Saturday, December 27, 2008

More than an MBA

I decided to end the year with a completely different topic: relationships in the MBA. I guess we all expect to make friends for life in the MBA. A career change and a life experience also come with the territory. But every year, for some people the MBA gives them something else. It seems like every year something like 5% to 10% of the class engages in some kind of romantic relationship. This year was no exception and there were some couples formed, which have resulted in two scheduled weddings for 2009 amongst MBA classmates!

To be honest, it doesn’t surprise me that some couples are former during an MBA. It is a very intense experience where we get to know each other very well. MBAs spend many long hours with each other in group work and doing many different sporting and social activities (already described in this blog) and travelling for holidays or projects.

MBAs usually have many things in common. Most of them are ambitious, hard working, well educated and the MBA admission acts as a filter to create a group that despite being very heterogeneous, it has many values in common. Therefore, relationships during an MBA don’t surprise me at all. In fact, I had heard stories before about MBA sweethearts and seeing couples being formed during the MBA was normal and not surprising.

However, there was something that did surprise me about the couples that were formed: I am part of one of them!

Looking back, I went for the for the MBA completely open minded regarding my career, job location and all those things but quite frankly, the idea of finding a partner never crossed my mind. I was seeking for many things by signing up for an MBA. This wasn’t one of them.
Sometimes we can only find something when we’re not actively seeking.
I’m very happy I found what I wasn’t looking for. I must say this was a great year that changed my life. This whole year was definitely much more than an MBA!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Love the blog- your enthusiasm is encouraging to those of us who aspire to attend JBS.

I was wondering if you could tell us what college you were in, why you chose that college, and where you lived during your time at JBS. If you lived out-of-college, how did you find your residence? Did you bike to school? What percentage of students at JBS live in private acommodations? Can you recommend any good realtors?

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

Hi Richard,

If you lookup for some early posts you'll see some notes on that. I was at Magdalene and didn't choose, it was allocated to me. I lived in private accommodation shared with a couple of fellow MBAs. However, I didn't take care of it so I can't recommend any realtors. And yes...biking is a big part of Cambridge!

Mazhar Hussain said...

Love to see your blog boss.

I am Mazhar form Pakistan, has a wish to do my MBA from cambridge.

Doing a job in a telecom comapnay and studying in the nights for GMAT.

I was looking for such a blog and this will help me a lot.

Thanks for your contribution.