Social commentary

I forget if I mentioned this in one of my earlier posts but Rotman separates the entire year of students into sections and you are with that one section for the entire semester. That is, out of apprx 260 students in the Rotman MBA Class of 2013, all of your classes from Sep-Dec are with the same apprx 65 ppl. Each section has different schedules so it ends up being that you do most of your school work with your section and see your section most of the time (since everyone else is on other schedules).

While the social events we do are AWESOME, they are events for everyone in school so it is hard to get some solid chill time in with people from the other sections.

This week by chance, I got to hang out casually (i.e. not a school party, not a school club event, not in the Rotman halls) with some of my friends from the other sections that I unfortunately really hadn’t spoken too that much in the last little while and it made me realize, I MISS THESE GUYS!!! Because of the section splits it’s definitely a bummer we don’t get to hang out that often and I really wish we could!!

And on the subject of friends, non-MBA friends, you are probably thinking I am a huge jerk on account of not having called any of you in the last 3 months. I know I HATE when someone says to me as an excuse “ohhhhhh I’ve just been sooooooo busy.” I think it’s a load of BS. So I’m not going to say it. What I will say is my life since Sep can be summed up as this: class, homework, social events related to school, sleep. Which I hope explains my social non-existence outside of school. I don’t know if it excuses it but I hope it explains it. J Rest assured, as soon as I am done exams, if any of you message me to get a beer, there is a 100% chance I will say yes!!

And now the fun really starts!!

So this week I had:

-2 tests 1 day after the other

-Club events

-2 group projects

-“Normal” rotman social events

-Class

It was NUTS. Basically no time idle whatsoever!! The crazy workload is balanced out with super fun social events. You might think “Mike, why are you socializing if you have so much work to do?” Well socializing is part of the job too. Based on everything I have heard, it is really important to get involved at school, and make sure you are out there. For marketing jobs in particular (my career of choice), this is key.

I was always used to striving for A+ in all of my classes, meaning foregoing extra-curriculars here and there if it would help me maximize my grade. So it has been a bit of an adjustment learning how to go out with classmates and just be comfortable with B’s and B+’s. Hopefully it will be worth it!

One super annoying thing I learned though is that the people who want to work in finance or consulting get to do their recruiting in the early part of 2012 whereas marketing recruitment tends to be much later, like March or April. But my internship would start in May!! I’ve been given a lot of pep talks about how I should not freak out if I don’t have a job by April given the nature of marketing recruiting but still, I am 100% sure freaking out will ensue if I am still jobless come April. I am definitely going to try to get a job set up as early as possible so I can worry about other things for the rest of the year.

My life summarized in 1 word: Reading

This would be a hilarious commercial for an MBA:

HEY THERE!!

Do you like reading??

Or how about doing almost nothing besides reading??

Oh and maybe a group project every 10 minutes??

And don’t you just hate that thing called “social life”?

Well, good sir, you would LOVE an MBA, then!!

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Of course I am joking but the truth is not far off. MBA is like undergrad on Barry Bonds-level steroids (i.e. A LOT). While it is A LOT of work I am actually learning a lot. Everything is very “big picture” oriented which is excactly what I am at Rotman for.

And the profs are fantastic. They come from some very, very impressive backgrounds. You can really tell they know their stuff. So learning from them is definitely a valuable experience.

Also Rotman does a very good job fostering a community within the 1^st years and with the 2^nd year students. So there are always people around to help, or share in suffering and stress.

Next week is the clubs fair. Definitely excited to start getting involved!! Stay tuned to next week’s blog to see what I am doing!