In this conversation, Kate van Keulen shares her journey from working in insurance and tech to pursuing an MBA at USC Marshall School of Business. She discusses her unique background in cyber security program management at One Medical, her decision to apply to business school despite skepticism from colleagues in San Francisco's tech scene, and her strategic approach to the application process.
Kate provides valuable insights into essay writing, focusing on showing who you are as a person rather than just listing accomplishments. She also shares her experience with scholarship negotiations, successfully doubling her initial award from $25,000 to $50,000 per year by using a competing offer from Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business. The conversation covers her first semester experience at USC Marshall and her reflections on the value of the MBA program, particularly the collaborative culture and networking opportunities.
I grew up in Northern California, just like the southern tip of the Bay Area. Anyone who knows where I'm from knows that we like to claim that we're Bay Area, but really we're kind of in the valley. I ended up going to school up there at Santa Clara University, studied business and finance, and realized throughout undergrad that I didn't really want to go the typical financial analyst or investment banking route after school. So I took a job with a global insurance company, an insurance brokerage, which moved me up to San Francisco after I graduated, and I joined their graduate development program which rotated me through different practice groups.
My first look into the professional world after school was a lot of global client advocacy, which I really really loved. I was working with people who were these client advocates for large multinational multi-billion dollar corporations, and it was complicated, it was interesting, it was a lot of really good challenges. But all the while I felt like, do I really want to be in insurance for the rest of my life? I didn't think so. It wasn't my career aspiration. But one of the last teams I rotated with was the
That was my first look into the world of technology and cyber security, and I had this moment working there where I was like, why am I living and working in San Francisco and not working in tech? So I started looking for jobs and I ended up pivoting into a program management role for a cyber security team at a small health tech company. I know that's a total mouthful, but the company was One Medical, an awesome, fast growing company, and recently acquired by Amazon. They're doing amazing things.
Working in program management, I was doing a lot of day-to-day project management and I was working alongside security engineers, and these are brilliant, amazing, very technical people who most of the time have no desire to touch anything in the rest of the business. They don't want to be part of the planning and prioritizing. This might be a blanket statement; some of them wanted to be involved in that and certainly got involved. But my value add was really more of that strategic business element, and how do I take objectives from management and translate them into actual prioritizing projects and figuring out what the heck we wanted to do for the company.
We went through a ton of leadership turnover, where all of the engineering managers and actually my manager ended up leaving the company after the CISO left, and in that moment, looking back on it, at the time it was one of the most stressful things. I was like, what the heck is going on, this team is falling apart, and is my job even secure anymore? But eventually we got new leadership and my new manager was the CISO, and he kind of took a chance on me, and instead of hiring a new manager for me, just let me grow into that position. He helped me figure out what is the strategy, what is the road map for this team. He allowed me to become a people manager, which is something I told him I really wanted to do. I hired a couple people, started building out that program management function for the team.
And all the while I was really loving that. Again, I was working alongside really technical people, I was bridging the gap between these technologists and the rest of the company. I felt like I was valued and could add really good value. Working at One Medical was also the first time that I truly understood the impact my work had on the company and the community, because working in insurance, that was something I missed, where I was like, all right, I'm broking these deals all day long, so what, how is this actually impacting people? Coming to One Medical made a big difference for me.
But I still felt like, I don't know, I was working on a small team at a small company, I just felt like there's something more I want to be doing, and I'm getting closer, and I'm getting a taste of it. But that's when everything kind of changed for me. That's when I started thinking about what's next.
Not to say that none of them are capable, but especially security engineers, they wanted to sit down and work on their projects and code or build detections. They really truly care about the work they're doing, especially in healthcare. Data protection, all of that is of the utmost importance, and so we all really valued our jobs. I think they valued that they had someone like me who could care about the rest of it: let's organize this and let's put together a strategy and a plan, so that they could just wake up in the morning and get their work done and not have to deal with the internal politics of the office.
In some ways sometimes I'm like, should I have gone into software engineering, and would I actually have been passionate in that life? The answer is I don't know. There's definitely people that I've met who are like, I love what I'm doing, and it's not just engineering, it's people who have already found a job that they like at a company that they like. In some ways I'm envious of someone who's like, no, I'm happy here and content. And then in other ways I'm like, well, is that me? Am I just always going to be the type that's like, grass is greener if I keep trying? Chronically dissatisfied.
I've tried to ask myself, when I'm envisioning what I want, when I'm going through those exercises it's like, well, when will I be happy? When will I feel that contentedness of, I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing? And I don't have an answer for that. A lot of people at business school seem to have that issue, so maybe that's the DNA that is attracted to business school.
