Full Time MBA

One of the key traits of successful business schools is how they encourage and support students in attending networking events. Fisher’s Office of Career Management and the MBA Student Council encouraged us to take part in these opportunities. My experience took me from the Ohio Union to Los Angeles for the National Black MBA Conference, then back to Columbus for a Columbus Chamber event at the Power Point. Here are my key takeaways from these three events:

Coming into my second year, I thought I knew exactly what kind of classes I belonged in. My background is in operations, I have spent a long time thinking in terms of processes, efficiency, and systems. So when I saw a course called New Product Management (Taught by Prof. Scott Griffin) on the list of electives, my first instinct was to scroll right past it. It sounded like marketing. It sounded like conceptualizing and envisioning and commercializing, words that felt completely foreign to how I was used to thinking. I was fairly convinced I would be utterly out of my depth.

Last year, I attended the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Conference in Houston as an MBA student focused largely on recruiting. I was thinking about which companies to meet, how to perfect my elevator pitch, and how to turn conversations with recruiters into opportunities. It was a mentally and physically draining experience, largely because I was not prepared for the sheer number of companies and students who would be at the conference. This year, I returned to NBMBAA in Los Angeles with a different perspective.

Before starting my MBA, I had already had some exposure to consulting-style work through pro bono projects. I enjoyed working with organizations, understanding their problems, and developing recommendations. But this summer, during my internship at stradajī, I experienced something different: I was able to work almost like a consultant inside a real business.

This summer, I had the opportunity to intern with a global consulting firm, based out of their Boston office. The internship started toward the end of May and ran through July 31st, and looking back now, those ten weeks feel like they packed in a year's worth of learning and living.

When I started my MBA, if you had told me I would spend this summer falling in love with treasury, I would have laughed. Coming into the MBA, I wanted a role that merged my accounting background, capital markets experience (especially derivatives), and strategy, but treasury never came to mind, and it wasn't a typical, traditional MBA pathway either. My internship this summer in Controllership and Treasury Transformation at Deloitte Consulting changed that.

One of the newest initiatives from the graduate programs at Fisher College of Business is Advantage Columbus and the name fits. Designed to elevate the student experience through exclusive company visits across Columbus, the program offers something rare: direct access to industry leaders, operating environments, and real-world business challenges beyond the classroom.