MBA Voices: Don’t Let Your MBA Cost You Your Relationships

One of the main points of getting your MBA is the network, right?

You’ll meet all these incredible people, build lifelong friendships, and develop professional connections that can change your life. But in the process of building all these new relationships, you don’t want to forget the ones you already have.

While you’re busy networking with your future CEO friends, your actual best friend of 10 years is probably wondering why you haven’t texted her back in four days. I know because I’ve replied to a text or two a week too late.

We know business school can be a LOT, especially during that first semester. Between classes, exams, recruiting, networking, group projects, and finding time to sleep, it becomes very easy to neglect your longtime friends in the moment.

I’m currently in my second year at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that maintaining your relationships during your MBA requires a lot more intention than you might expect.

You’ll hear this a lot, but intentionality is going to become a recurring theme throughout your business school experience.

YOUR FRIENDS BACK HOME STILL EXIST

During your MBA, you’ll become inseparable from your classmates. It’s really easy to build relationships this way. You basically spend every hour together. You’re in class together, studying together, going to happy hours together, stressing over recruiting together, and occasionally trauma-bonding over an exam that none of you felt prepared for.

There’s also something unique about being surrounded by people going through the exact same transition you are. You share a lot of the same goals, fears, excitement, and uncertainty. You can talk to them about your consulting case interviews because they just ‘get it’.  When recruiting is rough, and you’re refreshing your email 20 times a day to see if you got the offer, they understand why. That creates closeness very quickly.

But while you’re building this new MBA family, you have to make sure the people from home don’t feel like they’ve been replaced by your new fancy business school friends.

I had one of my friends tell me that she felt neglected, and that forced me to pause. From my perspective, I was just busy. But from hers, I had stopped showing up the way I used to do.

It is incredibly easy to maintain your business school friendships because they are always in your face. Your longtime friends might live across the country. You might not see them for months at a time and that distance means you have to be much more deliberate about staying connected.

Sometimes I’ll send a simple “I was thinking about you, how are you?” text when someone crosses my mind. If I know a friend has something important happening, I try to actually follow up on it instead of relying on them to bring it up again. I invite them to all of my hangouts. When I know I’m going back home, I try to make plans before I arrive so they know I planned with them in mind.

Those are small things, but they remind people that you still care about them.

THEN THERE’S YOUR LOVE LIFE

My husband and I decided to pursue our MBAs at the same time. He graduated from Goizueta’s one-year program this year, which meant there was a period when we were both in school together. So yes, there was always an exam to study for, a project to finish, or events to attend. Add the fact that we were both working while in school – some weeks we barely saw each other.

You would think going through business school at the same time would make things easier for us. In some ways, it did…but it still took a toll on our relationship. There were nights when I would come home exhausted and go straight to bed without saying a word to him. We both understood that this was temporary, but it did not always feel good.

So we had to get intentional about spending time together. We initiated Sunday morning walks on the Beltline. Just two of us – and a 4-mile walk to clear our heads. We talked about everything from our classes to our goals to what our future would look like.

We set date nights. We always made it a mission to try a new restaurant or random activity I saw on TikTok. The point wasn’t necessarily what we did. We wanted to create time where we were just Ornella and Oseremi again, not two MBA students comparing calendars and complaining about professors.

We also learned that staying connected doesn’t only happen on date night. Sometimes, it was just checking in during a stressful day. One thing he always asked me when he saw I was stressed was, “What can I take off your plate?”. That meant the world to me because it meant he saw me. The small gestures mattered just as much as the scheduled nights out.

Before starting business school, I had heard about the breakups that supposedly happen right before Thanksgiving. There’s even a term for it: The “Turkey Drop.” Apparently, by the time fall rolls around, the excitement of starting your MBA has worn off, everyone is stressed, and some relationships simply don’t make it through the transition.

I was very determined for that not to be us, and I don’t want that to be you either, which is why I think it’s important to have the serious conversations before school starts. You should ask each other: What will quality time look like? What happens during the really demanding weeks? And how will you make sure we’re still showing up for each other?

Because yes, your MBA is important. But so is your relationship.

DON’T PUT YOUR PEOPLE ON THE SHELF FOR 2 YEARS

Overall, the people in your life before school deserve to be a part of your future too. They deserve to be cared for even as you are in this new season. They supported you before you entered school. They listened to you stress about essay deadlines and played admissions committee during your mock interviews. They cheered when you got accepted into your top choices, so they should be a part of MBA journey too.

They were part of the journey before Orientation Week. Your MBA is going to introduce you to incredible people but remember that relationships – old and new – require maintenance.

Sometimes that means scheduling date night. Sometimes it means calling your friend back quickly. Sometimes it means saying no to one more networking event because someone you love needs you more. There will always be another happy hour, but there may not always be another chance to show up for the people who helped you get here.

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Ornella Adekoye is an MBA student at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and founder of The Fortune Foundry, a financial planning company helping young professionals build wealth, pay off debt, and take control of their money. She is currently studying abroad at the Nova School of Business in Lisbon, Portugal.

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