Thursday, October 25, 2012

Closure (maybe)

Hiya classmates, applicants, current GSBers, MBAers from other programs, envious Stanford undergrads, and Derrick Bolton -

Thanks for reading and for all your awesome emails and comments. Whenever I get an email addressed to this blog, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart that brings back delightful memories of my time in Palo Alto at the GSB and that brings more appreciation to the amazing relationships and opportunities I still have because of the GSB.

Stanford GSB offers the awesome opportunity to leave daily professional activities and explore businesses and markets in a quasi-academic environment. Quasi because the MBA experience is constantly interjected with case discussions led by people out there running businesses, guest speakers bringing up-to-date market information onto campus, and discourse among classmates who are themselves business leaders and operators, past current and present.

Academic because yeah, you are going to learn Black-Scholes option pricing model from Scholes. You are also going to learn NPV, which I have sadly seen very few places outside of a classroom. Oh yeah, and you'll read The Jungle if you're lucky (and Malcolm Gladwell if you're not!)

Please take my prior posts (especially the debbie downer ones) as in-the-moment frustrations along an awesome journey from my pre-MBA life to the GSB and out the other end, and let me just reassure you -- it is worth it.

The GSB costs a pretty penny and forces you to quit your job and relocate to the 'burbs of Silicon Valley, but I wouldn't take back any of it. The only advice I would give my self of a few years ago is -- chin up, smile big, release the worry, and enjoy. For serious.