When I drove my California-plated car onto the ferry to Martha's Vineyard for a short vacation before re-entering the workforce, the attendant looked at it and said, "This must be the end of a very long road trip." I paused for a second because it hadn't been a long day of driving, but then replied, "Sure is." In fact, the trip started in San Francisco during the summer of 2008 and two years later, it's finally ending. Those two years were more than I expected or probably even yet fully realize. So, I thought I'd sign off on my Johnson School blog with a round-up of my top five aspects of the Program:
- The Park Fellowship: I've mentioned the Park Fellowship before in this blog, and I'm highlighting it again because it was the heart and soul of my MBA experience. Blended with all the other exceptional aspects of the Johnson School program, the Park puts the Cornell MBA in a league of its own.
- Big Red Ventures (a.k.a. my job): Coursework, TA responsibilities, entrepreneurial endeavors and social time aside, BRV kept me profoundly busy and provided what was the deepest real-world experience that any MBA program could boast. We made two investments this year!
- The Private Equity Practicum: the PE Practicum was something new this year that was spearheaded by Steve Gal and Ahmad Ali from the Investment Office, and facilitated by yours truly and Ryan Cole as our Park project. For the first time ever, leaders in private equity from the likes of KKR, Hellman & Friedman and General Atlantic (among others) traveled to Ithaca to meet with Johnson School students in an intimate setting.
- Professor BenDaniel and Steve Gal: one of the best and most cherished aspects of the relatively small class is the meaningful relationships that students develop with professors. Such relationships have become rare in university settings as programs have expanded and professors' time has been stretched thin. If you happen to read this, thank you Prof BenDaniel and Steve for your teaching and support, and I look forward to staying in touch as my career unfolds.
- Psych class: This is the oddball on the list because it wasn't part of the Johnson School. My psych seminar on automaticity was a digression from the business school and more importantly from the (sometimes) narrow mindset of the MBA. Psychology is so fundamental to business and yet the science of it rarely impacts the MBA. Sure, we had a consumer behavior course and we touched on organizational psychology in the core, but MBAs aren't so much concerned with psychology itself as much as the anecdotal learnings they can borrow from it to use in corporate life. Stepping out of the business school to take a class in the psych department was a revelation and a respite. There's more to life than making a profit.
So those are my top five, and there are many many more, including this very blog. My goal in writing this throughout my two years was threefold: to promote the Johnson School through one, passionate point of view, to help prospective students learn about unique aspects of the School that don't translate into formal marketing collateral, and to fulfill my own intellectual curiosity and desire to write. I know I've at least accomplished the last of those.
I'm moving back to California to join a small, entrepreneurial company and my plan is to start a new blog that picks up where this one is leaving off. Check it out at corporateexistentialism.com.
Thanks for reading!
