ONE-YEAR AT GOIZUETA: PRATEEK GOEL – THE PROMISE OF A CLOSE AND SHARING COMMUNITY
Block one was tough, but block two has been arguably much tougher and much more hectic. A LOT has happened in the last 3-4 weeks. Several field visits, social activities, campus networking events, and fall electives registration, which I had to fit in between the 5 classes we were enrolled in! (I even fit in a quick 4th of July trip to NYC and Boston).
The highlight from block two that I found most enlightening was our FIFA match viewings. Now I know you’re probably wondering,
“How can watching FIFA matches be the highlight of a Goizueta MBA Program?”
During my time in block two, I was given the opportunity to watch these matches with students whose international backgrounds stemmed from places like Colombia, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Ecuador. Because of this, the overly breathtaking and intriguing games became even more fun to watch.
Community
Keeping up with its promise of a close and sharing community, the business school initiated a ‘dinner with the dean’ concept. 10 students are randomly chosen to go out for an informal dinner with the Associate Dean to discuss campus life and general working of the school, and I was lucky enough to be one of the 10. The fact that the program organizers and coordinators are so approachable gives us confidence that we are in good hands and emphasizes that they are committed towards continuously improving the program. In addition, as another step to make us feel as an integral part of the school, the core strategy for the future development of the school was shared with us and our feedback was incorporated into their plan.
Dinner With The Dean
Another thing that demonstrates the community factor is our batch’s Breakfast ‘club’. The initiative (started by friend and classmate Ted) asks that every Friday, two people get together and cook breakfast for the rest of the class. So we not only look forward to Fridays because it is the weekend and KEGS time, but also because we get yummy, finger licking breakfast. To add to it, another classmate Shehzaan ensures we get ample supply of donuts and coffee. One of the professors mentioned that in the last 13-14 years he has been teaching here, he hasn’t seen such camaraderie ever in a batch. We surpass all previous batches!
Breakfast Spread: Chic-Fil-A, Fruits, Mashed Potatoes, Donuts, and Coffee
Leadership
The 12th of July was the second best day since I joined the program. Not only was it my birthday, but we also went to an exhilarating, enthralling and out of the box military style training program at Fort Benning that focused on leadership building. You can read more here. In short, Fort Benning is a US military base, where we attended a leadership reaction course, in which we had to complete 8 obstacles that were QUITE tough! To top it all off, it was a hot, sunny Georgia day. I can proudly say that I had the most awesome birthday – military style.
Fort Benning – Leadership Reaction Course
School Life
Even though the semester is about to come to an end and I have all the reasons to be excited for fall, I am quite sad that our batch will not be as close as we were in the summer. In just a little over two months, we have become a closely knit family where everyone cares for each other and cracks jokes at each other. Not only that, we owned the business school this summer! There were just 60 of us in the entire building. Come fall, there will be more than 5 times that number.
Having said that, fall semester will be a breather compared to the summer. No more studying 14-16 hours a day. More time for networking, extracurricular activities, case interviewing and most importantly:
finding a job!