My Rants and Raves - Class of 2009

Experience during the program

Rants:
- budget totally screwed. Lots of unexpected expenditures (having never traveled abroad before B-school sucks)
- time management is a pain. LOTS of things happening; wherever you are, you're missing something cool elsewhere.
- being 'second-tier' sucks. I want HBS's 800-pound-gorilla feeling.
- career office is struggling to sell us, but I feel they could do much better job.
- most clubs are totally disorganized.
- some professors are booooooring.
- some classes are too basic - looks like same class at Wharton has a 3 times longer syllabus.
- some classmates are retarded. (just a few though.)
- my study group was full of hardcore 4.0 maniacs.

Raves:
- my study group was full of hardcore 4.0 maniacs. With some skill, it eases things up.
- LOTS of collaboration and positive attitude. People are incredibly laid-back.
- most people are damn smart. Some are totally razor-sharp.
- looks like MUCH less stress, pain and frustration than other schools.
- most times, I sleep stable 7-8 hours, work out 3 times a week and travel the roundabouts on weekends.
- LOADS of interesting things to learn. Marketing class was awesome.
- LOTS of clubs - which, being quite disorganized, are an excellent opportunity to exercise your leadership skill.
- 5-week break ROCKS! I'm pretty much idling for 2 weeks now, and will idle more. :-P

Overall: if you don't want to stress your a$$ off, West Coast is your spot. The smell of pot is the most characteristic thing about these places, if you know what I mean, ;)

About job placement process

1) Well, there is no factual support of us being a second tier, but it's pretty much obvious for everyone that we're not H, not S and not W. By far. And even not Chicago, Columbia, or MIT. Everyone keeps telling us "prepare super-hard, as you have to win against those branded guys". All the major companies (I can only talk consulting, didn't pay attention to other stuff) do recruit here, and invest quite a lot of time, so I can't say we're treated as crap. It's mostly internal perceived second-tierness. :) You can't just think "okay, I'm from a cool school, go hire me fast". Not gonna happen.

2) Career office could do more to prepare us for battle. The single introductory "case practice bootcamp" was put together by Consulting club. The advanced one I had to put together myself. (Not alone, but that's not the point). There is some activity, like mock interviews and career advising sessions with hired professionals, but I feel it is totally not enough.

3) For clubs - they're just chaotic :) No one really controls what's going on there, which is good for independent action, but bad when people just don't do anything. Given the overcommitment of many active people, it often happens that they are elected to leadership positions but don't have enough time to actually drive things. (It's not the same for all clubs though.)

P.S. I've painted it black somewhat; it's not my point, most of things are really awesome :) I just specifically highlighted several things that could be better.

Overall BSchool experience (4.0)
Schools contribution (3.0)
Classmates rating (5.0)

Strengths of the program:

Curriculum, Classes, Professors
Student body, diversity
Culture & Student Support

Best fit at this program:

Not posted

Can be improved:

Curriculum, Classes, Professors
Career opportunities provided by school