Hey everyone! Evelyn here, reporting from East Village, NYC! The weather is a brisk 30*F, with wind chills of — oh, sorry, not that kind of report!
This is my first post for the Stern Blog and I am so excited to “meet” everyone! I hope that my point of view may help some of you as you progress in your MBA journey.
Since this is my first post, I wanted to introduce myself properly, share my background, and explain why I came to Stern.
I grew up right outside of Boston, MA. After high school, I decided to attend West Point, which is a 4-year service academy where graduates go straight into the military as Army officers. I spent 5 years in the Army as a communications technology officer. In layman’s terms, my soldiers and I were responsible for making sure everyone we worked with had stable internet and phone connections whether training in the backwoods of North Carolina (Airborne!) or at war in Afghanistan.
When I wasn’t dealing with servers, routers, and parachutes, I was always keeping up with pop culture. Movies, TV shows, celebrity he said/she said headlines, and more. As my military contract was coming to an end, I did some major self-reflection on what I’m truly passionate about in life, what I spend my free time pursuing, and trying to see if there was a business function tied to that industry. Here was the following criteria that I gave myself when selecting an MBA program:
– Does this MBA program have a strong entertainment-friendly curriculum? (Check! Stern has one of the top Entertainment MBA programs in the country)
– After 5 years between Texas, Afghanistan, and North Carolina, is this MBA program closer to my family? (Check! NYC – Boston is just a 4 hour bus ride)
– Is the location somewhere I can see myself having a healthy lively social life? (Check! New York City … Need I explain further?)
– Do I like the Stern culture? (Check! I visited the campus a few months before my application deadline and fell in love with the friendly study body)
This is not and should not be a universal check list for every MBA applicant. I encourage all of you to make your own personal checklist of priorities and how each and every MBA program measures up against it.
I do not believe in blindly applying to MBA programs just because they top the US News & World Report rankings that year. There is no shoo-in pre-MBA career field, no magic GPA or GMAT score, and no perfect answer to what you want to do after your MBA. Once you figure out what inspires you, then and only then, should you research what schools are a good fit for those goals (and hopefully Stern ends up on that list!)
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Stern gives us the entire week off for Thanksgiving (+10 points for NYU) so I will be home in Boston enjoying my mom’s Chinese food. Have a great break!