Business School – home away from home

I got back to Chicago (my hometown) last night and am currently waiting for the rest of my family to get ready as we are about to go on a short roadtrip...which is why I have to miss today's Harvard-Yale game in Boston. This gives me just enough time to blog a little about my business school experiences so far.

The first few weeks were mostly dominated by moving in, trying to learn the new area, and going through orientation activities. Moving was a pain, Yale's campus is absolutely wonderful, and orientation was great. We did a bunch of activities to break the ice with our new classmates and I also got to meet my 4 and 8-person learning team, my designated team for group projects and presentations for this year. I love my team - everyone is smart, nice, easy-going, and diverse (every single person did something completely different prior to coming to business school). The first few weeks were also a bit nerve-wrecking; it takes me a little bit of time to warm up to people, so I felt like I was a bit slow on the friend-making department while everyone around me was already becoming best buddies. I have always been academically-focused, so I had a tendency to stay in to study rather than go out and socialize, and that only added to what we call FOMO - fear of missing out. The first few weeks, heck the first month-and-a-half, I worried about whether I would ever fit in.

Fast-forward two months to present day. The academic arena went well for me; I picked up a couple of academic distinctions and was also asked to be a TA for next year economics class. The social area...has also been going well, actually; I've made so many friends here now that business school, that Yale, feels like a home away from home. Everyone here is nice, collaborative, and intellectually curious - all things I had hoped to see in business school and at Yale. As I became more involved with in-school and out-of-school activities, I had more chances to make new friends, and made friends I did. There was nothing forced about it, either. I took things at my own pace, and things simply grew organically from there. So to all of you who are like me and have FOMO, do not worry about it (that or talk to me and I will try to ease that worry).

All that being said, though, business school is also very tough in many ways. But, I have to head off on my road trip now, so I will blog about that in my next post.