Goodness gracious!!! It has been a scorcher of a day out here in the Bay area. At around 1pm, the temperature reached 104 degrees (according to the digital readout in my rental car) and it is still blazing now a few hours later. It is so daggone hot that I haven’t wanted to venture back outside after getting back from the LEAD Conference…speaking of which, I’ll give you guys a quick rundown of the big event from earlier today.
Overall, the LEAD Conference was a really well organized event and I had a great time there. My primary involvement was as a member of the “MBA Value Proposition” panel and by manning a table during the MBA roundtable discussions. The other members of the panel were a 2004 HBS grad, a 2006 Monterrey Institute of International Studies grad, and a Haas MBA2007 student. We were asked general questions about why we chose to do an MBA, what sort of challenges we’d faced in business school, where our careers are headed now, etc. It was cool sharing info with the audience, but I was a little disappointed that the panel ran for about half as long as scheduled because of a delay in starting the conference’s welcome address. During the roundtable discussion, I was paired with the Haas student and was stationed at a table where groups of people cycled around the conference room to ask us more specific questions about our experiences in the classroom, our own application strategies, why we chose Stanford/Haas, and any other issues on their minds. I was excited to see so many folks seriously jumping into the B-school game and having solid questions to ask us…I just hope my answers were helpful.
For me, the best part of the event was the informal interactions I had with prospective MBA students who are planning to apply in the upcoming cycle. I really like going to events like this and talking with folks who are starting their business school journey. Given all of the bad information that I had when i was in that position, I feel a sort of duty to give advice and insights to people who are figuring out their app strategies. It’s not like I’m an “oracle of knowledge” or anything, but real information is much more useful than the misinformation that’s usually floating around to most applicants. This is especially important for applicants from underpresented backgrounds because there aren’t many of us in the MBA world and trying to enter it can be especially intimidating if one sees few of their peers making a similar move. I hope that I, along with the other Pre-MBA sessions panelists, was able to provide some useful information to these folks. I especially hope to see some of these prospective students at Stanford GSB alumni events one of these days.
Overall, the LEAD Conference was a really well organized event and I had a great time there. My primary involvement was as a member of the “MBA Value Proposition” panel and by manning a table during the MBA roundtable discussions. The other members of the panel were a 2004 HBS grad, a 2006 Monterrey Institute of International Studies grad, and a Haas MBA2007 student. We were asked general questions about why we chose to do an MBA, what sort of challenges we’d faced in business school, where our careers are headed now, etc. It was cool sharing info with the audience, but I was a little disappointed that the panel ran for about half as long as scheduled because of a delay in starting the conference’s welcome address. During the roundtable discussion, I was paired with the Haas student and was stationed at a table where groups of people cycled around the conference room to ask us more specific questions about our experiences in the classroom, our own application strategies, why we chose Stanford/Haas, and any other issues on their minds. I was excited to see so many folks seriously jumping into the B-school game and having solid questions to ask us…I just hope my answers were helpful.
For me, the best part of the event was the informal interactions I had with prospective MBA students who are planning to apply in the upcoming cycle. I really like going to events like this and talking with folks who are starting their business school journey. Given all of the bad information that I had when i was in that position, I feel a sort of duty to give advice and insights to people who are figuring out their app strategies. It’s not like I’m an “oracle of knowledge” or anything, but real information is much more useful than the misinformation that’s usually floating around to most applicants. This is especially important for applicants from underpresented backgrounds because there aren’t many of us in the MBA world and trying to enter it can be especially intimidating if one sees few of their peers making a similar move. I hope that I, along with the other Pre-MBA sessions panelists, was able to provide some useful information to these folks. I especially hope to see some of these prospective students at Stanford GSB alumni events one of these days.
hi
i keep reading your posts – i think they are cool. i was wondering if you can share some examples of wrong information that is floating around – because i may have the same wrong information and i do not know about it – but it would be great if you had a section on like myths of applying to bschools or something