Doing The Pre-Term Thing At Wharton

The Big Bang

So last Sunday, Pre-term kicked off here at Wharton. I had NO IDEA what I was in for. It’s part power networking, part speed-dating, part bootcamp and part first day of freshman year all over again. One hand, its exhilarating. 850 of the brightest and most accomplished young business people in the world thrown into a common ecosystem to exchange ideas, learn and grow together, form life-lasting bonds and extend the global Wharton network. Former pro athletes, blue bloods, special ops guys and fighter pilots; white house alums, good ole’ boys, near foreign royalty and pretty much everyone from the farm to the penthouse to the projects to Slum Dog Millionaire seems to be represented in one way or another.

On the other hand, it is EXHAUSTING (but fun!). By day 2 my jaws were sore and my tongue weight about 1,000 pounds from the introductions, the shouting in bars and at parties, the laughing and the stimulating (or just drunken?) conversations that seemed to go on and on into the wee hours of the morning. Those who had gone to Wharton before me warned to “get as much done prior to pre-term as you can; you won’t get as much as a box unpacked once it starts”. I now see the wisdom in that advice.  Wharton pre-term will definitely put you on lock down. I feel like an effing refugee sometimes as I’m herded from one workshop to the next with my peers.

Found Out and Put on Blast

By now, who I am and my connection to this blog is far from a secret. While there are still some folks finding out, I’ve been called out on several occasions about being connected. Dr. Kembrel Jones, Deputy Vice Dean of Student Life and a central iconoclast of Wharton culture took a pot shot at my age during his student life presentation a few days ago. I got a kick out of it.

The Wharton AAMBAA and Founders Retreats

A week before the pre-term madness began, Wharton’s African-American MBA Assoc (AAMBAA) had its retreat. While I already had about 20 or so friends and close acquaintances that I had met in LA and/or at admit weekend, AAMBAA provided me with my first big group of friends based around some affinity. In many ways, the AAMBAA group reflects the broader diversity of Wharton itself. The 40-50 or so of us are from nations all around the world and come from a full spectrum of backgrounds both educationally and culturally. Also, I had the honor of being the captain of the team that won the leadership challenge. Each member of my team won a prize from Wharton’s leadership department; additionally, I was able to correctly guess the exact order that the 6 competing teams would end up in. For that reason, I won free admission to go experience Marine-style leadership training at Wharton’s QuanticoLeadership Venture this September.

I would imagine that my next close group will come from the Founders’ Club. My conversations with members of this group earlier this year heavily influenced my decision to choose Wharton over my other 2 options. About a week and a half from now, I’ll be at Wharton’s Founders’ Retreat, an exclusive 1-day boot camp for people in the class who are sold out and serious about starting companies while in school. Attendance is by invitation only and I was fortunate enough to have been one of those who received an invite. The retreat was started just a couple of years ago by Baby.com.br founder and Wharton ’11 alum Davis Smith. I’ve also been pulled into a small, informal group of entrepreneur-minded guys that are all learning how to code together. I look forward to the entrepreneurial connections to be had at Wharton probably more than any others.

Wharton: Where Opportunities Abound

During our pre-term kick-off event (pictured above), one of the speakers made a point about the vast scale and variety of opportunities that are available at Wharton while also being afforded the chance to completely individualize you experience. Truer words  have never been spoken.

Whether your aspirations lie in a particular industry (such as consulting, banking or CPG), experience (i.e. global travel, immersion and exchange programs), research (Wharton has the most productive and decorated faculty of any business school in the world), social (let’s not even go there) this place is brimming with far more opportunities than one person could ever get a chance to experience. I feel as though I could come to Wharton and complete 2-3 MBAs and never had the same awesome extra- or co-curricular experience twice.

My top priority, of course, is to found a startup here. So that will 100% take precedence over any and everything else on the table. Period. After that comes both academics and my work in analytics. I have a meeting tomorrow morning with prof.Peter Fader and some Wharton administrators to discuss a new club centered specifically around analytics. If all goes well, it would be a body that, with the support of Wharton, could provide a space for increased opportunities on and off campus including both internships, full-time employment and startup support for people who are specifically interested in the data space. It’s pretty amazing to be in a place where you can say “hey, I had this wild hair idea to do blah blah blah” and some internationally renown expert in the field–who just happens to be your professors–is like “yeah, let’s do that. In fact, let’s get some muckety mucks on board to see if we can map out a plan to put a few million behind that in the coming years should things go well”. WHAT? Welcome to life at Wharton.

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