A major component of this site is a weblog that has had several lives, from its start as a featured MBA applicant/student blog on a separate site to its own presence on the Blogger system and now to its own domain as my personal website.
As you read through the entries, you'll see me go through three distinct phases in my life:
- Pre-MBA experience: Experiences that one typically goes through before matriculating at business school
- Life as an MBA student: Highs and lows of my time as a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in much more detail than most would expect to see
- Post-MBA life...and serving as a career/education/life coach to the masses: Responses to questions emailed to me by readers, where I use what I have learned through my own missteps and experiences to help others achieve their goals and avoid making the same misstepsÂ
My prayers go out to everyone at Virginia Tech
As my long-time readers know, I was born in raised in Virginia and have shouted it out many times on this blog. By now, I'm sure everyone has heard about today's shootings at Virginia Tech, which is being called the largest massacre in American history. According to...
Follow-up on " Moving from academia into management consulting"
This comment was left on yesterday's post and I thought that some of you might find it helpful.--------------Mike wrote:"As a soon-to-be Ph.D. starting at McK in the fall, I thought I'd offer my perspective. APDs at McKinsey attend a three-week "Mini-MBA" course in...
Lending a hand to FreePledge
I just received the following message from one of the founders of FreePledge.com and decided to post it on here to drum up support for their team in an award competition. I'm a big fan of this site and, if you have never heard of it, feel free to check them out and...
Moving from academia into management consulting
The question below is from a reader who is interested in Consulting, but doesn't come from a traditional MBA background. She's got a PhD, which puts her into a whole different candidate category. At my firm, we refer to this group as Advanced Professional Degree (APD)...
"The WOW Factor"
The following is an email that I got a few days ago and it's taken me a while to respond to it because I wasn't sure of how to best do so. This reader is asking about the "WOW factor" of people who get into top business schools and there's really no "right" way to...
"[Making] the switch from being a generalist to a specialist in a preferred field"
I was recently sent an email from a reader who'd hit me up a couple of weeks back. He had a follow-up question to the one I responded to on here, so I thought the response might be helpful to other readers...--------------Sudha wrote:"Dear Marquis,I think you have...
Finding case interview practice partners
I should start this entry off with an apology to the person who sent me the email that I'm about to post. He sent it about a month ago and I've been swamped with my current study, so I haven't been able to post his message with a reply any faster than that. I did send...
Congratulations to my man ForrestGump
Some of you who have been checking out the MBA blog scene for a while may have come across a blog written by a guy with the pen-name "ForrestGump". He's been a reader of mine for a while and he and I have interacted a bit over email, with the common theme that we've...
Picking a business school based on a desired post-MBA employer
What's up, y'all. It's been a busy week because my current study ends on Friday, so I haven't had time to write a whole new entry lately. Instead, I'm going to post an email from a reader and my response to it. I would have posted it earlier, but I didn't know if the...
Getting good recommendations for your Bschool app
A few days ago, I got another email from a reader whose question I posted recently and he hit me with another one that might help folks who are just now deciding whether they plan on applying to Bschool in the 2007-2008 cycle. It involves the stressful task of getting...