Fridays from the Frontline
Keep abreast of the latest happenings in the business school blogosphere! This weekly column summarizes recent posts from MBA student and applicant blogs.
Fridays from the Frontline: Cornell Business Education—Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Fridays from the Frontline The two-year full-tuition Roy H. Park Fellowship is one of the key ways in which Cornell’s S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management seeks to build strong leaders. The fellowship is granted each year to “up to 25 full-time Johnson MBA candidates who have demonstrated outstanding leadership potential.” Established in 1997 by the Triad Foundation as part of its mission to carry on the legacy of American entrepreneur Roy H. Park, the Park Fellowship is awarded to outstanding MBA students based
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Fridays from the Frontline: Q&A with Tuck Student Ambassador Anchit Duggal
Fridays from the Frontline The Tuck Student Ambassador Program is a unique offering that enables second-year students to work closely with Admissions to engage prospective students. According to the program page, each second-year ambassador functions as a regional captain representing Africa, Asia-Pacific, China, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Each student ambassador acts as a “liaison between prospective students from their particular region and other ambassadors.” The Tuck 360: MBA Blog recently featured an interview with Tuck Student Ambassador and India Co-Captain Anchit Duggal T’18. The following post has been republished in its
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Fridays from the Frontline: Top Spots to Get Work Done at Chicago Booth
Fridays from the Frontline In a world filled with distractions, it can be tough to focus and get anything done. Sometimes, the devices and platforms we invest in to make our day-to-day lives more efficient (theoretically) are the very things making it hard to concentrate. But in other instances, it’s the actual space where we sit to work that can pose the greatest challenges. If you have the luxury of working remotely, you may have discovered that you’re most productive in a crowded coffee shop. (If this is you, here’s two hours of ambient café noise.) Or
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Fridays from the Frontline: Kelley Student Writes About GLOBASE China
Fridays from the Frontline Few would debate that one of the major perks of a business school education is the opportunity to study abroad. While many students have the ability to travel to distant lands on their own dime, the true value of business school is the framework it provides MBA students to secure a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms of international business in a specific country or region of interest. The GLOBASE program at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business is a shining example of what an MBA study abroad program can be.
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Fridays from the Frontline: Organizing MIT Sloan’s Israel Trek
Fridays from the Frontline Today’s Friday from the Frontline column comes to us from a student at MIT Sloan School of Management who helped organize the school’s largest student trek to Israel, fulfilling a promise he made when he interviewed. The piece coincides nicely with the school’s first “Sloan on the Road” event of the season, an evening “inspired by leaders, alumni, and current students who are making their ideas matter,” which will take place in Tel Aviv on June 3rd. The evening’s TIMTalk speaker is Aaron Zucker, MBA ’09, whose distinguished career as an impact-driven leader
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Fridays from the Frontline: Michigan Ross MM Grad to Other Grads on What Future Leaders of the World Must Consider
Fridays from the Frontline When business students travel to developing countries for the first time, they’re often struck by the vast disparities in business, cultural, and political climates. Though on first glance these differences can sometimes fluster and frustrate would-be business people, the act of doing business under vastly different circumstances is an opportunity for business school students to not only gain insight into a diverse culture but also gain a new perspective on cultivating business partnerships back home. Today’s Friday from the Frontline comes not from an MBA student, but from a Master’s of Management (MM) student at
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Fridays from the Frontline: A Glimpse at Lean In at Berkeley Haas
Fridays from the Frontline The University of California at Berkeley has long had a reputation as a hotbed of activism, from the Vietnam Day Committee’s march toward Oakland Base in the 1960s to its divestment campaign from South Africa during the 1980s apartheid era to the most recent protests against ultra-conservative commentator Milo Yiannopolous’ appearance on campus last year. The commitment to social justice present on Berkeley’s campus has also been infused into the curriculum of many of its schools, inspiring students to engage in direct action to shape the world they want to live. This is certainly true at
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Published: April 26, 2018
Fridays from the Frontline: INSEAD Women in Business Club Launches “Tell Your Story” Initiative
Fridays from the Frontline INSEAD’s Women in Business Club recently kicked off a “Tell Your Story” initiative on the INSEAD MBA Experience blog. The new initiative aims to offer a platform for female students to share their insights and “inspirational life stories.” The first “Tell Your Story” guest is current INSEAD student Ann Alampi, MBA ‘18J, who offers unique takes gleaned from an interesting path to business school, first as a geology researcher and later an energy consultant for top consulting firm Bain & Company. The following post has been republished in its entirety from its original
