From the Assistant Dean for Admissions: Charting Your Own Path

A few weeks ago, Yale SOM students left New Haven for summer internships that span the globe. Some of them are working for household names like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, PepsiCo, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, and Proctor & Gamble, and top companies including Bain, McKinsey, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, IBM, and IDEO. But others have chosen more unexpected paths. One student, for example, is doing strategy consulting for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns; another is working for Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles; and a third is working in agribusiness in Kenya. One student is spending the summer working for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in New Delhi, while another is doing business development for Patagonia in San Francisco. Others are spending the summer developing their own startup ventures. The breadth of their collective summer experience reflects the diversity of their talents and passions. 

One of the things we take pride in here at Yale SOM is that graduates ultimately accept jobs in so many industries and across so many sectors. Each year—this year included—I hear from a number of graduating students who have multiple job offers from top employers but are holding out for that one role that is “just right” for them. In short: Yale SOM students are choosy (and very patient!).

Statistics and second-hand anecdotes aside, a personal essay by one of our recent alums illustrates this Yale SOM cultural phenomena: Chris Magalhaes ’14 wrote this week  in  GreenBiz  about why he chose to work at a green bank after graduating from SOM rather than a hedge fund family office. The essay articulates what every Yale SOM student knows: You will have all the same opportunities available to you at Yale as students from every other leading business school in terms of careers in finance, consulting, CPG, technology, and other industries, but you will also have opportunities to do things that are new and different and perhaps not expected. And, most importantly, you will have a community that not only understands but celebrates your decision to take the road less traveled. In short, you will have the freedom to chart your own career path wherever it takes you—and we look forward to seeing where it does!