To be honest, I wasn’t fully commited to visiting Vandy because coaxing money out of my wallet was like getting a root canal In the end, I can say that the trip was absolutely worth it.
Weather.com had forecasted rain in the afternoon on the day of my visit, but mother nature pre-empted the exact science of meteorology and poured on the rain in the morning. I wasn’t sure about the dress code for these types of events, but given that I was going in for an interview as part of the visit, I thought I’d put on the nice stuff. I broke out the new blue suit and put it through the ringer as I walked across the street in the rain to MCD for breakfast. I showed up to Owen about 15 minutes early and met this nice Japanese applicant waiting in the lounge area. We chatted it up like we were old friends. He (I forgot my friend’s name already) flew out of Japan and visited a couple of other east coast schools before visiting Owen. I also found out from him that he had just finished his interview so I got the juice on how the interview went down for him.
My student host, Brian, came by the office to pick me up for the marketing class he was attending. As it turns out, Brian was from LA too. I wonder if the school paired him with me based on where we were from. Hm…. Anyways, marketing class was fun. The class was probably 30-40 people large. I liked how interactive the class was; there was a definite sense of energy throughout the class. The professor was entertaining as well which made time pass by more quickly.
After class, I headed down for my interview. During class, I was going over the interview questions that my Japanese friend had clued me in on so I felt ready albeit still nervous as hell. I was interviewed by one of the associate directors of admission. After asking me some stat questions (ie GPA/GMAT), we broke into the real questions. Most of the questions were pretty standard. Why MBA. What skills from work will you be able to use at Owen. What make you unique from applicants with similar profiles. Describe a situation where you had to deal with a difficult teammate. Talk about an international experience you had at work/school. There were a couple of other ones that I don’t recall now. My interviewer scribbled a bunch of notes during the entire process and responded with “uh-huh”‘s and “excellent”‘s, so I’m not really sure how I did. I felt like I was able to represent myself pretty well in most of my answers and express how I “fit” in @ Owen. The “unique” question was the only question that I hadn’t prepared for, but I was able to give an answer, after some thought, that connected with the interviewer.
I had about an hour to kill after the interview so I walked around campus. Vanderbilt seems to almost the same size as USC. Most of the buildings look ancient, but thankfully the business school building is very modern. One of the owenbloggers commented how Nashville isn’t a hotbed of diversity. I can attest that his statement is true. There were a couple of international students, but for the most part, most of the students that I saw were white. The med school has a really big presence on campus and is leveraged by Owen for its healthcare concentration. Since I started off my career in the healthcare industry, it’s something that I’d consider going back into.
Brian and I had lunch at the Oak Room (I forgot the real name of the place). I asked him a lot of questions regarding his experience with his application, school, curriculum, clubs, etc. Some of the things he kept reiterating was how insanely busy he has been since school started, how the team work aspect of Owen is really important, and how everyone is very willing to help each other. He also mentioned how Nashville, and the south in general, is still influenced by its racially segregated past. He said that even he gets some weird looks from the locals when he goes out even though he’s white. He surmises that it’s due to his wild mane of hair. Am I concerned about this? Not too much. Growing up in LA, it’s usually hard to be considered the minority when you’re asian. It’ll be an interesting experience, good or bad, to go to a place like Nashville and really be in the minority. I guess the new and different factor of the experience appeals to me too. Brian also revealed that drinking plays a part in the MBA experience. Apparently Owen donates free beer kegs for events such as football tailgates and Thursday night mixers. These events are a great way to mingle, network, and blow off some steam after a long week of studying. That’s great and all, but he had me at free beer.
By the time we were finished with lunch and had walked back to Owen, I was tapped out of questions. I thanked Brian for being a most gracious host. The last event of the day was a meeting with the Career Management Center. I sat with a couple of other Owen hopefuls and listened to one of the career advisers talk to us about what the CMC does. I asked a couple of questions and found out that Owen and CMU Tepper have a joint west coast tech fair program for students interested in joining tech companies, the internship hunt doesn’t get into full swing until the end of the first semester, and that the CMC is going to evaluate our apps based on how realistic our future goals are. I could have asked some more questions, but I needed to rush the airport to get back home.
So what now. Maybe because I’m easily influenced, but Owen went up a couple of notches in my book. I’m still not sure where it stands between my other choices but it’s safe to say that if I had a choose a school now, it would be really tough. Rather then ponder about situations like that, I need to get back to business and finish off the apps. Time to get crackin!