That's a really great question. I did. I asked a lot of people when this started to come to my mind and okay, maybe this is something I want. First I will say, a lot of my question was, well, what's next, and what can I dive deeper into? For the briefest of moments I considered doing more technical training. Maybe I double down on cyber security and I do more security training, or maybe I pick up coding as a hobby and I pivot into an engineering type role. But I say the briefest of moments because I asked myself, would I want to do those things? And there was just no internal desire, so I knew that direction was not for me.
I thought, okay, I have a business degree, I'm in this sort of business liaison type of capacity or function, can I double down on that? And that piqued my interest of like, oh, interesting, okay, so there's more strategy and operations to all of this. Can I go in that direction? Maybe an MBA is the way to get me there.
I remember a new CISO came in. He was my new boss, a few months on the job, and I'm just poking and prodding very gently. I'm not telling people that I want to leave because we just had this big exodus and so I didn't want to frighten anyone, but I remember asking about higher education or further education and what degrees did he have. He was very honest. He didn't pursue those things, he didn't feel like it was needed for his role. He has a ton of accolades and great technical trainings, but from the business side he's pretty much learned it on the job.
I kept asking. I had a couple mentors that I've picked up from previous jobs and along the way, and I remember one I spoke with. She went to Stanford and a ton of her friends ended up going to GSB, and she was just like, I don't think it's needed, I really don't. I got to where I am without a business degree, my friends have it and we're kind of all in the same place. And I was like, okay, I think I was just looking for confirmation bias at that point. I was like, is someone going to tell me to go and do this? I kept seeking out people who had their MBAs and truly no one really met me with the same excitement that I was seeking or wanting to hear.
But I come from a family where we have lawyers. Both my parents were lawyers. I wasn't done with school yet. I knew I wanted to go back. At that point in my life I knew it was not law school, but I just knew there has to be some value, people are still going back to school, there's got to be something. And I just didn't find it at work. I didn't find that mentorship or that sort of like, hurrah, let's do this. But I think I was kind of settled on that point anyway, and maybe that's telling right there. When people were telling me not to do it, I still wanted to do it anyway.
I've heard you each say people you worked with were going back to school and maybe were going through the same process as them, and honestly, none of my friends have gone to business school. No one in my immediate family has their MBA. So I was at this crossroads of like, gosh, I know it exists and I know it's a good thing, I just don't have anyone telling me to do it.
Stupid analogy, but I watch The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and it's like when the family and friends are saying bad things about the person that the lead actually likes the most, it just kind of clarifies. After all that, if you still want to go back, you just have to listen to that gut. Granted, the statistics on The Bachelor and Bachelorette are not great, so maybe they should have listened to their family and friends, but in this case it just clarifies. It really brings to top of mind how strongly you feel about something if you can't be talked out of it.
So what I'm hearing is you wanted to go because you see the value of continued education and you wanted to be a lifelong learner, but also this somewhat unsatisfied feeling with the work world and wondering where you could find more. Those were the combination of things that led you to think maybe it's time for business school?
Definitely, and just on that second point, it really was. I had transitioned jobs once already. I was coming up on my fifth year out of school. My options to me felt like, okay, either I leave work and go back to school, or I pivot into another role at another company and keep trying to figure out what it is. And that option didn't seem appealing to me because I didn't want to keep bouncing around, I didn't want to keep zigzagging my way through. I wanted to take some time, go to school, keep learning. There's a ton of value in that, as you said, but also maybe use that time to figure out, can this be a launchpad into the next thing.
I started this whole process maybe a year, year and a half ago, because as I said, no one in my family, none of my friends, so I just felt like I'm going to go to Google and start to figure this out. I am a big Excel girl, so I started plopping down lists of schools that I had heard of, and then through some Google research just added information. I had columns for what the general class profiles looked like, what the class sizes were, lecture versus case-based learning, average GMAT, average undergrad GPA, city and location, that sort of thing. And then the other thing I considered was common industry or recruiting for different industries. Those were the things I started with. Oh, and then of course the overall ranking of the school.
My sister, when she went to law school, I remember her saying, look, if I'm taking time off of work, I want it to be worth it. I want to go back to a good school, a reputable school. It doesn't have to be the number one, but it has to be something that's going to open these doors, otherwise why did I just take three years off of work? And so while I wasn't so focused on, all right, number one business school here I come, I was more looking at the rankings and the names of the schools to see if I recognized this name or this school, and do I value and respect that. Then I have to imagine at some point a future employer would too. So I considered what I thought was a comprehensive analysis of what my options were.
