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Rachel Leonard, University of Chicago Class of 2006 |
I’ve known that an MBA was in my future
since my last year of undergraduate studies. I was
finishing up my Bachelor's of Business Administration at the
University of Alaska Anchorage, and I was realizing that my
bachelor's degree was falling short in many areas. There
were too many doors it didn't open, too many areas I felt I
needed more training in, too many subjects I didn't like and
had successfully glossed over, only to realize later that I
should have paid more attention to them. My goals at the
time were (and still are) a bit ambiguous, but whatever my
direction in life was going to be, I felt that stopping at a
bachelor's degree would leave me less than prepared.
I had finished high school in three
years and college in three years, and when I started
researching MBA programs, my initial assumption was that I'd
start right away, after finishing undergrad, and be done
with the MBA and ready to conquer the world by the time I
was 21. It didn't take much research to realize that was
not encouraged by most of the B schools I was interested
in. I wasn't crazy about the idea of waiting, but having
attended a state university for my undergraduate program, I
was determined to do whatever was necessary to go to a "top"
school for my master's.
In doing my research, I read on the
admissions website of a school I was particularly
interested in, in answer to the question, "What type of work
experience is preferred?" that it didn’t matter where you
worked, or what you had done, giving the example of being a
museum curator, if you had learned from it and excelled in
your position. I had no mentor at that time, no one to give
me any career guidance, I knew no one who had graduated from
any of the schools I was interested in, and so I believed
that 100%. Some of the career choices I've made may seem
odd for someone targeting top MBA programs, but they made
sense to me at the time, and I had no one to tell me
otherwise. It wasn't until much later that I realized, yes,
you can turn almost any experience into a successful
application, but the truth is, there are "typical" career
fields for applicants, and coming from one of them can make
applying to B school much easier.
And so off I went to get the experience
I needed to get into a school I liked. I spent my first two
years after college in Russia. My minor had been Russian,
and I thought the international experience would be
beneficial. I spent the winters there, studying the
language, helping open a Christian bookstore, and working
with an exchange program, and I spent the summers back home
in Alaska, where I ran my father's restaurant. After my two
years in Russia, I took a job as a restaurant manager – not
something I particularly enjoyed, but I thought management
experience would be important for getting accepted to a B
school, and restaurant management was the only area I had
any experience in. After a year and a half, I took a new
job as a project manager at a small sign company, and
eventually moved up to the director of operations for my
division. We have since been acquired by a client, but when
I leave my job at the end of July, I will have been working
for them for two years and two months.
In September, I matriculate at the University of Chicago.
Chicago was always one of my top choices, and I was ecstatic
when I received their acceptance letter. I intend to enroll
in their IMBA program, and apply for a joint degree in
International Relations. The application process was long
and stressful, and left me wishing I had been better
informed six years ago, but on the other hand, now that I've
been accepted, I'm happy being from a "non-traditional"
background. I'm a bit intimidated at the thought of being
in a classroom filled with smart people who know a lot more
about corporate business than I do, but I know I've learned
a tremendous amount in the various positions I’ve held, and
I’m confident that my unique viewpoint will be an asset in
the classroom. It will undoubtedly be a challenge, but I’m
looking forward to it!
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