Beat The GMAT - the MBA Social Network

Here is a post from what I was doing a year ago!  WRITING ESSAYS

… I have been home now for about a week on Winter Break!  It definitely feels good but I must say that I’m very bored! I’ve been doing a lot of sleeping and watching documentaries and reading Steve Jobs.  Aside from that I’m diligently working on recruiting things.  As much as I love being home and being able to relax and do things that I want to do, I have to admit that I do feel a void because I’m not at school.  I’m not sure if any of my classmates feel the same way or any of my friends at other schools.  It’s interesting because at Johnson, as I’ve said before, I see my friends/classmates every day of the week and not just while we’re in classes or in Sage, but even if I walk to the convenience store in College Town, I’m sure that I’ll bump into someone.  That was the case for five months and then all of a sudden we’re all torn apart and left to our own vices.  It’s quite sad – however it’s MUCH needed!

I know that I definitely needed to re-calibrate in more ways than one so this is a good time. But it’s still very much a weird time.  I would go hang out with my friends in NYC the whole time, but they have work!  I don’t think about them having to work much when I’m at school because well quite frankly there are many other things going on.  I do call them every once in a while in the middle of the day to say “Hey What’s Up?” only to get a response like “Um… I’m at work!”  I’ve just completely forgotten.  I think it’s not only a function of being in business school, but it’s compounded by being in a College Town in the middle of upstate New York where you don’t see people going to work everyday unless you’re walking by professors and/or administration.  It’s very surreal.

Last Friday, I was in the city having drinks with my GMAT Tutor, on the East Side.  I also invited one of my best friends from school to join in the conversation since she was there recruiting.  It was fun to be able to introduce her to the person who really helped me get into business school and then have her thank him for getting me into business school! Talk about humility huh?  It was nice to just talk to my tutor not about the GMAT and applications but different things now.  Sure I was still venting to some extent about new topics such as recruiting… classes… the whole 9 yards, but I was definitely more relaxed.

Then after about an hour and a half, one of his recent students joined us.  I met this applicant back in February when my tutor got all of his students together for a happy hour of sorts.  But then this applicant reached out to me recently to ask me about my experience at Johnson.  She was accepted!  It was great that I had my classmate there because then they could talk about I guess female related bschool things.  It’s just natural to want to connect people to people who have similar backgrounds or interests.  At least it’s a natural occurrence for me!

Then I had invited a prospective Johnson student to come hang with us too.  He had recently been up to visit Johnson a couple weeks prior and we were emailing back and forth regarding his essays (Hi M_____, cuz I know you’re reading this right now!)  So for a short bit it was me, him, my GMAT tutor, the newly admitted applicant, and my classmate.  It was a fun time and a couple of drinks later it was time to head down to the Meatpacking district for dinner.  So I said to the prospective student, “Do you have plans?  If not come to dinner!”  So he decided to come to dinner with me, my classmate and another classmate who is from the city.”  We ate at Catch.  The food was surprisingly good and not overpriced given the location.  The drinks however were overpriced, but that’s tolerable to an extent.

Post-Dinner, we went a couple blocks north to Park to meet another classmate of ours and meet up with a couple of my non-b-school friends.  I say that all to say that even though I’m on break and should be cherishing this time away from my classmates, somehow some of us still gravitate back to each other to just the same thing that we did back in Ithaca.  It’s weird, but that’s my reality for the next couple of years.  I welcome it!