Radio Free Rotman: Lessons From An MBA Student Without A Business Background

14 different courses, 10 final exams, just as many midterms, an array of group projects, and a couple of 10-page final papers, for good measure.

All that in the span of about eight months.

That’s the kind of jam-packed academic schedule you can expect in your first year as a full-time MBA student at the Rotman School of Management. Speaking as someone who only just came out the other side of it, I can say with confidence: the workload is no joke.

And yet, I, a journalist with an undergraduate degree in English Literature, survived. At times, I even thrived. Well, at least at times – and especially toward the end of the year, once I got a handle on how to study for quant-heavy courses and understood the general expectations for MBA deliverables.

I only wish I had learned those lessons sooner. So, to help others coming into Rotman without a business background, here is what I have learned, lessons that saved me time, stress, and energy – and might do the same for you.

KICKING IT QUANTITATIVE, OR ‘HOW I LEARNED TO DEAL WITH NUMBERS’

Let me be honest: aside from prepping for the GMAT, I had not touched math since high school. I have always been a reading-and-writing person, and I tailored my academic path accordingly. But that changed the moment I stepped into my first term at Rotman.

Suddenly, I was knee-deep in formulas, financial statements, and mathematical models. I knew it was part of the MBA experience, but I was not ready for how fast everything moved. Six-week courses fly by, and the expectation is that you keep up. That is easier said than done when you are grappling with unfamiliar content.

Here is the biggest thing I learned: do not fall behind.

You probably already know that. So, did I. But the real challenge was understanding how to keep pace with mostly quantitative content.

In my undergrad and journalism programs, homework meant reading. A lot of it, but still, just reading. I assumed the same would work for business school. I was wrong. You cannot simply read about a finance formula and expect to apply it under exam pressure. You have to practice. A lot. Until it becomes second nature.

The breakthrough came when I realized that doing practice problems after each class, not just before the exam, was essential, especially for someone like me without a quant-heavy background. At first, I treated problem sets the way I used to treat reading assignments: skim through the material, absorb the general concept, and move on. But that approach did not translate.

I vividly remember sitting in the library a few days before my first finance final, staring at a practice exam, and realizing I did not know how to start half the questions, even though I had read every chapter of the assigned textbook. That moment of panic was humbling. It taught me that understanding the theory was not enough. You need to apply it again and again until it becomes second nature. Whether it was building breakeven charts in Excel, calculating WACC from scratch, or memorizing how to spot common accounting errors, the repetition gave me a deeper fluency.

Lesson learned: start practicing early and often. Not just so you can pass, but so you are not white knuckling your way through every test.

USE ALL THE RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO YOU

Not everyone in the MBA program is a former engineer or finance professional. Plenty of students come from humanities or creative backgrounds. Rotman recognizes this and, thankfully, the school offers an abundance of resources to help bridge the gap.

The first one I tapped into was the pre-orientation Math Bootcamp, a crash course in the finance, accounting, and business math concepts that would soon dominate the curriculum. It was a lifesaver. I was not starting from scratch when term one began, and it was comforting to see others in the same boat.

Even with a pre-program quantitative orientation, if you are coming in with limited exposure to business fundamentals like I did, here’s what I would recommend. Brush up on basic finance, accounting and statistics fundamentals, however you can, through YouTube videos, podcasts, or online articles. Every bit helps.

You don’t even need to necessarily “learn” a bunch of concepts, just familiarize yourself with the language. I really wish I had taken a bit of time to learn basic business-related terminology that crops up across courses. These include EBITDA, gross margin, and price-to-earnings ratios, for example. Instructors rarely take the time to go through the basics (unless you ask, which you should if you’re unfamiliar) so lay a decent foundation before you head into class.

Once the year starts, you will have access to core course tutors, second-year students who run weekly review sessions for just about every subject. These sessions, often recorded for on-demand viewing, are a lifesaver. They will walk you through past exams and help reinforce content in a more approachable way.

You can also request small group tutoring through the Office of Student Engagement. I did not make use of this early on because I was used to going it alone. That was a mistake. Do not let pride or fear of asking for help get in your way. If you are struggling, speak up.

And yes, generative AI like ChatGPT became one of my secret weapons. At first, I thought tools like that were just shortcuts, for people too lazy to write an email. But, when used correctly, AI tools are powerful learning aids. Getting a step-by-step explanation of a problem or a concept in plain language helped immensely. Just do not rely on AI to do the work. Use it to learn the work. Remember, most exams are still pen and paper.

GETTING OVER THE BIGGEST HURDLE: MY MINDSET

The biggest obstacle I faced was not any one course. It was the narrative I told myself: “I’m not a math person.”

