now. I have mixed feelings to say the least. My powerful positive emotions – the elation of having four months to travel and mentally regroup, the relief of going back to earning a paycheck, the excitement around changing industry, function, and location in one fell swoop – are tempered with some real sorrow about setting sail from the B-school bubble. I'm hell-bent on keeping in touch with as many people as possible, but when you've had the chance to be with the same stellar gang day in, day out over the course of almost two years, there's bound to be a gaping hole in your life when you move on. I dread that impending sense of loss.
Right now, though, I'm focused on elation. It's day one of spring break and I'm a gaunt culture vulture, more than ready to overload on non-academic reading, listening, and viewing during my time off. I swear I can hear the staff at Borders lick their lips in anticipation as I circle the fiction section, hungrily scanning displays heaving with new literature, assembling a restorative feast for my mind.
Indeed, my one big regret about grad school is the extent to which I've let the bubble effect dominate. While I consider myself a decent multitasker (although I sometimes wonder if that's a euphemism for ADD-afflicted), every time a vacation rolls around I realize how utterly detached I feel from the real world. For the last two months I've been immersed in networking and academia, getting to know my class as much as possible while figuring out real estate set-ups and Extend simulation software. Meanwhile, the world at large has apparently been debating the merits of "Brokeback Mountain," forming an addiction to "Lost," rocking out to the Arctic Monkeys, and developing a knack for Sudoku. Week one of spring break is my chance to play catch-up on such cultural phenomena; during week two I'll willingly extricate myself from reality once more by going sailing in the Grenadines with 20 classmates.
I did finally settle on my post-Tuck career, but I found the decision-making process excruciating. I set out on the full-time recruiting path to give myself options and ended up with more choice than I bargained for. By Thanksgiving last year I had four incredible offers from highly-regarded firms. Three opportunities were with consulting firms, while the fourth was my dream corporate job in a general management rotational program. All four were in different cities, however, all of which I'd love to experience. How on earth do you choose between New York, Boston, London, and San Francisco when you know in your heart of hearts you'd thrive in any of those environments, and with any of the firms that you'd be joining? If you're me, you change your mind daily. You develop a scorecard that allows you to rate the four opportunities across a wide range of criteria. You tally up the scores, develop an uneasy feeling in your gut about the results, reconfigure your metrics, rinse, and repeat. Three or four versions of the process later, you realize with shock that your gut has, consistently and fervently, voiced the same opinion. And when, at the end of the day, you intellectually cannot separate those four outstanding jobs in your head, you go with your gut.
Result: my gut is taking me to San Francisco, to join Bain and Company in the fall. This is a big move for me. I know approximately five people in the Bay Area (though admittedly, they are quality people). I've probably spent a total of four weeks of my life in San Francisco. I have no notion where I'll live. I'm moving an additional 3,000 miles away from my family in Scotland. And aside from all of that, it remains to be seen whether or not I'll cut it as a consultant. But it's funny: I'm less concerned these days about failing than I am about missing an opportunity, and it just doesn't get much better than Bain/SF. In addition, at least ten classmates are headed to the same destination, and it's a monumentally awesome group of people. I'm already looking forward to being part of an increasingly robust West Coast Tuck network.
With the job search put to rest, I returned to making the most of the many opportunities to meet interesting business leaders on campus, and I tried to mix it up as much as possible. I dined with correspondents from NBC and the History Channel courtesy of Tuck's Visiting Executives program. I attended our Business Sustainability Initiative conference and listened to Wal-Mart's VP of Strategy outline the retailing behemoth's plans for furthering its domination of multiple consumer segments, in ways that don't harm the environment. At the other end of the scale, I heard the CEO of clothing start-up Cordarounds wax lyrical about creating a truly unique concept and using the power of PR to make astonishing things happen. Whether the enterprise is big or small, there's always much to be learned.
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