The London Business School Admits Weekend officially kicked off on Saturday morning with registrations and breakfast. We received a carry bag, name tags, schedules and an MBA2018 tee at registration. Unusually, breakfast was provided in little brown paper bags which reminded me of old-school packed lunches. Naturally, breakfast was also a socialising affair and a chance to meet more new classmates, some of whom had only flown in the night before, skipping the optional Friday night reception I mentioned in my previous post.
Breakfast led to welcome speeches by several key personnel and introductions to the MBA admissions team and the student ambassadors. We were split into 2 groups with different schedules. My group started with a big Q & A session regarding the MBA Program where some key questions regarding the program were answered - a detailed write up on the various components is to come.
The session was followed by an interesting lecture on the psychology of ethical decision making by Assistant Professor Daniel Effron, who has just about had qualifications from every top ivy league school. The lecture covered his findings from various studies on the concept of good "credits", which then allow people to do the occasional "bad" thing without feeling bad about themselves. For example, allowing participants to show non-prejudice behaviour shortly before resulted in more responses that could be seen as prejudiced. Assistant Professor Daniel Effron is a lecturer for Operational Sciences and I can definitely see myself taking most of the operational science electives.
We then broke for a delicious lunch (my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach there), which was followed by a speed networking session. The concept behind the speed networking session was great with interesting questions to discuss. However with the large number of people all talking simultaneously, I found myself having to yell my conversations. It was also luck that determined whether or not you ended up meeting people whom you'd already met before or not.
After this we had a presentation by the student ambassadors, giving us more insight into the life of an MBA student. The key points I got from the presentation was then I should expect to have a really full calendar, and not to over-commit and take on too much. The fact that you really had to prioritise was emphasized over and over. Definitely good advice as the current students did say that whatever you want to do, the MBA provides opportunities in abundance.
Following this presentation, we broke up into 4 career groups - consulting, finance, entrepreneurship and other, and tech & media. The groups we were assigned to depended on what we'd selected on the registration form for the Admits Weekend. For me this was consulting and entrepreneurship. Unfortunately we only were allowed to attend 2 sessions. The sessions were also run as a Q&A rather than a presentation. It did mean though that the information gathered depended upon your questions and those of your group members. It would have been nice to have this as a combined session so we could have found out what other groups had asked - after all, you don't know what you don't know. Also it would have been nice to be able to attend all 4 sessions. In any case, I'm pretty sure we'll hear lots from career services over the next year.
The career session marked the end of the "information" part of the day - phew! We then headed to The Windsor for more socialising and to use the 2 free drink coupons we were given in the morning. A delicious BBQ in the picturesque LBS lawn was put on for dinner (more socialising and meeting new people). Then it was into the Nash Lounge for the famed Sundowners - free beer, cider and wine. Sundowners happens every Thursday and across all programs - a good chance to...yep, meet more new people :)
The day ended at 11pm, but of course there was an after party - after all, why not prolong the great fun we were having? So I found myself back in The Windsor for more socialising (yelling conversations). I did leave at a very respectable quarter past midnight though since there was still Day 2 to come.
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