Dana
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With that said, let me take you through a very busy first quarter:
Understanding my first quarter at Booth means knowing the city I have called home for the last five months. The city you get your degree in will have a big effect on your overall experience. Does this mean Chicago is perfect for your experience? No. Each person thrives in different settings. However, it has been perfect for me. Let me show you...
My first week in the city, I met some of my new friends and headed down to the pier where they have a fireworks show every week during summer. This was one of the first moments it really clicked for me that I was actually going to Booth and kicking off a new adventure.
In October we took a trip out to a Cider Farm. For the record, I had very low expectations, but acquiesced to my friends. After eating a big meal, watching pig racing, driving Go Karts, navigating a corn maze and playing with farm animals, I was happy to admit I had been wrong.
Chicago’s annual Color Run. I normally hate waking up before 9:00am on a Sunday, but this was worth it. This “race” (some people run it, some people dance it) – is a corlorful trip through Chicago culminating in a DJed dance party at the finish line.
There’s perks to being a student. We secured $10 tickets from the University to see Les Misérables at the Cadillac Theater in Downtown Chicago.
And this is the view from my roof. After a long day of studying or recruiting, there are few better ways to unwind than having a glass of wine with my roommies up here.
For those of you not familiar with LEAD, it is Booth’s leadership class. While I don’t have any pictures of the classroom portion, an important part of LEAD is the Leadership Retreat that happens during orientation.
Unlike the other sections, I can’t get into many details with LEAD. You just have to experience it. But I will tell you this is a “victory” picture after a heated competition. Ok, so maybe no one else would describe it as heated. I am just way too competitive. I’m working on it. In fact, I will be the best at not being too competitive.
And no retreat would be complete without an end of the weekend social. This is my roomies and me in our themed costumes preparing to head to the event.
If you are reading this, it’s probably no surprise that Booth has a lot of unique social, business and academic events. Here’s a few of them.
This is the Booth formal held early in the quarter. It’s a chance to dress up and socialize with your new classmates.
Booth holds an annual Leadership Challenge involving students and many of our prestigious alumni. Like LEAD, I can’t give details about the event. But it was undoubtedly one of the quintessential moments of my first quarter and helped me to network and grow as a person.
Booth brought in the CEO of Burger King to discuss the evolving concept of intrapreneurship and how it has helped spur growth in their organization.
Business school is also a great opportunity to network and make lifelong friends. And it’s a very unique setting. Similar to college, you’ll find yourself feeling very close to people here after the first couple of months. Having a great community is a key part of business school and has been a wonderful part of my Booth experience.
This is my first night hanging out in Chicago with my new roomies. Finding new roommates, thought mechanisms provided by Booth, and coordinating your move to Chicago are the first big business school challenges.
Of course everyone gets dressed up for Halloween. Zombies, fairy tale characters and business bunnies everywhere.
We had an unofficial Canadian culture night with some of the people in the Canadian Business Club. We started off by eating poutine at a local Canadian restaurant. Afterwards we drank Molson beer and watched episodes of Corner Gas.
For Thanksgiving, we hosted a big potluck for everyone who wasn’t flying home to enjoy the holiday with their families. Here, I made everyone smile and take an embarrassing picture for the blog before I would give them any Pumpkin Pie. I can be kind of evil like that.
The Startup Trek is a Booth tradition organized by the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Group, where students travel to various parts of San Francisco and Silicon Valley to meet with entrepreneurs running both brand new and relatively established startups. We also visited a firm that does legal work for starts ups and a VC firm. The following pictures are two of the highlight collages from specific days on the trek.
Upper left: Sitting in the offices of Fenwick & West getting a lesson from a former University of Chicago MBA/JD on important structural considerations for new ventures.
Middle left: Riding the BART back to San Francisco at the end of the day to meet the rest of the group for dinner.
Lower left: Speaking with the CEO of Agile Diagnosis, a medical information startup run by multiple Boothies. It was also a winner of the New Venture Challenge, which helped them get into the prestigious Y Combinator.
Right rail: Group dinner at an Italian restaurant in the city with some executives from Tinyco.
Upper left: Talking with Booth graduate and Gen 110 co-founder inside of their offices in downtown San Francisco
Bottom left: Two trekkers checking directions between companies after leaving 42Floors
Upper right: Beautiful Christmas tree erected in the middle of the city we saw while walking to dinner
Bottom right: We joined a Booth alumni event for fine food and cocktails at the end of a fun day.
This was my first quarter. Obviously, this doesn’t include class or recruiting where you can’t walk around taking pictures. For even more pictures and updates from my first quarter, you can visit the photo album on the Booth Experience Facebook page.
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