Hard Core!

The Core (the first semester) has definitely taken a toll on my blogging. I can’t believe it’s been a month! Hope I can still give you a sense of what’s been going on here. I guess I can explain it in one word…. hectic! 

To sum it up:

 First Semester Courses

The coursework has been very intense with many deliverables (that’s what we call assignments here!) scheduled each week, that is, both individual and team deliverables. 

The mandatory courses for the Core are (along with the appropriate “translation”):

•  Data, Models, and Decisions à Statistics
•  Financial Accounting àAccounting
•  Economic Analysis for Business Decisions à Economics
•  Communications for Managers à Writing & Speaking Communication
•  Organizational Processes à Structure of Organizations

The two optional courses are (you have to pick one):

•  Finance Theory I
•  Marketing

Finance vs. Marketing 

The catch is that the advanced Finance courses in the second semester have Finance I as a pre-requisite. So, after struggling with the Finance vs. Marketing decision for the first week of classes I ended up deciding to take Finance and audit Marketing. Looking back I think it was an awesome choice, because I’m getting the best out of both worlds.

Clubs

ClubFest was held a couple of weeks ago to showcase all of Sloan’s amazing student-run clubs and to get first years on board. The current second year club officers and members put up stands in the lobby and explained their roles and activities to us newcomers. It was awesome but very overwhelming given that there are about 60 Sloan clubs!  

I eventually managed to snap out of it and register to a couple of clubs: SEID (Sloan Entrepreneurs for International Development), Management Consulting Club, Sales Club, Toastmasters Club, and Salsa Club (newly created by a fellow classmate!).

The main reasons to join a club are, in my opinion:

•  To meet classmates that share your same interests
• To get involved with the leadership of that club later on
• To send clear signals to the companies you are recruiting for that you are committed to that career path (especially it you don’t have any previous working experience)
• To get on their mailing list and participate on all the amazing events they host, where they bring in top management from leading businesses across the world

Overall Assessment

After one month of the MBA experience, I feel very happy with the path I’ve taken, I am more and more conscious of the tremendous opportunity that it is to be here. 

Although I do highly admire and respect my professors, I feel humbled every day by my classmates. They are truly the best part of the MBA.

Best,

Mercedes