Reflections from Two Years of Business School | Part 1
Graduating from an Ivy League MBA in 2 weeks. What did $200K of debt teach me?
Two years ago I decided to leave my country and make a home somewhere else, in a small town in the middle of nowhere in a new country. I’m talking about Hanover, New Hampshire, a town of 11,000 people in total, of which 65% are just students from Dartmouth College.
This Thursday, I had my last ever class of my life (hopefully, because I don’t plan to enrol in full time education anytime soon). Some friends said “don’t be sad, life itself is a class that goes on forever”. While true, it still made me want to reflect on two years of my life and $200K of my financial burden.
When they say “business school is what you make of it”, they are right
If you don’t know where you want to go, your environment will pull you in all directions. There is a club for everything you like/ want in school, be it career related or a hobby. Yes, the party culture is real. Yes, people do travel a lot. Yes, grades don’t matter. Whatever there isn’t a club for, you can make one. Whether you will attract 2 people or 200 is uncertain, but you will definitely find one more person who thinks like you or wants the same things you do.
However, what do you do if you don’t know what you want, especially career wise? For the fun stuff, you can always explore. It’s the career stuff where things get tricky. There are always traditional recruiting paths people take. Most want to do those for two years and quit. There are a select few who refuse to jump on the consulting/ banking bandwagon and spend their time reflecting on their interests. Even if you do choose the traditional path, these two years are the ideal time to figure out where your interests lie, because life will only get busier. You don’t need to seek anyone’s permission to skip a class. Skipping a day of work, that’s a whole different deal.
It was only by the time spring term of my second year hit that I realised I want to become a content creator. I always knew it at the back of my mind, I was too scared to admit it to the world. Seeing time fly past me so quickly, I knew I had to jump in before I graduated because of the aforementioned realisation of never being as free. And so I did. A host of other things happened along the way, such as a delayed start date of my “traditional recruiting path” aka consulting aka the most risk-averse choice you can make. I decided to document my journey online and surprisingly people were interested.MBA travel/ mass socialising is overrated
Whether you’re in school or doomscrolling on Reddit, you will keep hearing how much MBAs travel and how much they party. The excessive emphasis on this notion online and incessant discussion of the next international vacation or the weekend party with your classmates is a sure way to generate FOMO in the best of us. The party or travel culture is not for all, and that is A-OKAY. I spent the entirety of my first year chasing the next best trip I could afford or the party I could make time for, only to get to second year and realise that none of it was worth it. The most meaningful relationships I made with my classmates were either on coffee meet-ups, self organised walks or those that just happened organically. Not to say that there were no friendships I made through travel. However, I could have made those organically as well because they were based on shared interests and values, and not shared travel escapades.
There’s an interesting concept I resonated with from Shane Parrish’s book ‘Clear Thinking’ called ‘social default’. It talks about how the social rewards of going with the crowd are felt long before the benefits of going against it are gained. He also mentions how we should be fearful if we constantly find ourselves exerting energy to fit in with a crowd are fearful of being an outsider. Nobody wants to be an outsider. Following the herd is not essential in order to ‘fit in’. Sometimes being yourself can garner you more respect than herding around does, if that does not feel authentic to you anyway. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to this, but the message is that no matter how hard it seems, YOU DO YOU.Leaving my comfort zone and pushing my boundaries was the best thing I did for myself
Coming to business school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do ‘career wise’, but I did know what all I definitely sucked at. Remember my content creation aspirations from point #1? Well, looking at my Instagram today it might not seem like it, but I was terribly scared of public speaking until very recently. I am sure that even today if you throw me in a room of 20 people without a script, I would have fears and worry in my head, but I will manage in a few minutes. Until six months back, I’d find every excuse to escape from the room and successfully manage to do so rather than address the said group of 20 folks. In second year, I actively took initiatives to help myself overcome it, be it taking a class known for making you be your most vulnerable self in front of 10 people or taking an opportunity to address 130+ classmates. And I thank myself for it. Was it easy? Hell no! Did I want to do it at the time? NO! Did I think the 29 y/o version of me would thank the 28 y/o me for having done it? Yes! And so I did it.Honestly, leaving my country to move to the US was the first step of leaving my comfort zone, and it was rewarding in so many ways. But that’s a journey multiple people take every day. The public speaking one felt more personal, and the lack of having that skill felt like a handicap.
They say real growth lies outside of your comfort zone. Having experienced it first hand, I can vouch for it 100%. Had it not been for those steps, I don’t think my Instagram would have even started at all. And if it didn’t start, I won’t have had 4K people gaining some kind of value from my lived experiences every day.
This is part 1 of my unfiltered reflections from two years of business school. Stay tuned for part 2.