Meet the new “THE BOOTH EXPERIENCE” Team (Post 2 of 2)

Hi!,

This week we have the second installment of current Booth students who will be writing during the upcoming school year and sharing their experiences with you. Last week we introduced five of the members of the team (Meet the new "The Booth Experience" Team / Post 1 of 2). This week, we present to you the other four!

First of all,  we are proud to introduce Darren Spicer, our own former MLS Star!

Darren is a Southern California native and second-year student at Booth pursuing concentrations in finance and strategic management. He studied international politics and captained the varsity soccer team at Princeton before getting drafted by Chivas USA in Major League Soccer. He then went on to play professional soccer for five years across the US and Germany. And yes, he played against David Beckham. Before Booth Darren also coached youth soccer and coordinated camps in Southern California for Slammers FC, one of the top youth clubs in the country. This summer, he is interning with The Cambridge Group in Chicago, doing growth strategy consulting. He also loves to surf, snowboard, bike, bike, hike, and golf, and he's never met a spicy curry that he didn't like.

Next up, Jatin Jindal brings an enviable startup experience to the table...

Jatin is pursuing a summer internship at Amazon Web Services as a Product Manager. Prior to business school, he worked with multiple startups in several roles. He started Hellointern.com with some classmates as an undergrad and later sold it to Angaros Group in 2012. He also worked briefly in 2013 for a startup in cab service space - Bookmycab. Prior to that, Jatin worked in the Investment Banking Department of Credit Suisse from 2009 to 2013, advising clients engaged in oil & gas sector on raising capital as well as M&A transactions. He obtained a Bachelors of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

In his free time, Jatin loves to read books and go on short hiking trips. He is also passionate about Arsenal FC, and has been supporting them for more than a decade now!

Favorite Booth memory: traveling with my Booth classmates to different places like Fiji, Mexico and Florida. He is looking forward to another amazing year at Booth and many more such trips!

The editor of Chibus, our school's renowned newspaper, is also part of our group. Meet Tyler Kearn!,

Tyler is a rising second year Booth student and co-chair of the Chicago Business newspaper (chibus.com) and the Family Enterprise group. Prior to Booth, he worked for COIT Services, a nationwide specialty cleaning and restoration company, as well as CBS Interactive and the San Francisco Giants (Go Giants!). His interests and hobbies include hiking, travel, skiing, and movies (including “bad” movies – movies so bad, they’re good).  

Finally, and last but not least, we have Suzi Singh!, 

Suzi has a PHD in psychology and will be certainly psychoanalyzing the entire Booth community in her posts!

Suzi is a first year student at Booth pursuing a concentration in marketing management. She earned her bachelor's degree from the College of William and Mary and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Prior to Booth, she was an assistant professor in an addiction studies program. This summer, she is a marketing intern at Campbell's Soup Company in Philadelphia. 

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Favorite Booth Memory: singing karaoke with friends at the LEAD retreat!

That’s it! We’ve introduced all 9 members of our team: Linda, Edward, Craig, Ignacio, Alex, Darren, Jatin, Tyler and Suzi

Once again, we are looking forward to sharing our experiences with you. We hope to give you valuable information and insights that can help you see another side of Chicago Booth.

Cheers for a wonderful year to come!

The Booth Experience Team

Meet the new “THE BOOTH EXPERIENCE” Team (Post 1 of 2)

Hurrayy!!,

We are very happy to introduce the new “The Booth Experience” Team. We are 9 second year Boothies who will be posting content throughout the summer and the rest of the academic year to keep you up to date with the latest about life at Booth.

From where to live, to the best coffee shops in Chicago and the coolest places to go on a date, you’ll hear from us on a regular basis to give you an insider’s perspective on what it’s really like to go to Booth to pursue your MBA.
We are very excited to share our experience with all of you and look forward to hearing your questions, comments, feedback, ideas, etc.

Without further ado (drumroll), meet five members of our team (we shall introduce the rest in a post next week)

By way of Boston, MA we have…Linda Yan!

After four years in finance, Linda decided it was time for a change. She came to Booth looking to round out her knowledge base, make friends, and test out different career options. She's at consulting firm A.T. Kearney for the summer, working on a project for a F500 financial services firm. In her spare time, Linda enjoys working on her first poetry collection, trying all sorts of new whiskeys and defending her title of World Krav Maga Champion!

Favorite Booth memory: Hiking the Inca Trail during Spring Break with twenty-five awesome Boothies and their partners

Next, we have Edward McDonald, the most interesting man at Booth without a doubt:

Computer Science and Information Systems Engineering at West Point? Check.

Film School (Master of Fine Arts-Tisch School of the Arts)? Check.

Runner-Up as the Most Eligible Bachelor in Colorado according to Cosmopolitan Magazine? Check.

Edward has it all!

In addition to all his accomplishments, he is pursuing concentrations in finance, accounting and entrepreneurship. Prior to business school, Edward worked for three years as an officer in the US Army, two years at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, two years at CBS Corporation and three years as an independent film producer in NYC. This summer he is interning at Deutsche Bank in New York City, working in their Leverage Finance and Health Care groups. Next year he will spend the winter quarter abroad studying at IESE in Barcelona Spain!

Favorite Booth memory: Raging in Hong Kong during a 9-hour Random Walk layover between Phuket, Thailand and Chicago with 17 random Boothies who became some of my closest friends.

