by Helen
From Thursday night until Saturday around 2pm, I spent all my time with about 40 incoming Foster students, a bunch of current students, alumni and faculty and staff of the MBA program.
I always felt the Foster was a good fit for me from my very first interactions with the program in September of last year and all that was reaffirmed this weekend as well.
There is no point of going into the actual details of the weekend, but the things that I took away from it were the following:
1) Foster students are under no illusion that they have nothing to prove. Everyone works hard to get the internship, job, opportunity, etc. that they want. Nothing is taken for granted. It was made very clear that this is not going to be Harvard or Stanford (which were given as the two schools from which students can get job interviews on just the name). I thought that bluntness was refreshing and necessary. I also appreciated a lot of the current students saying that they feel lucky that they have a job or an internship for this summer. I am normally used to hearing that from women but at UDUB, men were humble as well.
2) Balance will be hard. This is a trend that goes across the board it seems in all business schools, but I really walked away determined to learn to organize my day better and not slip on my priorities. I will continue working out while going to school, see my boyfriend and make solid friends. These are my basic intentions (along with getting a job of course).
3) "Real" networking is important. Ever since my days in the California legislature, I have hated the word "networking." Someone once told me that word almost implies using each other as human ladders, which is selfish and kind of useless. What we really need to be doing is learning from people around us who do the things we are interested in doing. Learning genuinely and with interest which is mutually beneficial to all involved. It's not about the number of names you can drop in a conversation, but the ability to do good things for other people and their ability to help you once you've established a sincere relationship. Foster folks did a good job of stressing that and I was glad to hear it. No one's eyes were darting around the room when people were talking to me to see if someone better is around to talk to. That was nice.
4) I am super excited about being a student again. If Stanford pans out, that would be awesome. If not, Foster will be an experience of a lifetime.
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