I guess that shouldn't be a surprise though. Since I started school, all my days seem to blend together. Sometimes by the end of the day, my morning seems so long ago I can barely remember what I did. Between class, social events, learning team meetings and career management sessions, I feel pretty overwhelmed... and recruiting hasn't even started yet!!
Business school classes are so different than what I experienced as an undergrad. In school, especially as a biochemistry major, I was very used to attending lecture-style classes. Going to class was a low-key thing -- your only job was to try to stay awake enough to take legible notes. Here in business school, class is very engaging. No longer part of the audience, you a put on the spot as an active participant. The professor's role is really to just jumpstart and frame the discussion. They throw a question out there and then the whole class just builds on the discussion -- basically, we teach each other under the guidance of the professor. Oftentimes, they'll find two people that disagree and then pit them against each other for almost all of class! It's a very different experience than what I know from undergrad and it definitely keeps me on my toes. After a couple week of being in these types of classes, I definitely see why it's so important where you go to business school. The whole value of the conversation in class is derived from our collective personal and professional experience so it's important who you are sitting next to. I'm very glad and darn proud to be sitting next to a fellow CBS'er :)
This semester, I'm going to be taking the core classes. CBS is on the semester system and each student typically takes 5 classes at a time. The two semester-long courses are accounting and finance and the other three courses are half-term classes that switch out in late October. This first half-term, I'm also taking strategy, economics and statistics. My two favorite courses by far are strategy and statistics. Statistics has always been something I enjoyed (which sounds really weird, I realize) and the professor for that class is hilarious! Going to class almost feels like watching a stand-up comedy routine, with some random stats jokes thrown in. Strategy is a completely new subject to me, but I love it so far. I really enjoy reading case studies about different companies, analyzing the situations/challenges they faced and then putting together an action plan.
What I've really learned so far is that it's not really so important what your final answer is, but rather how you got there -- your thinking process, the variables that you considered and how you weighted them. In my past school days, I've always been trained to search for the answer that this new learning method has really challenged me to slow down and really analyze things, piece by piece. Take nothing for granted -- understand why each decision, each fact exists. It goes against my instinct sometimes, but going through things slowly and digesting it piece by piece has helped me realize how much I was missing when I just jumped straight into answering the question.
Even though I've only really had 2 weeks of "real" classes, I feel a little behind! This weekend, I want to spend some serious time getting comfortable with the material, because next week promises to be crazy -- recruiting season prep!
And because my posts look naked without a picture... here is one of my lovely cluster!
 |
| Cluster E13, baby!!! |
Till next time,
xoxo
No comments:
Post a Comment