We have a favorite former BSer who we’ve now followed along the entire process of applying to business school (stress!), to getting in (yay!), to getting scholarship money (double yay!), to getting an exciting internship (crazy!), to landing the most coveted post-MBA job ever (OMG!!!!), to now GRADUATING! and being back in the Real World with those three little initials MBA after their name, raking in the big bucks in the start of an amazing new career.
This person sent us a letter over the summer, and we are posting it here (edited slightly, and with permission) to hopefully inspire all of you who are struggling with the first step of this whole process: applying to business school.
Hi EssaySnark!
I never imagined what it would be like to write this email at the conclusion of my time at [bschool].
I’ve been reflecting all month, it took me that long to write this full email (which is super stinking long), but I figured I would try to capture my thoughts.
I took a much needed break from email. I hadn’t realized just how crazy life had become and just how married I was to my inbox until after graduation, when the barrage finally started to slow down.
Typical to my style, I took on way too many things this last semester and finally found my breaking point – when I realized I wasn’t able to give everything the attention it deserved, and things probably started slipping through the cracks that were too important to let slip. It was an immensely valuable lesson to learn in business school, one of the best ever.
In other news, May held a trip to Puerto Rico with my classmates, two graduation ceremonies, a week with my parents visiting (hosting tourists, even the best kind, was exhausting), a trip to the Outer Banks with 70+ of my non-bschool friends from the East Coast, and a move out of [city]. I don’t think I slept more than 4 or 5 hours a night, it was the most whirlwind month ever.
It was odd, to get to the end of business school, look around and think “okay. I’m good. I learned enough at this place with these people. I’ve met enough good people and enough people that I don’t imagine staying that close to in the future.” I am ready for the next step (and freaked out, since I’ve been promised that I will again feel like an “admissions mistake” when I meet and interact with my future colleagues)
I suppose I expected more nostalgia, but I didn’t really feel that. Just gratitude for the lessons I had learned and the friends I had made, but also a desire to continue on with life. I have learned that I try to grow in every direction I need to at once, which is actually a terrible way to try to grow at all. My summer is going to be spent (and probably the rest of my life) learning how to set one or two goals for personal development at a time, since currently I have about 6-8 floating around in my head at any given point. I think business school also taught me to be more gentle with myself, to appreciate that although my methods aren’t perfect, I have been successful so far with them, and balancing the past success while attempting to change some of my less effective methods for more effective ones.
Most of all, I am grateful for the experience. Grateful for the friends who make me a better person, grateful for the learning opportunities and the ways that I pushed myself even harder and tested my limits. Grateful that I ended up with the exact job I wanted, and another that taught me how important finding the right culture is for my future jobs. What a transformative two years!
And, grateful to you EssaySnark, for helping me find the words to convey how much I wanted to be at [this school], and why I was the right fit. I couldn’t have done it without you, seriously.
Now that I’m finally done with my email/computer hiatus (a month was probably long enough…), I can be a normal, productive member of society again. Looking forward to perusing the blahg again and seeing what’s changed 🙂
Dunno ’bout you, Blahg Readers, but that gave us chills. 😀
Tell us what you think.