Hey.
My experiences since orientation began on the 7th have been pretty amazing. This organization is top notch and is one of the tightest ships that I've been on (schedules are honored to the second). Classes officially begin on Thursday, but I took an optional one-week financial accounting boot camp that showed me that the intensity in the classes will be high (as will learning).
The flexibility works great for me, and anyone else I've met. There are 3 foundation courses, Financial Accounting, Business Statistics, and Microeconomics, that serve as prereqs for many of the others, so my choices in this first quarter were pretty much limited. The exception would be for those who already had a background in those subject areas and will substitute higher level material under the same subject areas. But you can choose to take 4 classes, or even 5 if you like pain. Next quarter, there will be lots of options for us to choose from though and we'll mix it up with more second-year students.
The culture is far different from what I expected...it is very much a party crowd. Our first 48 hours together were in Lake Geneva at a resort going through scores of problem solving games, ice breakers, and high ropes courses by day, and continued to drink until around 5AM with no less than 50% participation by night, all with not too much difficulty making it to breakfast by 730. This bonding experience has led to multiple unofficial Booth gatherings every night of the week so far. We like to get together and take over whatever venue someone organized: restaurants, bars, bowling alleys, river cruise. My contribution so far was organizing a pub crawl in Lincoln Park and planned for about 50 - 75 person turnout. Well, at the gathering place of my apt (a remodeled pickle factory in Lincoln Park), I distributed 250 wristbands and had people asking for for some all night. We had an easy 300 people who were down to stay out from 8PM till 4AM. Perhaps it's the current lack of graded classes that account for such participation, but we may just have an awesome class.
How faculty will interact with us will soon be revealed when classes begin. But the staff is very talented and welcoming.
Everyone is in one of ten Cohorts, with about 58 people per cohort. We go through LEAD together, which is very group oriented and we are forced to perform for the class often in various personal interaction exercises, and even took an improv class together...it's like they are trying to shake this "quant jock personality-void" reputation or something. And it's working. We are also broken into 8-person Squads that have been active with dinners and small Booth-sponsored activities. Once LEAD is over, the cohort remains active by cohort vs. cohort competitions and activities. We have a short film producing competition called Golden Gargoyles that we are pretty excited about and held a brainstorming session today about good ideas to win the competition. I was also elected my cohort Community Chair, so will be solely responsible for organizing cohort events and competitions throughout the year. So even though we only take one class together, our unity will remain strong. Also consider that many first-year students take the same three classes during the first quarter so you can make more friends early on.
Booth Career Services is truly amazing. The Economist just ranked them #1 in the world, based on high placement and student evaluations. They took the time to meet with every student, hear their plan, and map out a plan for classes and strategies to get an internship that makes sense in their path. They've even talked people out of stated goals after hearing their priorities and knowing the jobs very well. They are no nonsense and very skilled. We have completed several multi-hour exercises trying to pinpoint our ideal function and industry in orientation. Tomorrow they are throwing an all-day event called Industry Immersion where they have presentations and workshops with employees and recruiters from all of the big name companies across every function area. It's designed for us to figure out what it would really be like to work as a banker, consultant, marketer, etc... straight from the mouths of people already doing these jobs before we invest too much time and classes working towards a goal that we are unsure of. This is perfect for career switchers like myself.
Last thought, the free drinks, dinners, and receptions are probably at a yearly peak right now, but it has been really fun. Booth is first class, baby!