With our first international representative we have Ignacio Vinke! He likes to hike, take pictures and managed to watch every game of the World Cup during his internship! At Booth, he is pursuing concentrations in Finance, Economics and Strategic Management. He studied Production Engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, worked in marketing for three years and then opened Frigo, a healthy restaurant startup. At Booth, Ignacio serves as co-chair of BoothTech and Photobooth. This summer, he will be interning with Dish Network in Denver, Colorado where he is avidly training to run the Chicago Marathon in October (altitude training they say, harder than it looks).

Favorite Booth memory: Almost beating the Chilean team in the intramural soccer league! (They are very good)

Next up, we have Craig Carter!  Proud father of three, he is one of our brightest second years and is not only hoping to get concentrations in statistics and econometrics, finance, and operations, but also to do so while being the most amazing dad. Prior to Booth, he worked in corporate finance for the largest US freight railroad and is currently interning in the controller’s organization for a large oil and gas company. Beyond Booth, Craig loves exploring Chicago with his family (especially getting out along Lake Michigan) and is quite excited to be running the Chicago Marathon this October as well. Be sure to cheer for him and Ignacio if you come to Chicago next October.

Finally, our last introduction for this week, we have the amazing Alex Simon:

Alex loves to run, visit the latest Chicago festivals and all the new restaurants that open throughout the city. After going through the undergraduate program at U of C, he thought he was completely prepared for what the Booth experience would be, but couldn’t have been more wrong. What surprises him the most about the school is the number of students volunteering to help out their classmates or the different school groups in any way they can.

Favorite Booth memory: the winter formal at the Field Museum (you can party with Sue, one of the largest complete dinosaur fossils ever found).

Over the next year, we hope to answer as many questions as we can from all of you and post interesting content that can be helpful as you go through the process of trying to decide what school is best for you.

Cheers!

The Booth Experience Team.

The Importance of Leadership Opportunities at Booth

In my first two posts I wrote about the diverse academic and professional opportunities available to Booth students and discussed the work of the Graduate Business Council (GBC), Booth’s student government. In this post I explore the long-term professional value of leadership positions.

Donnie Phillips, President, Graduate Business Council

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Looking back on my year as GBC President, I am very proud of the accomplishments of the 45 GBC members I work with closely. We have, among other things, institutionalized new cohort programming, facilitated more robust relationships with alumni, successfully advocated for technology upgrades, and made the GBC more accessible to the student body.

However, upon deeper reflection, there were more important, long-term lessons I learned during my term. Here are three examples:

1. Teamwork: In contrast to my first job in investment banking, where the focus was often on individual achievement (even in team-based settings), in my post-Booth jobs, I will be judged by the successes of the teams I manage. I view my GBC work as a successful “pilot” – it was the first time I was truly responsible for a large group’s output – and I believe it has increased my readiness for professional management.



2. Learning to Surrender: While I used to judge my success by the quantity and quality of my accomplishments, this position has taught me that it is harder, but more important, to sometimes say “no.” Whether it is empowering others rather than doing something on my own (i.e., saying “no” to myself) or convincing someone else that their idea is not feasible (i.e., saying “no” to others), these are hard conversations to have. It’s important, however, to start having them in a low-risk environment like Booth.
   
   
3. Motivation/Persuasion: As President, there are many different constituencies I work with directly and indirectly including five other executive board members, 40 GBC reps, 1,150 MBA students, 205 faculty, 450 staff members, and Booth as an institution. Getting multiple constituencies on the same page is not always a straightforward undertaking but learning how to appeal to their varying interests has been a very rewarding lesson.

While this story is my own, I believe there are wide applications to the myriad of other positions available to students, with similar experiential leadership lessons. Some examples:

Admissions Fellows - Learning to Build a Team: How to hire properly and form a stellar team is not something taught on the job. How do you assess numerous people on dozens of subjective and objective characteristics, many of whom are quite qualified in different ways? By reviewing applications and interviewing candidates, Admissions Fellows play a crucial role in shaping each new class and, through that process, are able to learn richer skills.

Club Co-Chairs - Running a Small Business: Members of Booth’s 75 clubs, especially those of the professional groups, are very much like customers; they pay annual membership dues and have high expectations for the lunch ‘n learns, conferences, and career training the groups provide. Additionally, most clubs raise money from corporate partners, which can be akin to fundraising from an outside investor.

Career Advisors - Tactical Mentoring Career Advisors are a group of 40 second-years who help first-year students navigate the recruiting process and advise them on everything from writing cover letters to networking. While traditional mentors are often very senior professionals, these students are able to give actionable advice to other students and aid them in their job search.

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Harry Davis, one of the most popular and longest-tenured Booth professors - this will be his 50th year as a faculty member! -, wrote an oft-cited paper on management education when he was Booth’s Deputy Dean of MBA Programs. He wrote:

“Business schools enjoy advantages in three areas that are critical to learning from experience: experimentation, feedback, and practice. Schools can function as laboratories in which students experiment and practice action and insight skills without downside risk to their careers. In addition, fellow students, faculty, and staff can provide frequent feedback, untainted by the personal or political factors within an organization. Finally, an educational setting provides time and opportunities that are difficult to find in a job: To practice skills explicitly, to reflect on levels of achievement, and to spend time remedying deficiencies that would be difficult to examine in actual job settings.”

Looking back on my year as Student Body President, these comments resonate with me deeply. While successfully executing on various initiatives was important, the bigger lessons related to what I learned about my leadership style, the management skills I have experimented with and refined, and the feedback and guidance I have received from the dozens of people I have worked with closely. Most importantly, I am glad to have gone through this experience at Booth - in a low-risk environment - rather than in the “real world.”

As prospective students, you should think about what areas of your leadership style you want to work on while in school and seek out opportunities accordingly. So ask yourself, “What do I want from my Booth experience outside the classroom?”