Hi everyone – I’m sorry it’s been a little while since I posted last. I wish I had a better excuse than “I’ve been busy with classes, clubs, and recruiting,” … but, I’ve been busy with classes, clubs, and recruiting! Fall B classes have started, and they’re as fun and engaging as the classes in Fall A were, but now that we’re a month and a half into school year, the atmosphere around campus is a bit more calm than it had been. Which is a nice change.
Club activities are also now in full swing, and I find my days populated with meetings of the marketing club, tecnology club, or women in business. It makes my schedule pretty crazy, but I’ve enjoyed getting to know more second year students and first year students who are not in my section. With all of the club activity however, there’s a common problem facing Tuckies: there is too much to do, you can’t do everything, and you probably shouldn’t try. This can be a difficult pill for MBA students to swallow.
But on the other hand, if you chose wisely, there’s a lot that can be accomplished. Since Tuck is a small community, there are endless opportunities not only to get involved, but to take on leadership roles early on in your MBA career through clubs and academics. This leads me to mention a comment from a previous blog post, asking about leadership development at Tuck. My fellow blogger, Derrick, gave great answers to the questions, which you can read here, but I thought I’d add just a bit more of my own thoughts on the topic of leadership at Tuck.
I’ve been impressed with Tuck’s focus on leadership through our academic courses. We’ve studied leading teams and organizations, what skill sets great leaders need and the type of thought processes many of those leaders have. In order lead successfully, however, you need to have a self-awareness of your own strengths and weaknesses. First years take a course later this term called Personal Leadership, which focuses on this issue directly. I start taking this course in a few weeks, and I’ll be happy to talk more about it then, but so far, I have enjoyed being pushed to look inward and really examine my own leadership style.
If you’re a prospective student and have been seriously considering Tuck, I am sure that you’ve heard about the study groups in the first year. Students are placed into study groups of 5-6 people, and we spend a large (read: most!) of our time working with our study group members. My study group has been fantastic; we’re happy and comfortable working with each other, giving constructive feedback, and goofing around (but only sometimes). Feedback from your study group is important to the whole self-reflection process, because you need candid feedback from others in order to truly evaluate yourself. Living in a small community aids this process as well. The stronger relationships you build with your classmates, the more comfortable you are in asking for their candid feedback, and the more comfortable you will be in giving it.
In any case, I’m making the quick (two hour!) trip to Boston for the weekend to meet with Tuck alums, do some career exploring, and maybe, just maybe, a bit of relaxing. Until next week!
Read the full article: Settling In