Acronyms abound at Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), and an important one is EAP, which stands for Exclusive Academic Period. What’s that, you ask? EAP refers to the first six weeks of school, when first-year MBA students are supposed to place an exclusive focus on their academics.
It’s “kind of a ‘no-fly zone’ where organized extracurricular activities are put off until after midterm exams,” writes Allison Davis, associate director of MBA admissions, in a recent post to the Stanford MBA Admissions Blog. “The idea is that incoming students can get used to being back in school without having to juggle a full calendar,” Davis continues.
EAP came to a close at the GSB on November 1st, and without missing a beat students organized a huge Student Activities Fair on November 2nd, where all the student clubs came out to recruit. More than 70 clubs were represented, ranging from the Africa Business Club, the Energy Club, the Rugby Club, and even GSB Dogs – a group for GSB dogs, dog owners and dog lovers.
Beyond providing an introduction to the staggering array of clubs and activities available to join, the fair also gave students a chance to sign up to be matched with alumni mentors, to join the Women’s Entrepreneurship Mentoring Program, or to become an Arbuckle Leadership Fellow, where they’ll get advanced leadership training and coach other students.
Of course, all of these options can contribute to another acronym at the GSB, Davis warns, something called FOMO or “fear of missing out.” As at so many top business schools, students at Stanford GSB sometimes struggle with how to decide how to spend their time, she says. About the Student Activities Fair, “It was a veritable smorgasbord and reminded me how much of the richness of the learning here occurs outside the classroom,” says Davis.
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