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Published: April 19, 2018
Fridays from the Frontline: Booth’s LEAD Program Goes to India
Fridays from the Frontline The Leadership Effectiveness and Development (LEAD) program at the University of Chicago Booth’s School of Business was fostered to enhance students’ self-awareness and interpersonal effectiveness when it comes to the critical aspects of leadership. One of the first programs of its kind, LEAD provides students with strategies to track and ultimately refine their abilities to work in teams, influence others, manage conflict, and communicate their ideas. In today’s Fridays from the Frontline, Booth student and second-year LEAD facilitator Alex Stratmann unpacks his experiences and the lifelong friendships the program nurtured, which precipitated a
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Published: April 12, 2018
Fridays from the Frontline: 5 Reasons to Attend Tuck Military Visit Day in the Spring
Fridays from the Frontline Many business schools have stepped up their veteran outreach in recent years. In addition to government-subsidized financial aid unique to military personnel, like the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill and the Yellow Ribbon Program, a handful of schools also offer fellowships like Olin’s Veterans Association Scholarship. Conferences, events, and panels specific to military personnel are a major component of these outreach efforts. One example is the upcoming Military Visit Day at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, designed to introduce vets to school’s singular campus culture. It will take place on Sunday, April 29th and Monday, April 30th. In today’s
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Passion + Career? Online UNC Business Essentials Course Helps Prospective MBA Applicants Hone Future Goals
Fridays from the Frontline Somewhere in the 5th century, Confucious wrote, “Take a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” No doubt this sage advice is easier said than done, especially in this day and age. I personally find the musician Thor Harris’ take more applicable to most people’s realities: “Find work you love. If you can’t do that, then find a job where you love the people.” Ally Daws recently took part in an offering from UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School that helped her—as a college student—begin to recognize the
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Published: March 29, 2018
Fridays from the Frontline: HBS Student Shares Why Applying in Round 3 Made Sense
Fridays from the Frontline Better late than never? For b-school hopefuls who for one reason or another let the Round 1 and Round 2 deadlines pass them by, conventional wisdom has often been to wait until next year. But most schools do feature a Round 3, and for the right applicants, applying in this late round can work out just as well. To be sure, applying to MBA programs during Round 3 has its challenges—classes have largely been filled and scholarship aid is at its most scarce. That said, Round 3 can actually have more of a strategic function than
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Four Things to Consider When Visiting Full-Time MBA Programs
Fridays from the Frontline The process of picking a business school is both an art and a science. Broadly speaking, prospective students must decide which industry they ultimately want to infiltrate and then figure out which MBA program will give them the necessary tools to get where they need to go. This all sounds simple and straightforward enough, but there are a host of other variables prospective b-schoolers must weigh in order to make an informed choice—geographic location, small, tight-knit community vs. huge class with expansive network, the prevailing on-campus cultural attitude, and the reputation of the school within one’s
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The Vision Behind the Cornell MBA FinTech Intensive
Fridays from the Frontline Fintech is one of those buzzy, disruptive industries the business world loves to hate and hates to love. But very much unlike their tech brethren—edtech, cleantech, insurtech— the financial services sector, which should by all accounts be shaking in its skivvies about going the way of the Guam flying fox, has strangely begun to embrace fintech innovations like open banking and cryptocurrency. MBA students are taking notice and beginning to flock toward fintech in lieu of more traditional financial services gigs. Enter Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management’s FinTech Intensive, “a cutting-edge
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Published: February 22, 2018
Snagging a Job at Amazon—A Ross Business School Student Shares How He Did It
Fridays from the Frontline Amazon is a leading recruiter of MBA students—indeed, the top hirer on many business school campuses. Among those is Michigan’s Ross School of Business, which has supplied a steady stream of reliable talent to the e-commerce giant. As Amazon’s plans for HQ2 continue to unfold—much to everyone’s anticipation and consternation—many applicants applying to business school want to know: what’s the behind-the-scenes process of landing a job at Amazon really like? When the soaring mortar boards return to earth, how can they, too, be among the MBA grads headed off toward a career at Amazon. Dhanishth Khosla
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Published: February 15, 2018
How Far Would You Go for the One You Love?