Looking at my first few balance sheets and income statements, I felt overwhelmed. I convinced myself I was not cut out for this, and sometimes I gave up before I even started. Unsurprisingly, that led to some tough early exams.

What turned things around was not a magic formula. It was exposure. The more I practiced, the more comfortable I became. Slowly, that negative internal dialogue faded. Eventually, I realized that solving these problems was not so different from solving a puzzle, which I have always enjoyed.

Accounting was my personal case study in mindset shift. In term one, I dreaded Financial Accounting. Just seeing those gigantic numbers (wait, how many 000’s do I add to the end of that figure?) made me internally clench. But by term four, I actually enjoyed Managerial Accounting. What changed? I stopped being stressed at the simple sight of large numbers. I started to see the data as part of a story, something familiar to me as a journalist. That reframing made it fun.

The midterm group assignment for my Managerial Accounting course is a great example. As part of a four-person team, we were tasked with analyzing the operations of a children’s daycare centre and offer recommendations for future improvements.

The assignment was broken up into four chunks, with the first three being more quantitative in nature. I’m not ashamed to say I relied on my teammates for the first three sections while helping where I could, like double-checking calculations.

The final element of the assignment, a written “executive summary” outlining our strategy, is where I was able to shine. With my newly-found familiarity with numbers, I was able to understand the core quantitative elements of my team’s findings and use my writing skills to create a narrative out of the numbers.  We got a nearly perfect score on the assignment, so I can confidently say qualitative abilities are an asset on even accounting assignments!

QUALITATIVE DIFFERENCES TO EXPECT

Given my background, I assumed I would cruise through writing assignments. I was wrong, at least initially.

In journalism, the reader is your focus. You craft stories with a clear voice and structure. I carried that over to my first few MBA assignments, thinking it would earn top marks. It did not. I was used to writing local news, for the general public. I wasn’t writing to my new audience of business professionals and academics.

Business writing has its own conventions. Professors are not looking for lyrical prose or layered arguments. They want clarity, brevity, and structure. Think slide decks, not essays. Subheadings, bullet points, diagrams: these are your friends. One professor even noted on my first submission that it “read more like a story than a business brief.” Point taken.

Context is important to understanding why this is the case, something that was lost to me early on in my first year. Business leaders don’t have a lot of time. A manager or CEO needs to have the most important bits of information presented to them quickly, without the need to sift through unnecessary details. Don’t waste your time or your boss’s time (or, in this case, your professor’s) by writing more than you need to do.

The key is writing to the rubric. Focus less on originality and more on clearly applying course content. If you are writing a paper, use the writing tutors Rotman offers; they are there to help you hit the mark.

THE BIGGEST RESOURCE IS YOUR COHORT

I have always preferred solo studying. But over the course of my first year, I came to see just how valuable it is to learn with, and from, your peers.

Rotman’s cohort is made up of students from all kinds of backgrounds. That means someone in your class might find accounting a breeze but struggle with writing – and vice versa. Lean into that diversity. Share knowledge. Ask questions. Offer help.

At first, I hesitated. I did not want to admit when I did not understand something. But I quickly realized that more than a few people were in the same boat, and no one was keeping score. The more I opened up, the more I benefited.

Rotman makes this easy with academic teams, pre-assigned groups for most of your core projects. These teams are usually made up of members with a mix of different skillsets, by design. If you’re not a super quant-minded person like me, you’ll probably have a numbers person on your team, and you can leverage each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

A great example of this came towards the end of the year with an Operations Management project that focused on designing the most efficient washroom layout for a sports stadium. It was by far one of the most quantitative challenges I faced at Rotman, packed with complex formulas and queueing models.

What set the project apart, however, wasn’t just the calculations, it was how it incorporated social considerations, like ensuring fairness for gender-diverse patrons and improving overall customer satisfaction. This is where I found my footing. Drawing on my experience as a reporter covering equity issues, I helped our team craft recommendations that balanced the analytics with the human element.

I also played a key role in writing up our findings in a clear, persuasive way, ensuring that the story behind the numbers came through. Much like in my managerial accounting assignment, I was able to bridge the gap between data and argument, showing that even in highly quantitative work, communication and perspective can add real value.

Do not just see your team members as project partners, see them as learning allies. And that sentiment extends to the entire cohort. You are not doing this alone, and you do not have to. That sense of community is one of the best parts of the Rotman experience.

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Michael D’Alimonte is a former Canadian journalist with experience working in radio, television and digital publications. He has a master in Journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University and is currently pursuing his MBA at the Rotman School of Management. He is currently exploring career opportunities in communications, marketing and strategy.