From the Assistant Dean for Admissions: Beyond the Classroom

The MBA is to a large extent an academic program. What you learn in the classroom forms the basis for a lifetime of leadership. Unlike many other graduate and professional programs, however, business school contains a fully developed set of opportunities outside the classroom—social, professional, cultural, and otherwise—that not only complements the academic experience but also, in many ways, elevates it.

Being a club leader is one opportunity for students to test and practice their classroom learning in a real-life setting. This is the case throughout the year, but it seems especially so in the spring, which has an extremely high density of conferences and other opportunities to connect to the community. In the past and coming weeks, for example, I count at least six student-led conferences, across a range of areas, that attract students and professionals from around the country: the Yale Philanthropy Conference, the Innovation Summit, the Believers in Business Conference, the Education Leadership Conference, the Yale Healthcare Conference, and the Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference.

Other students have exercised their creativity and leadership skills through activities like the recent Trash Bash, Women in Management Week, the Garstka Cup hockey game between the first- and second-years, and the upcoming Internship Fund Auction, which raises money for students pursuing summer internships in the nonprofit and public sectors.

Each of these activities and the many others that take place throughout the year highlight the robustness of the student-driven community here at Yale SOM—and the degree to which what happens outside of the classroom reinforces and amplifies what happens inside it.