We Are Wharton MBA Program

Welcome to Wharton. Welcome to the best two years of your life. I start my day with a big cup of coffee. Your day is just so full that you need that energy. You're hour to hour, half hour to half hour going to be really busy here. I walk into each day with a mindset of anticipation and expectation and excitement. And you think you know what your day is going to be like and then something will happen and you'll be completely surprised and you'll end up somewhere so different than where you From the moment I first walked into Huntsman, you could just sense a certain atmosphere, a certain kind of underlying energy. The energy was bouncing off of the walls. It was a great feeling. I just knew I had come home at that point. To see people who were a lot like me coming from the military making a very successful transition to this school was outstanding. I don't think that the people that we meet and work with are part of the Wharton experience actually. I think that they are the Wharton experience. I met amazing people with amazing background, amazing experience that really every day I learn a new lesson from them. That's what's so unique about Wharton. It's diversity of thought. In every class you can speak with people from all over the world. The entire Wharton body is a diverse and global experience. And we all come together and we're sharing our experiences and it kind of enlightens the classroom. In December I'm going to a student-led Columbia track. In March I'm hoping to go to the Japan track. And then in May I'm hoping to go for the China Global Immersion Program. Having an international student body really allows you to have a global perspective. When I talk about the conversations I had about coming to Wharton with alums, I'm really talking about conversations that I had in China. I can speak firsthand about how strong the alumni community is. This network is there for you and wants you to succeed. No matter what business you're going to be in, if you don't truly have a global network, you know, it's going to be more so important for our generation than any other. Classroom experience is challenging but it's also inspiring and invigorating. Every ounce of my brain is completely used. That's the kind of hands-on experience that you don't get in many places. We're actually the first class to go through this new flexible core curriculum and they give you some pretty good flexibility in what you want to focus on. So I get to tailor my core to myself. When I think of Knowledge for Action, I think of Wharton. And I think of doing, not just learning. I think the key thing is not just learning what they teach you, it's being able to apply it to your everyday life. Meeting the architect of the Health Care Reform Act, getting firsthand experience of someone who was there with President Obama at the signing was just absolutely amazing. Wharton's taught me that the best leaders ask questions. I think you come into an environment like this, everyone is at the top level. Working within a team where everyone's hyper motivated is a challenge and yet it's a real reflection of what we'll be doing in the real world. Pretty much everything is student-run. Any clubs that we're involved with, anything on the networking and recruiting side, is all run by the student body. If you want it, every student can have an executive coach. And these are real professional executive coaches. A lot of new ways to stretch yourself, whether it's speaking in front of new people or trying to start a business with some of your classmates or playing rugby, which is where I got this. You're going to have more momentum leaving Wharton than you are ever in your life. Wharton was a place where I would be pushed and challenged to become almost a better version of myself. If you really want to change the world, even in just a small way, Wharton is the platform to do that. After a full day at Wharton, I feel exhausted, yet I have this smile on my face. From 6 a.m. to about 10 p.m., it's go, go, go, go. But you're excited about what tomorrow has to offer. All the different experiences that you have, you kind of don't have time to process them. It's kind of that feeling like when you're a little kid, maybe at the end of like a summer day, you go to bed just absolutely exhausted, but you're incredibly happy about what happened that day, and you can't wait to wake up and do it again.