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.

Admit Weekend on the Horizon: Meet your Co-Captains!

Admit Weekend is a terrific opportunity for admitted students to experience life as a Chicago Booth MBA for a weekend. Admits learn about the Booth curriculum, tour Chicago neighborhoods, and have plenty of time to get to know fellow future Booth MBAs.

It takes lots of planning to make this happen, but fortunately we have a huge team of great volunteers. The students involved on the Admit Weekend Planning Committee take a “Co-Captain” role in a specific, key aspect of the Admit Weekend experience, from neighborhood and housing tours to partners’ programming.

Several of our Co-Captains offer reflections on their experiences and discuss why all admitted students should come to Admit Weekend!
--Matt Richman


Mary Cate Waris and Jennifer Phillips
Admit Weekend Squad Leader Co-Captains

We both attended Admit Weekend last year and we had such a great time meeting everyone and learning more about the Booth community that we were excited to be involved in planning and organizing the 2014 events. As the Squad Leader Co-Captains we are responsible for selecting and training the squad leaders (current students who help lead admitted students through the Admit Weekend activities) and for organizing many of the events that you will take part in over the weekend. As you may know, Booth uses a cohort and squad system for the LEAD course that all first year students will take. After LEAD, students take whatever courses they want independent of any cohort; however cohorts and squads still function like your home base throughout your time at Booth. Admit Weekend squads work the same way. The squad and cohort activities of Admit Weekend will give you an opportunity to have fun and get to know both your new classmates and Booth’s current students. We hope that you will enjoy participating in the activities as much as we have enjoyed preparing them. Your Admit Weekend squad will introduce you to many of your closest friends during your time and Booth, as it did for us. We look forward to meeting you soon!

Emma Tan
Partners Co-Captain

Starting business school is an exciting journey for not only us, but also for our partners. While moving to a new city can be hard for a couple, Booth has great resources, such as the Partners Club, and an inviting culture that help make our significant others feel like an integral part of the Booth community. The experience so far at Booth for me and my husband has been wonderful, and I wanted to give back as part of the Admit Weekend team. Working as a co-captain to plan the partner-specific programming is a great opportunity for me and my team to share our experience and help admitted students and partners get ready to make the most of their time at Booth. Through the partner experience panel, we will invite students and their partners to talk about the fun and surprises they had living in the Booth community, offer tips, and answer questions about Chicago. We also planned a Chicago resource fair to create an opportunity for partners to share information, make new friends, and bond with this amazing community at Booth! It has been an incredible experience for us to be part of the Admit Weekend Planning Committee to share our excitement about being at Booth with the incoming class!

Prakriti Mishra
Neighborhood and Housing Tours Co-Captain

I am a former UChicago undergrad, and although I moved to NYC after graduation, I was hesitant about coming to Admit Weekend last year, because I felt like I already "knew" Booth and Chicago. However, I am glad I went against my instincts, and flew out for Admit Weekend. The Booth that I saw at Admit Weekend was vibrant, intelligent, and incredibly fun! In the three days over Admit Weekend, I met my current roommate, talked to 2nd years who got me interested in technology and consulting, and saw the city of Chicago in a completely new light. Now, as a Co-Captain for the Neighborhood and Housing Tours, I hope to provide admitted Booth students with a fun, informative and engaging way to see the city for themselves. We have student hosts and tour guides to take our guests around some of Chicago's most popular neighborhoods, and give them a chance to see some of the apartments that current Boothies live in. I hope many of you will take this opportunity to get to know Chicago, and I look forward to seeing you on a tour around one of Chicago’s many exciting neighborhoods!

Modern Families: Booth's Flexible Cohort System

Chicago Booth has a cohort system which matches our independent and flexible outlook on the MBA experience.  We start off with our cohorts during orientation and our leadership development class in the first few weeks of school, but our flexible curriculum means that we have the opportunity to take the classes we want, with any of the other 1,000+ first- and second-years at Booth.

Jen Tan is a first year MBA student at Booth, and was elected by her peers as president of the Bond Cohort.  Jen is currently the only dual-degree MBA-MSW in both of her programs. Her earlier career includes unicorn hunting (“recruiting”) for the Clinton Foundation and rainmaking (“fundraising”) for Facing History and Ourselves, two non-profits headquartered in her hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Jen is transitioning into healthcare as part of her pursuit of social justice.

Here, she shares her unique perspective on what the Booth cohort experience means to her, but before you get started, she’s just got to say that Bond is the best cohort at Booth of all time. OF. ALL. TIME.

--Matt Richman (Bond Cohort)

For the first decade of my life, I grew up in a house that contained 15 people: my two parents, three brothers, four cousins, and six aunts and uncles. In the years that have followed, the families have moved apart. But my big family, which has only gotten bigger and closer, has provided me with a lifetime of experience in building and maintaining relationships that are as deep and complex as they are diverse and time-tested.

For me, the Booth cohort experience creates that same sense of home for its individual members, much in the way that sharing a house together provides the essential bonding experience by which most families grow together. Booth students are assigned to cohorts which operate primarily during the first two months of school. Students begin orientation together as a cohort by participating in our one required course, Leadership Effectiveness and Development (LEAD) and spending a weekend out-of-state competing against other cohorts in the Leadership Orientation Retreat (LOR), Fall Frolics, and a host of other events offering equal parts delight and aggressive competition (at least, for Bond cohort). Throughout the remainder of the MBA program, the Graduate Business Council (GBC) hosts occasional cohort competitions, trivia nights, or t-shirt days to show cohort spirit.

The Booth cohort experience is unique among business schools. At other programs, cohorts take all of their classes together for part or all of the first year, sometimes in the same assigned seats. At Booth, however, the onus to maintain the cohesion that was initiated at the beginning of the year is largely up to the cohorts themselves. Specifically, it is a responsibility of the cohort president to set the tone for the culture and to help foster the sense of community that each cohort ultimately has. For all of these reasons, I decided to run for president of my cohort, a role that I serve with joy and pride.

Much in the way that one’s family can often feel like a household that has randomly gathered together people who share very little aside from an address and, perhaps, some facial features, the Booth cohort provides students with a space to share with people who are smart, social, and passionate in an infinite combination of ways. But while your cohort is assigned to you and you to your cohort, ultimately, each person is given the choice to determine how much meaning that designation can have. It is an arrangement that provides us with the opportunity to forge deep relationships with people we might not have met otherwise, while also allowing us the freedom to hang out with other people if we choose. As one would expect at Booth, given the similar flexibility provided by the course selection process, students are trusted to learn to the best of their abilities and respected for the choices they make in doing so.

Indeed, the opportunities and challenges that are uniquely presented by the Booth cohort echo the school’s philosophy toward the community it has created: that people can find a social environment in which their individualities are respected and appreciated, and that every person feel encouraged and supported in pursuing whatever it is that makes her/him happy.

Growing up in a large family wasn’t without its challenges. As with any large group, you find variety across interests, personalities, and communication styles. But being able to grow into our individual selves and forge unique relationships with each other in the process is the thing I love most about my large family and the lives we now share, no longer in the same house but now across states and time zones.

The same is true for this school we love: your Booth cohort is the big family that will always welcome you with open arms—all you have to do is reach out.