Hey prospective MBA students! It was just a year ago that I was in the same boat as you - considering an MBA, researching schools, and tackling the GMAT. Fast forward to today and I can’t believe I've just quit my job and will be starting at UCLA in just 2 months. Ever since I received the admit call, it’s been a whirlwind of emails and events, and school hasn’t even started yet!
But first, a quick into on myself. My name is Jennifer Wu and I’ll be one of the student bloggers for the class of 2017. I was born in the Bay Area, did undergrad at Berkeley, and then worked for the past 4.5 years in San Francisco with the accounting firm KPMG. Like many of my fellow classmates, I decided to go back to business school to do a career switch and felt like business school was the best avenue to make that transition without having to start at the bottom of the corporate ladder again.
Although the application process can be very stressful since you're juggling a full-time job, GMAT prep, writing essays, and getting antsy while reading the GMATClub forums, remember to take a step back to remind yourself why you're putting yourself though this process. It's painful, but afterwards I realized the whole process really allowed me to learn a lot about myself, visualize my long-term career goals, and (roughly) outline a plan to action. I also learned that it's okay to constantly pivot, and even to expect that. As someone wise once said, it's not always the end process, but the journey and process, that matters.
Once you've decided MBA is the path for you, picking the right school is a very crucial decision, so I'll be sharing more of why I chose Anderson in my next post! In the meantime, because a picture says a thousand words, I found the UCLA Flickr page super helpful to show me what my next 2 years could be looking like!
