B-School with Brian

How B-School is Like Marriage

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With my wedding coming up this weekend, I've got marriage on the brain. I'm designing ceremony programs in my sleep. My feet start spontaneously waltzing on my walk to work. I see seating charts in my Excel spreadsheets. Salesforce.com is looking suspiciously like my Crate & Barrel registry. Basically, I'm finding parallels with marriage in everything I'm doing, so it seems only natural to draw some connections between my upcoming nuptials and another huge committment in my life, b-school. 

(sidenote: I hope my wedding cake looks as delicious as these cupcakes, courtesy of CleverCupcakes)

Parallels between B-School and Marriage

• The application process is long and hard: The seven years I dated my fiancee were far more enjoyable than the seven months I spent preparing my b-school apps, but required about seventy times more work.
• Leaving halfway through is frowned upon: There's really no such thing as a transfer or leave-of-absence in b-school. Like marriage, you're stuck with what you've picked so make sure you love it!
• It's really expensive: B-school costs a lot. I'm told that it is a good investment. Weddings cost a lot. I'm told they aren't such a great investment. My wife will cost a lot. I'm told that she is a fabulous investment.
• You marry the whole family: There's a saying that when you get married, you marry the whole family. When you pick a b-school, you also get the whole family. You get the broader university and its resources, the alumni network, the employer relationships, the geographic location, and the stereotypes. Make sure you like the "extended family" of your MBA program. It will have a major impact on your level of happiness.
• The benefits last forever: While my MIT Sloan MBA may not be as attractive, caring, or talkative as my fiancee, it will also make a terrific life partner. For the rest of my life I'll be able to enjoy the career and network benefits that come with being a Sloanie, just like I'll be able to enjoy the companionship that comes with marrying the most incredible woman I've ever met.

The MBA Halfway Point - Looking Back

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With the completion of exams and the start of my summer internship, the time has come to officially close the books on MIT Sloan MBA Year 1. The year was exhausting, exhilarating, and full of surprises. For all you future MBAs out there, here at the things I wish I had known a year ago.

Five things I wish I had known before b-school: 

1. The economy would tank: Knowing that the U.S. economy would completely implode within the first three weeks of b-school would have opened up all kinds of opportunities. I could have funded my MBA with the proceeds of shorting the S&P in July of 2008 and covering my position in late November. I could have postponed my MBA by a year, banked another year of salary (assuming I would not have fallen victim to layoffs), and bought a house on the cheap. Most importantly, I could have read up on MBSs, CDOs, and tranches, so that I actually understood what was going on when the financial crisis went down. As it turned out, I learned all I needed to know from this PowerPoint.
2. This is not college 2.0, this is b-school: B-school looks and feels like college - you are on a college campus, enjoying a student ID (great for discounts!), taking classes, participating in extracurriculars, and cranking out homework - but don't be fooled! Top three differences between b-school and college: Class (you can't skip it and you have to participate), Speed (it is all over in two years and you don't want to waste a minute), and Reality (you'll study and work with real companies, you'll try to get a real job, your classmates have done really incredible stuff in the real world).
3. Twitter is awesome: I wish I had jumped on the twitter bandwagon well before arriving at Sloan so that I could have followed current students and gotten an unfiltered sense of what was in store for me. Fortunately I jumped on the twitter bandwagon early in the semester thanks to getting to know @hubspot through a marketing project. if you want to follow some interesting Sloan tweets, check out @mitsloanies or you can follow me.
4. Math is hard: Upon arriving at b-school, I had K-12 math under my belt and some undergraduate statistics. Being a History major in college, I never fully appreciated the complexities of regressions, Monte Carlo simulations, and covariances. Thanks to the help of my awesome Core Team, I somehow managed to make it through courses like Data, Models, and Decisions, and Economics for Business Decisions. My advice for admits, bone up on your math skills (or acquire some new ones).
5. Planning a wedding during b-school is harder than math: Don't get married during b-school. When my fiancee and I decided on July 2009 for our wedding, we thought we were being smart. The date would fall smack in the middle of my first and second year and the planning would take up a few hours every week or two during year one. Now remember, at the time I thought that the economy would be solid, b-school would be like college, and I wouldn't need to know math. In retrospect, adding the stress of wedding planning to the stress of a first year in b-school and planning a summer internship around a wedding and honeymoon weren't the brightest ideas. So, a word of warning to all you engaged future MBAs, elope now or wait until you graduate.