Back to MBA blog homepage
View from the office, downtown Chicago
When considering whether or not to embark on an MBA, one of my initial considerations was: how much more could I learn about “business” in a classroom compared with on-the-job experience?
There were two key aspects to the One-Year Kellogg MBA programme that tipped the decision towards the MBA.
First, and the most obvious, was the fact that I could graduate in a year and have almost complete flexibility to focus on the areas most important to my personal development.
The second aspect was the emphasis at Kellogg on providing experiential learning opportunities, which allow students to gain practical experience to enrich their classroom learnings.
At Kellogg a “learning by doing” component is built into almost all courses. In fact, students can choose from more than 850 experiential learning activities at Kellogg, as well as many courses that are entirely experiential. Student typically choose to take advantage of a number of these courses during their time at the school.
This term I am taking the “Buyout Lab”, which is led by Prof David Stowell. This course connects students with private equity firms. Students then work directly with the private equity firm for a 10-week term, one or two days each week. I have been working with Frontenac Company, which is based in downtown Chicago.
During my time at Frontenac, it is clear they are keen to make it as useful a learning experience for me as possible. On my first day, Walter Florence, managing director at Frontenac and Kellogg alumnus, discussed with me what areas I wanted to focus on during my short time there.
As a result, I have been focusing on sourcing and evaluating potential deals, spending most of my time working on a live inititiative they have with a CEO partner.
This experience is certainly providing a valuable dimension to my learning experience at Kellogg. Such experiences are not substitutes for my class in private equity and venture capital investing, for example. Instead, they complement one another by providing a sense of context and application to what is being taught in the classroom.
Tags: Experiential learning
Cezanne Maherali
Rahul Bajaj
Nathan Lang
Beth Bremner
Seda Saracer
Gleana Albritton
Aswini Anburajan
Kane Cuenant
Sarah Guthrie