Speaking of Stern: A Five-Point Plan For First-Year MBAs

Finally, interview preparation will be an overarching theme that cuts across all of your priorities. NYU Stern, for example, provides tons of resources, such as career development offices and professional clubs. You’ll also get more specific advice on how to prepare for specific industries or roles. What I feel is most broadly applicable in preparation is to think about your own learning process to see what you can apply to your interview preparation process. For example, I studied for the GMAT for three months. My approach was to focus on drills in weak areas and do a full exam every two weeks. When I prepared for case interviews, I focused on drills on my weaker areas and then did a full mock case once a week to stay fresh on the cadence.

Overall, focus on building relationships and be authentic to yourself. I was attracted to Stern because of its core value of IQ+EQ. While it sounds cliché, it’s those students who can represent themselves authentically and let their intelligence and personality shine through who tend to be the most successful in the recruiting process.

POINT THREE: EXTRACURRICULARS

Consulting clubs, affinity groups, wine and arts clubs, and more! Case competitions, hackathons, volunteer work, and endless other opportunities! The challenge with extracurricular activities will be deciding what you choose NOT to do. In my first year, I allowed myself to sign up for all of the clubs that I found interesting. However, I was very strategic in only picking two clubs to apply for a board role. This allowed me to know what was going on across all the different organizations without stretching myself thin across dozens of weekly events and programming.

Students clubs are great, but you should go into the role eyes-wide-open. Once you decide to be a board member of a club, you’re signing up for hours of unpaid volunteer work. It’s great for the community, but it’s only as good as your passion to participate and your desire to pay it forward to future classes. So do your future self a favor: rein it in when considering just how good you think that vice president title and second place case competition finish looks on your resume.

By the way, here’s an unpopular opinion: that win in a case competition or your leadership role isn’t really going to get the offer.

My advice here is simple: you can join as many organizations as you want. However I’d suggest getting actively involved in a maximum of two to three organizations. I’d suggest splitting those roles between one professional club and one affinity group or fun club, with one role being a heavier lift and the other role having a light workload.

POINT FOUR: SOCIAL LIFE

Honestly, this part is easy. My friends joked that business school is a two-year vacation where you hang-out, drink with classmates, and travel extensively on weekend and spring-break retreats. Certainly COVID has affected what that will look like in my second year. Still, to some extent, the stereotype is true. In my opinion, the value proposition of an MBA is the network that you gain. These are the future leaders of the world, to be fair! Even in a blended virtual and in-person environment, there will be tons of opportunities to socialize with classmates. I’d even wager that there will be even more this school year as schools are being very intentional in creating as many networking opportunities as possible for students.

Don’t worry too much about making time for your social life. Just work on your mindset of not having FOMO. Social life never ends in business school and it will flow in-between or sometimes even be combined with your other priorities in academics, recruiting, and extracurricular activities.

POINT FIVE: SELF-CARE

Remember how your first year is like drinking from a firehose? There isn’t much to stem the tide of priorities landing on your plate. Thus, it’s important to remember what re-energizes you and keeps you grounded. Build time for those things and then fiercely protect that time. Whatever you need, prioritize that time because all of the career, academic, and social success means nothing if you’re a shell of your former self at the end of the day.

EXTRA-CREDIT: PLAN LIKE A PRO

For those high-achievers out there, there are two additional items that would be great to have in place prior to the start of classes: Get a planner and have a calendar system in place. If you’re working on going paper-free, utilize a digital calendar like Google Calendar or iCal along with a to-do app like Todoist or Any.do that have powerful features. If you remember things better when you have to write them down, get a paper planner with a calendar and weekly or daily pages to track to-do’s on those pages. I’d still recommend a digital back-up if you do go analog. Either way, having a strong calendar system and to-do list in place will pay dividends when you’re deep in November and overwhelmed with assignments, interview preparation, extracurricular activities, coffee chats, and other activities.

Call to action: What’s your five-point plan for your MBA year one experience? Do you have a planner, to-do application, and calendar in place to stay on top of your tasks? Share your plans in the comments below. It’s never too late to figure out what you want and start moving in that direction.

Cortne Edmonds, a native who claims both New York and New Jersey as home, is a second-year MBA candidate at NYU Stern School of Business. Prior to business school, she worked as a general manager in the language services industry for eight years, with experience working in New York, Japan, South Korea, and Israel. After school, she will be working in management consulting. Each month, she offers her advice and perspective for prospective and current students looking to maximize their MBA experience.

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