Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Monday was an interesting day. Julie (my fiancé) and I took a trip down to the City of Brotherly Love for her job interview. For me, no day in Philadelphia is complete without a trip to the Penn bookstore for some Penn merchandise. As I stood in line with my newest purchases, Penn hat and basketball shorts, I began to wonder whether my vanity is beginning to play too big of a role in my business school saga. Admittedly, getting into world’s best business school is a great confidence boost, and sure, my opinion of myself went up quite a bit after I got the letter from Rose. But what I was beginning to fear is that the label of being a Wharton graduate and the thought of joining the powerful network of past graduates was becoming an end in itself. It was a troubling thought. I will be paying close to $120,000 for my Wharton experience and viewing it as merely a means of getting into a very exclusive club is clearly not a very good use of my funds or my time, both very limited resources. I will admit that I have a bit of vanity in me and that the Ivy/Wharton exclusivity does have a certain pull on me. That, however, should not be permitted to overshadow my hopefully-transformational business school experience.
With that realization fully settled and its disturbing implications fully assessed, I have resolved from now on to focus on the education process per se and not on the expected benefits that will accrue by the way of having Wharton on my resume. Further, I have set out to make a list of things I would like to achieve while at Wharton. Clearly, self-actualization and development of leadership skills top the list. I wrote that in my application essays and I stand by that statement. Participation in student life to the fullest is definitely in there – the collection of people that will comprise the MBA Class of 2006 is quite extraordinary. I could not help but list raising Wharton’s profile in the world as one of my goals (yes, vanity speaking again) – now that we have the Wharton School Publishing, we ought to get thinking about a management science magazine (Knowledge@Wharton could serve as a basis for it – it is really an excellent publication). There are many other goals, but they are generally subtopics under the larger areas I’ve outlined above. In the end, I suppose a bit of vanity cannot hurt, but it has to be under control and definitely not driving the business school process.
On another note, I got the big Wharton package yesterday. I looked at the diagnostic exams and realized that it has been a REALLY long time since I looked at a calculus problem… That clearly will have to change if I am to pass the math exam. I am also very much undecided on my major. While I really do not want to do a finance major, I keep hearing that I would be missing out on my Wharton experience if I did not take the hard-core finance classes. But I have honestly have enough finance – first at NYU Stern, then at ML banking…. I am leaning towards Marketing/Operations or Marketing/Management… or a combo of both, out of which I can fashion my own major… any input you have on the issue of majors can be directed here
With that realization fully settled and its disturbing implications fully assessed, I have resolved from now on to focus on the education process per se and not on the expected benefits that will accrue by the way of having Wharton on my resume. Further, I have set out to make a list of things I would like to achieve while at Wharton. Clearly, self-actualization and development of leadership skills top the list. I wrote that in my application essays and I stand by that statement. Participation in student life to the fullest is definitely in there – the collection of people that will comprise the MBA Class of 2006 is quite extraordinary. I could not help but list raising Wharton’s profile in the world as one of my goals (yes, vanity speaking again) – now that we have the Wharton School Publishing, we ought to get thinking about a management science magazine (Knowledge@Wharton could serve as a basis for it – it is really an excellent publication). There are many other goals, but they are generally subtopics under the larger areas I’ve outlined above. In the end, I suppose a bit of vanity cannot hurt, but it has to be under control and definitely not driving the business school process.
On another note, I got the big Wharton package yesterday. I looked at the diagnostic exams and realized that it has been a REALLY long time since I looked at a calculus problem… That clearly will have to change if I am to pass the math exam. I am also very much undecided on my major. While I really do not want to do a finance major, I keep hearing that I would be missing out on my Wharton experience if I did not take the hard-core finance classes. But I have honestly have enough finance – first at NYU Stern, then at ML banking…. I am leaning towards Marketing/Operations or Marketing/Management… or a combo of both, out of which I can fashion my own major… any input you have on the issue of majors can be directed here
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