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JULY 2001 MBA JOURNAL: B-SCHOOL REVIEW Eugene Podkaminer: Reflections on the Overall MBA Experience "Was the time spent here worth it? I definitely think so and I'd do it again without thinking twice. I truly feel that I've been given an incredible opportunity and I've taken the most I could out of it." Was the time spent here worth it? I definitely think so and I'd do it again without thinking twice. I truly feel that I've been given an incredible opportunity and I've taken the most I could out of it. Business school has proved to be an incredibly powerful transition between finance and technology for me. On the social side, I know that I've made friends and acquaintances here that will last a lifetime. As far as the hard monetary decisions that come with attending an expensive two-year program, I'm probably not the best person to consult regarding opportunity cost because I had virtually none. The Soros Fellowship that I won at the beginning of last year has covered my educational and living expenses for the past three semesters. Even if I had to pay my own way I think that the experience is well worth the hard earned (or borrowed) $70,000 price of admission. With the slowdown in the technology sector, especially around San Francisco, the time investment put into Yale will pay better dividends than had I stayed in the workforce. I've fielded many e-mails and talked with many potential applicants and each of them knows that I'm very high on this program. The only qualification to my unbridled enthusiasm is that the fit has to be just right. I alluded to this in my first few installments of the MBA Journals series - assume that each school is perfect, your challenge is figuring out if its perfect for you. I feel strongly that this program was ideal for me but I urge any applicant to come take a serious look at the culture of the school. It's really the culture and the attitude that are crucial to getting that just-right fit. If you don't get along with people, can't work in teams with them, don't like all the social and sports events, or aren't prepared to make a difference, you shouldn't force yourself into a program that doesn't meet your interests. We're certainly not the largest or the oldest business program in the nation, but arguably we have one of the best learning environments around. How did I decide which program to attend? Of the schools I applied to, roughly half were in California. The other half were primarily on the East Coast. My geographic interests were squarely in Northern California, so it took a program like Yale's to make me come out to Connecticut. As I evaluated graduate schools I was at a point in my life where I was completely untethered from any responsibilities and was free to go wherever I chose. Thus, geography didn't make a very sizeable impact on where I applied. Another common metric used by applicants when picking schools are rankings. I didn't pay very close attention to these statistics because they can't objectively quantify the subjective culture of a program. Rankings vary drastically depending on their source. BusinessWeek, US News & World Report, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal all publish their own independent rankings of schools. Among those four sources there are no definitive programs that consistently rank in the top deciles throughout. Rankings may be a good first-order filter but a serious student would be remiss to base their decision solely on published rankings. The saying "you can't take it with you" doesn't quite apply to business school. I posit that the most valuable element of the education is not the finance and accounting classes, but the tremendous experiences interacting with fellow students, learning from them, and understanding much more about who you are as a person and as a leader. Our curriculum is structured around teams and groups. This is partly because it's a very non-competitive environment. But it's also because the "real world" demands that managers operate effectively in team settings, often in a leadership or facilitation role. I can't count the number of teams I've been on over the past four semesters. I realize now that I have a much better idea from an organizational behavior point of view how an effective team is put together and what I can do to help the team meet its goal. Truthfully I won't miss the economics lectures or the accounting exams. What I'll miss are the people here, the happy hours at 4:00 p.m. on Thursdays, the funny situations during our formals, the Spring Break excursions with my classmates, and all the sushi consumed in the name of distraction. By extension, the most valuable takeaways from school are the friends and the network. These two concepts are inextricable and really refer to the community aspect of the program. As my class disperses to the four corners to make effective use of Porter's five forces we also form an amazing global network with each other. I've already interacted with many alumni and have found all of them to be incredibly friendly and willing to give advice to those that came after them. I feel a stronger affinity for the Yale community than I ever did for my undergraduate alma mater, maybe this stems from all the team building we do. The one thing that I won't miss too much will be the East Coast. I knew that I'd be in for a tough time when I accepted Yale's offer to move out from San Francisco. The shock of not being in the Bay Area just hasn't worn off yet. I can't wait to fly into SFO and start building a life back where my family and friends are. Not to mention all the wonderful cuisine and weather that is waiting for me. Five years from now I'd like to be working for a venture capital firm in the Bay Area. Around this time of year I'll probably be traveling back to Connecticut for the class of 2001's five-year reunion. I'm going to take the first steps toward realizing this goal by securing employment in a technology related finance field after the CFA exam in early June. Until then I'm hitting the books for one last time.  | | [an error occurred while processing this directive] Learn about your online education options |
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