By SAMPRITI
GANGULI
Article provided by mbajungle.com
Academics are truly the most formidable and, at
times, most engaging aspect of business school. Go into your
classes with an open mind. Realize that you are in school to
learn from both your professors and your fellow classmates.
Instead of showing everyone how much you know, practice the fine
art of humility. Focus on the areas that you are most unfamiliar
with and challenge yourself to obtain a working knowledge of that
material. And take the time to get to know your professors — they
can be wonderful sources of information as well as excellent
networking resources.
Teamwork
For the most part, you will be given more work than you could
possibly handle on your own. However, there are many times when
you will have to work in a team. Most schools assign students to
teams of four to six people. They try to put a diverse set of
people onto each team (at least one woman, one international
student, etc.). Teams are generally assigned prior to your
arrival at school. Believe it or not, at some large schools, they
actually use linear programming models for team assignments to
ensure that people of different backgrounds are put on the same
team!
Most schools have retreats or meetings during orientation, and
this is when you'll meet your team members for the first time.
You play a lot of "touchy-feely" teamwork-building games, and lay
down guidelines and a mission statement for the year. Don't
worry, no team actually sticks to its mission statement, which
tends to be full of clichéd, hackneyed phrases like, "We promise
to cooperate and air out any grievances as adults." If you don't
like your team at first, don't worry — you'll figure out how to
make it work.
Learn to leverage your team, and distribute work according to
people's relative skill levels. Work with different people on
your team and on a variety of projects. If you do the accounting
homework one week, volunteer to write up marketing the next week.
Not only does this diversify your knowledge base, it also
minimizes the boredom and drudgery of doing the same thing over
and over again (after all, you'll get more than your share of
that once you're back in the working world).
Get to know your teammates well, understand their time and
personal constraints, set expectations early, and contribute as
much as possible. Working with your team can be the most valuable
part of your B-school experience, so give it the time and energy
it deserves.
Public Speaking 101
Learn the art of effective public speaking. You will definitely
have to participate in the classroom at some point in your
two-year stint, and you'll want to be prepared for those
potentially harrowing moments.
In particular, if you attend a school that uses the case-based
method of studying, you will be subject to the infamous "cold
call" — a spontaneous request to answer a question or analyze a
case. When called on to begin a case discussion, take a deep
breath and provide a concise summary of the problem at hand. The
key is to provide insight, not to merely repeat what has already
been stated. Your MBA classmates may be the most intellectually
formidable group you will ever face, so if you make a
controversial statement, have plenty of data to back up your
claim. And if you just don't know, don't be afraid to say so —
not only it is likely that others don't know either, but those
who do have the answer will jump in.
Set Goals
Establish your own academic objectives, and don't be driven by
what you think people expect your grades to be. Recruiters know
how difficult it is to get into business school, and some schools
either issue no grades or have a nondisclosure policy. This is
meant to encourage cooperation in a highly competitive, type-A
environment, and can foster true mutual exchange.
Keep in mind, though, that at schools where this is not the
case, grades often take on a much more significant role. That
doesn't mean you should focus on academics to the exclusion of
everything else, but you should be sure to evaluate the standards
of the industry and the companies you're interested in and keep
your grades up accordingly.
Course Selection
One strategy that works for many students is to work hard on
academics the first semester, and progressively less in the
following semesters as recruiting takes on more importance. Once
you have secured the job of your dreams, take a combination of
classes — those you think you'll enjoy and those you think will
be important to your long-term professional development.
If you attend a school where you are allowed to waive some
core classes or take placement exams, then by all means do so.
There are two schools of thoughts on this: Some say that by
waiving out of courses, you miss out on getting to know your
classmates and the inside jokes in core classes; the flip side is
that you can take much more interesting classes earlier on,
fulfill major requirements sooner, and be in smaller sections.
You may find that you appreciate the flexibility of having
fulfilled academic requirements in the first year to focus on
recruiting in your second year. In addition, don't believe anyone
who says you can't take a particular class or you have to have a
specific major. Fight tooth-and-nail to take the classes you
want, and when it comes down to it, begging and pleading doesn't
hurt either. After all, tenacity is a good quality in the
business world.
On a tangential though not insignificant note, schools take
violations of the ethics code very seriously. You didn't work
this hard to get into school only to be asked to leave for
plagiarism or some other such violation. Read the ethics code and
take it seriously — ignorance is not an excuse.
The Bottom Line:
The lessons you learned in kindergarten still apply: Learn from
others, be a team player, share, and make sure you have
"playtime" and "naptime" in addition to learning the building
blocks of business.
