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Summer Semester – Over Already?!?

Somehow the summer semester is done and I’m ⅓ of the way through the Tech MBA. I’m about to leave NYC to travel for a week or two, and I still can’t believe it! A lot has changed in the past 3 months – I finished 10 classes, many career development and other sessions, and I got married in the middle of it (to a Stern alum, no less)! While it’s a lot to keep track of, I want to use this post to reflect on three things that stood out to me from this summer:

1. The experiential learning was exactly as claimed…an experience.

I feel incredibly grateful that we got to visit a wide variety of companies every Friday – from consulting and established banks to startups and VC funds. While I loved many of the visits, I also saw a few companies for whom I’d never want to work. However, even in the case of the ones I didn’t fall in love with, I really appreciated the opportunity to see their inner workings and start to understand *why* I didn’t want to work there. I can’t say I’ve quite yet honed in on what I want to do after the program, but I feel like I have a much, much better understanding of what to look for. Additionally, each visit provided perspective that made our classes and the business world in general make more sense, which brings me to #2…

2. I feel like I’ve gained significant knowledge and perspective in the last 3 months that helps make the world make sense.

I feel like I have an entirely refreshed perspective on how business works and what drives the economy. In the process of getting through the entire MBA core in 3 months, we compressed econ, finance, strategy, marketing, and many other classes into a small amount of time. This meant that I was forced to synthesize a lot in a short timeframe, but that also forced me to draw connections between the classes, our experiential learning, and what I see and read about in the world around me. All of a sudden, news articles involving financial markets and business strategy make a whole lot more sense.

I knew coming in that finance has long been a specialty at Stern (and I was a little intimidated by that), but I was blown away by the quality of my intro to finance course. All in all, I shouldn’t have worried at all about this summer, but there’s a lot coming this fall.

3. The unknown of this fall is exciting and a little bit scary, but the community we’ve built so is reassuring

The dynamics of school are going to change a lot in two weeks when the fall semester starts. There will be more than 10 times the number of students at Stern, and clubs and recruiting will get into full swing. While I can’t wait to meet more students who will be my classmates for the next two semesters, it’s definitely a change from our small tight-knit groups we’ve had this summer. That said, the community we built in our program shows me that we will continue to support each other, and if the broader Stern community is anything like what we built within the Tech MBA, we have a lot to look forward to.

There’s a lot more to say about the summer, but those are some top-of-mind thoughts. I’m looking forward to a couple weeks off, some travel, and getting into the swing of fall semester!

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Stern – Social in so many ways

Everyone told me that my classmates would be one of the best parts of business school. While I was already very excited to be moving to New York and to make new friends, I have been blown away by everyone’s warmth and friendliness. Since our Tech MBA program in small (only 32 of us this year!) we all seemed to know each other by day 2. Additionally, we’re lucky to be spending the summer at Stern with students in the Fashion & Luxury MBA program, so we are able to meet, work with, and make friends with another group of individuals who have fairly different professional backgrounds from our own.

While our class tends to go to happy hour once or twice a week (the neighborhood around the campus has numerous options) here are few other ways I’ve gotten to meet my classmates outside of Kaufman Management Center:

  • Finding new lunch spots: Exploration of the restaurants in the neighborhood is a great way to start appreciating our location and getting to know people. With the growing LunchTech scene (yes, I might coin that term), we seem to find new sign up deals every week from some new app that offers us $3 lunches. We are likely destroying that young startup’s customer acquisition costs, but eating good food along the way!
  • Biking, running, and other outdoor pursuits: While it’s 92° outside today in NYC, and I won’t be setting foot outside besides to get to and from the subway, I’ve spent several Saturday mornings on long bike rides with classmates. As someone from New England, I was skeptical of NYC biking and outdoors, but it turns out there are some great ways to quickly bike out of the city onto beautiful back roads, and great running paths along the rivers. These adventures have provided a break from the noise of the city, and continue to be a great way to get to know my classmates – what better way to do it than while you’re all wearing spandex biking gear?

Dumpling tours: Yes, an actual class activity. It turns out that the leader of NYC’s top dumpling tour is a classmate. He’s a highly rated AirBnB experiences guide, and knows all the spots to hit in Chinatown. We’re lucky to have such diversely skilled classmates.

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Getting back in the swing of classes

This year is flying by. I’m a solid 3 weeks into the Tech MBA at Stern, and it’s time for finals! It’s crazy to think that I’m already almost done with two of my classes.

Since classes are on my mind, I’ll use this first post to talk a bit about my initial impressions of the academic experience at Stern in the Tech MBA. Though I was thrilled to be coming back to school, I spent the months leading up to May dreading the idea of sitting in a lecture hall. At work I was that annoying coworker who would get up and start pacing around conference rooms 10 minutes into a meeting. How on earth would I sit still for hours of classes? Luckily, it turns out my fears were unfounded. Here are a few aspects of the program that have helped:

The classes are highly interactive – but not in a scary way. It was easy to let my mind wander during undergrad differential equations class. I can’t do that at Stern. The professors expect active participation, but not the type where you’re just regurgitating numbers or facts – they want us to share our experiences and opinions. Given the diversity of our class, this allows us to all draw from our range of backgrounds, experiences, and failures. This leads to reason #1 why I’ve been able to sit still in Stern classes: They are engaging and participatory in a way that makes you want to jump into the conversation.

Second, I quickly learned that our course content is highly relevant and thoughtful. In an era when issues such as workplace gender discrimination and corporate ethics are far from solved, I am glad to see us facing some of these issues head on. When I saw a class called “Leadership” on my schedule, I figured I was in for a lot of fluff. The first time Professor Nate Pettit opened his mouth however, I instantly knew my assumption was wrong. We don’t talk about how to give the punchiest PowerPoint presentation – instead, we focus on issues like barriers to communication, cultivating positive culture, leading effective change, and how to have difficult conversations (yes, he makes you practice!).

So that leads to reason #2 why I can sit through classes: the professors are astoundingly thoughtful about why material is important to creating strong leaders, and focus on content that resonates with our past experiences and future aspirations.

Lastly, Stern is an oasis away from a deluge of work emails. I am taking notes on paper for the first time in probably 10 years. I still can’t read my own handwriting, but putting away the laptop, putting my iPhone on do not disturb, and focusing on all the things that will further me professionally brings me to reason #3 I can sit through classes: I’m never going to get this opportunity again, and so far the program is filling the exact gaps I came here to address.