Fridays from the Frontline The process of moving to a new city to start business school is tough, but one could argue that it’s tougher on folks who make the move to support their partner. The Booth Partners Club is a student club that provides events and group activities throughout the school year specifically designed to support significant others and spouses of Booth MBA students. The Partners Club touts itself as a “budget-friendly way to make some instant friends and have some fun in the city.” In addition to the opportunities for networking—and friendship—that the Partners Club
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Published: February 8, 2018
Is B-School Student Globetrotting Killing the Earth? MIT Students Take Action
Fridays from the Frontline MIT’s two-year Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) program is a unique dual-degree offering that the Sloan School of Management established in partnership with the School of Engineering. The LGO program merges a state-of-the-art management curriculum with advanced engineering training to prepare students to handle global operations, product development, and manufacturing problems with aplomb. LGO students pursue six-month research internships at a wide range of partner companies in the pharmaceutical, manufacturing, energy, high-tech, and global supply chain industries. Notable LGO alumni like Verizon’s Chief Supply Chain Officer Viju Menon (LGO ’94), Tesla’s
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Published: February 1, 2018
Why Traveling and the MBA Should Go Hand in Hand—A Dartmouth Tuck MBA Student Weighs In
Fridays from the Frontline If you’re budgeting for your MBA experience, you might think that traveling is outside of your reach. After all, who has extra money to spend on a trip overseas when you have tuition and books to pay for? According to Tanvi Nayar, an MBA student at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, that’s the exact wrong attitude to have. Traveling and exploring different countries has been the best part of Nayar’s past year at Tuck. “I cannot, cannot, CANNOT stress enough the importance of traveling and exploring different cultures,” Nayar shared in a recent blog
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Published: January 25, 2018
The Chicago Booth MBA/MPP Dual-Degree Experience
Fridays from the Frontline Today’s the day the University of Chicago Booth School of Business was slated to send out interview invitations to Round 2 applicants, but posts to MBA LiveWire suggest that some applicants began receiving them earlier this week. Have you gotten one? If you’re still waiting, why not distract yourself by learning a little more about the school from a current student? Today’s Fridays from the Frontline column comes to us from Yuli Almozlino, a student in the dual-degree program Booth offers with the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. As the school’s
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Published: January 18, 2018
The MBA Juggle: An Anderson Student on Balancing Social, Academic, and Career Aspects of B-School
Fridays from the Frontline Before coming to UCLA Anderson School of Management, first-year MBA student Julie Mills worked as a customer success manager at software-as-a-service provider Wrike and served in the Peace Corps in the eastern Caribbean. She’s hoping to advance her career in technology upon graduation, and in a recent blog post she shared how tech has taken off at Anderson over the past eight years thanks to the increased presence of MBAs in the industry, valuable partnerships with companies for on-campus recruiting, and the tight-knit community of Anderson students and alumni. The recruiting opportunities Mills has had at
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Published: January 11, 2018
Is the MBA Really the Best Time of Your Life? An INSEAD Student Weighs In
Fridays from the Frontline Michel Assaad describes himself as “a management consultant with an academic background in accounting and finance, fueled by an expensive hobby of collecting academic degrees.” Indeed, the MBA he is currently pursuing at INSEAD makes his fourth business degree. What made him decide that he needed yet another set of letters after his name? Has it lived up to his expectations? Does he have any regrets? In the post that follows, he shares many thoughts on the MBA—taking on myths and stigmas that surround it and counterbalancing them with his own experiences. Will his year at
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Published: January 4, 2018
Why This Kenan-Flagler MBA Student Decided to Leave a Perfectly Good Life in DC Brokerage
Fridays from the Frontlines Ed Crocker is the first to tell you he had a great life in real estate in booming Washington, D.C. A third-year associate at a successful multifamily brokerage firm, he worked with a great team and some of the most dynamic developers in D.C. And yet, somehow, he wanted more. In the post that follows, learn how that yearning led him to consider business school and how the real estate program at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School immediately drew him in. As the second-year MBA student looks back on all he’s learned and all
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Published: December 28, 2017
What’s the Most Integral Component of the Fisher MBA?
Fridays from the Frontline According to Rajat Gugnani, a first-year MBA student at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, everything comes back to your core team. So, if you’ve got the Fisher MBA program in your sites, you’d do well to familiarize yourself with core teams—what they are and the importance they play at the school. Fortunately, with Gugnani as this week’s Fridays from the Frontline contributor, he breaks down core teams and lets prospective applicants know exactly what to expect. As he shares below, his core team was the “one thing that kept him
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Published: December 21, 2017
A Ross MBA Student’s Unexpected Journey: From Teacher in the Rural South to Investment Banker
Fridays from the Frontline Vaish Shastry came to the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business from the Mississippi Delta, where she taught middle school children. She came to business school thinking that she would return to the nonprofit world upon graduation. Instead, she’ll be working in the Consumer and Retail Group at global investment banking and asset management firm William Blair. Talk about a change in plans. In a recent blog post, Shastry explained how within just a few days at Ross she found her mind blown and her curiosity piqued by the world
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Published: December 14, 2017
5 Worries I Had About Applying to HBS
Fridays from the Frontlines It’s been a busy week at Harvard Business School (HBS), with Round 1 decisions rolling out from Dillon House on Tuesday. Whether you got good news or bad, we’d wager that most of you can relate to some of the worries this week’s Fridays from the Frontline contributor had when he applied. And if you’re working hard now on your Round 2 app, his encouragement comes at just the right time. Read on to learn what Nigerian native Bankole Makanju stressed about most in the application process—and why maybe you can stress about
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