A Touch of Class by Cody Morris. A bi-weekly look at the McCombs School experience.

April 18, 2001
Earning an MBA...
(through the eyes of an undergrad)

T.J. Harais, MBA 97, describes the life of an undergraduate as “eat, drink, sleep, drink, work, drink, study, drink, and party.” As an experienced undergraduate, I’d like to think most of us are more complex, but I see Harais’ point—undergraduates may do a lot of work, but we’re often just as busy having a ton of fun as we plod through four years of endless exams, papers, and presentations.

What about our older graduate student counterparts? What do they make of life at the University?

“I try to treat school like a job,” says Thomas Bachner, MBA 01. “I get here at seven and go home at six, when possible. I’m in the atrium by 7:15, and the first thing I do is have coffee.”

Unbelievable. In my last semester here, it pains me to stumble out of bed at nine and out of my West Campus apartment by 9:15 to make it to my 9:30 class in the communication building.

After speaking to a half-dozen MBA students, I’ve come to conclude that their lives are demanding, time-consuming, and likely to be studious ones of poor eating habits, intellectual growth, and good friends.

Newly aware of the lack of emphasis MBA students place on the importance of a balanced diet and their daily struggles with time and The Wall Street Journal, I also realize that overall, they’re having a great time and a wonderful experience (“One year down, $30,000 in debt, and worth every penny,” as one puts it.).

Jaxie Stollenwerck, MBA 01, “single and looking,” confesses that she doesn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables. Being a caffeine addict myself who usually drinks a Dr. Pepper for breakfast, I believe she deserves praise for those Nutri-Grain bars she consumes on her way to morning classes.

“I’m too embarrassed to tell you the junk I eat,” says Meg Marlowe, MBA 01.Few diets could be more shameful than my staple of cheeseburgers, pizza, and ice cream, I think.

Marlowe does offer some insight into breakfast. Cereal, if she has time. If not, she grabs a muffin before class starts. That’s it—she really does skip my questions about lunch and dinner.

But from what I gather, meals don’t improve much for these guys as the day progresses. Dinner? “Usually the big question is should I Super Size it or get two mediums for $8.99, knowing full well that two pizzas for $8.99 is never a good call,” says Michael Lynam, MBA 02.Although the lives of MBA students may be deficient in proper nutrition, they don’t lack challenge and hard work. Stollenwerck has five study groups, one for each class, and spares me a description of her “nightmare schedule of group meetings.”

On a normal day, Lynam rolls out of bed around 7 a.m. Susan Dell’Osso, MBA 01, wakes up a painful 60 minutes earlier, hours before us undergrads even think about hitting the snooze button a second time.

So after beginning their days absurdly early and eating a healthy breakfast, our MBA students head for campus to check e-mail, meet with study groups, and attend classes like Operations Management, Managing Complexity, or Managerial Economics.

The most trying part of an MBA student’s life is “studying all the time,” according to Carol Goglia, MBA 01, who used to start her day an insane five hours after midnight during her first year.

This year, Christopher Spahr, MBA 02, follows a similar schedule, getting up at five “to finish studying.” He leaves for campus at six and is usually in a group meeting by seven. In the morning.

Good MBA students understand that they should start their mornings by bonding with The Wall Street Journal, but finding the time often proves difficult.

“I can’t tell you how many Wall Street Journals go to the recycle bin untouched by my eyes,” says Stollenwerck. “I wish I read the paper every morning. I should read the paper every morning.”

Understandably, staying abreast of the world’s most vital financial news is more difficult than keeping up with "The Firing Line” in The Daily Texan.

Lynam usually skims The Journal on his 20-minute bus ride to campus, ample time to get through the day’s pertinent articles. “There’s nothing better than reading about something in the The Journal, and your professor mentioning the article in class,” he says.

They may do massive amounts of reading and work long, hard hours, but MBA students, like all students, must patiently wait to reap the financial rewards for their dedication and newfound knowledge.

“The most difficult part of being an MBA student is wanting to live my pre-MBA lifestyle, but not having the money to do it anymore,” says Stollenwerck.

Another minus, according to one student is “having to do math again on a daily basis.”

Hard to imagine. As a history major, I dread the simple calculations I’m forced to do on the rarest of occasions, like figuring out how many days are left until graduation.

Add to the heavy courseload of an MBA student a spouse, and life can get pretty frenzied.
“The first three semesters were stressful because the MBA program takes up much of one’s time,” says Bachner. “I got better at managing my time as I progressed through the program so things got easier.”

Bachner reserves Saturday for non-school activities. So does married Goglia who usually starts the day by sleeping in and declares, “I never ever study on Saturday.”

I’m happy to hear others share my homework philosophy, and it doesn’t bother me that those who do are married couples. I recommend that single people take Saturdays off, too.

So it seems that despite the industriousness of their lives, MBA students do manage to pencil some fun into their hectic schedules (as expected, they all prefer relaxing on 4th to partying on 6th).

“Homework time is inversely proportional to the number of good parties, social activities, and football games available on a given weekend,” says Lynam, sounding more like a 21-year old than a 30-year old.

But then again, no matter how old you are, oftentimes the best parts of the University experience are the late night parties and the lifelong friendships you walk away with.

“On my first day of orientation back in August, I didn’t know a soul in the room,” says Spahr. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ Looking back, I’m amazed at how many close friends I’ve made and how ‘small’ the community has become in the last eight months.”

Bachner agrees: “The best thing about being an MBA student is a lot of contact with people smarter than me, plus two years off to learn. The real benefit is the exposure to so many people from so many backgrounds. And I rarely have to shave.”

Not shaving is always a bonus, a luxury likely to be unavailable to newly minted MBAs starting their high-powered consulting jobs. Plus, for now, though their days may be crammed with activity, at least MBA students feel that they have some semblance of choice in the matter.

Dell’Osso loves life as an MBA student; she’s more concerned about life as an MBA graduate. “Not having control of my day is going to be a drag,” she says. “I’m spoiled.”

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