Hello, future MBA students! My name is Kelly Riddle and I am a first-year full time MBA candidate at UCLA Anderson. When I was researching schools, I turned to many blogs to try to get a sense of what daily life was actually like for students, so hopefully I will be able to provide some insight on this front in upcoming posts. As an introductory post, I will provide some background on me: I am an aspiring entrepreneur in the financial services sector and plan to actively participate in the Entrepreneur Association and the Investment Finance Association. I am also a California girl, through and through. I grew up in Southern California, went to undergraduate school in Northridge, California, lived and worked in Los Angeles for the past three years and now I’m at Anderson. I didn’t necessarily plan things this way, but now that I’m here for at least another two years, I can tell you that I couldn’t be happier.
It’s not just because I love California. Being a student at Anderson has already proven to be a good decision and an experience I will never forget. During the past five weeks I have won the coveted Section Cup with my class section, joined six student clubs, participated in an enlightening speaker series with Dean Judy Olian, stayed up until 2:30 AM writing up a marketing case, seen more free beer than I ever have in my life, and much more. Business school is extremely challenging and no doubt exhausting with regard to schoolwork and career-searching, but if you do it right, it’s a lot of fun too. When your inbox is flooded with club events, recruiting opportunities, and homework assignments it can be daunting, but as someone who is just getting used to all of it I can tell you, it is possible to balance it all once you prioritize. And when you do figure out this balance, you will find that the resources at Anderson provide you with more opportunities than you could imagine to accomplish all of your goals and have fun at the same time.
I will delve a little more into those resources at a later time. For now, it is Friday, and while technically there is no class for first year students, I am headed to campus for a statistics review session and to do some studying in the library. Once that’s done I can get ready for the social event we have planned for this evening. I look forward to updating you on my business school life!
-Kelly
