“I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” is not just a terrific title to a terrible movie - it might soon become my motto. It appears that maneuvering a successful career transition during my MBA at UCLA Anderson will mean little sleep, especially during the first two quarters. I cannot complain because I was warned that transitioning would require a tremendous amount of work, but I’ll argue that being warned about, say, the imminence of being sucker punched does not dull the pain.
It all started on Tuesday with a 12-day orientation/leadership program. In essence, students spend 9-12 hours a day attending a multitude of leadership workshops and getting acquainted through various group activities, such as improvisation. We then go home to prepare for next day’s lecture, work on a leadership plan, and maybe meet classmates at the pub. So far, the challenge is not so much that it is difficult, but time-consuming. This extravaganza ends when classes begin, and these will be mostly new topics for me: finance, marketing, accounting, economics, data & decisions. Classes amount to 15 hours per week, and I expect I will need to spend another 15-30 hours reading, doing homework, studying, etc.
Classes, however, are only half the story; there is also the work required to market myself and ultimately land a job. Fortunately, Anderson has the resources and the expertise to help me, but obviously I have to do the actual work. So I will be spending a considerable amount of time researching companies, attending corporate presentations, making contacts, etc. It will require impeccable time-management skills to conduct the career, academic, and extracurricular aspects of Anderson’s MBA program concurrently. Thankfully, my brilliant plan is to forgo the minor details of life like sleep, meals and – while I'm at it – personal hygiene...
–Simon