That was my general approach. I will say, looking back, I feel like I did it backwards. Going into undergrad, I went and did my college campus tours and then took the SATs and then went through the application process. For business school, I just created that little Excel sheet, took the GMAT, figured out, here's my score and here's what schools I feel like I can apply to, and then I went and visited and narrowed things down. If I could give advice to anyone, it would be, if you have the means, if you can, try to narrow down the list before you apply, so that way you don't have to go and visit schools after you've gotten in. But we can put a pin in that.
So what was your final list?
Similar again to undergrad, where I had the reach schools and the mid schools and the safety schools. For undergrad I applied to like nine schools, which sounds like a lot, and looking back, not worth the time, but I have no regrets. For business school I ended up applying to five schools. I didn't know that was a lot until I started listening to your podcast. I thought that was very normal. I applied to five schools. I was able to narrow it down where I felt like my GMAT score fell in with their average, probably not the best way to go about it, but such is life, and I'm happy with where I am. The three schools I ended up considering were Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, and USC. There were other schools on the list, but ultimately, after I got my acceptances, those were the ones.
The GMAT was a journey for me. I ended up getting a 700, but it was a slog to get there. It was not fun. I took the GMAT three times.
I did a GMAT prep course that was my first step in this entire process. People said most people take it once. I think my instructor said most people take it once, but plan on taking it twice, just so in your head, if you don't get the score you want the first time. I wish I didn't have to, but that was my journey.
Hearing you say that reminds me of the whole "holistic application, we look at everything, we look at you as an entire comprehensive applicant," and I just didn't understand what that meant, if I'm being honest. My work experience at the time felt like I was trying to get out of it. I was like, this isn't for me, how are schools going to perceive my work experience? So I put a ton of pressure on myself for the GMAT in terms of, if I can just get a seven, like have the seven be the first number, then it's not going to impact their average, it might only help it. I had convinced myself that that was the only thing schools really truly cared about, which in real life is so not the case. And since being in school, no one talks about your test score, unless they're commiserating together. No one cares after the fact, and that has been the biggest relief and the best part of it. I do know some employers want to see that, but it's such a select few that if you're targeting those companies, then by all means focus on that part.
When applying to business school, you like your job, but you're moving on because you want something more, and so you're inherently looking at other careers with rose-colored glasses. In order to write the application, you actually have to look at your work experience from an outsider's perspective and be like, this stuff that I did was really awesome, and here's the kind of scenarios that I'm going to be able to weigh in on in the classroom.
Have you found in your first semester that you see the weight and impact of your experiences more now?
Definitely. Even just having been a people manager, even for a short period of time, that has been probably the most relevant. Even if I'm just listening in class or reading a case, it has changed my perspective so much, and it's something I'm really excited to get back to. Hands down, if you can get people management experience before coming to school, to me that's been the most valuable thing.
Managing a project is so different than truly being responsible for the development of a person.
I don't think that creative writing is my strong suit. I approached it thinking, okay, I have this GMAT score that I'm really excited about, but at that point I had already been drafting my essays. I really wanted to focus on my work experience and not just what is on my resume, my title, and I'm managing people and I'm doing these projects, and this is all great, but more how can I show the kind of person I am in those environments that isn't necessarily captured by a bullet on your resume.
That experience of having our leadership team all leave at the same time, and then me and a few of my peers were able to step up in these positions and keep the team together, to me at that point in my life felt like such an important thing that we did. I grew up a competitive soccer player. Team sports have always been my jam. I love that, and I get so much energy working with the team, and when something difficult is happening, making sure people are okay and making sure the work keeps getting done.
I wanted to capture that in my essay, and I just talked about one instance that happened. We had a contract renewal that lapsed because leadership had just left and we didn't have insight into our vendor management program. Just working with my colleagues on getting that service restarted and making sure it didn't happen again, I focused more so on the team morale point. That was my effort there. Maybe not my strong suit, but I think I was happy with how it ended up coming out.
Picking a story or this memory of something that happened, and I can't remember the word count limit, whether it's 500 words or a thousand words or whatever it is, and having to articulate it in a way, because the application process at least, as it seemed to me, was this fine balance between I really need this but also here's why you need me and here's what I bring to the classroom. So I was like, how do I use this story to say here's what I've learned and what I can talk about, but also I still have a lot more to learn.
Carnegie Mellon invited me to interview, and that week my sister and I were heading out of town - she was getting married, it was her bachelorette party. I had to go home, my family dog had just passed away, I had to take care of some things, my parents were out of town so I had to go handle that. I was in the middle of work and wedding stuff and personal things, and I remember seeing that email and being so excited and being like, I'll get back to this later. I returned to it a few days later, and I didn't know at the time, but they release all the slots to all the invitees all at once. The only slot left was 6:00 am the next morning, and I had this sheer moment of just horror of, what did I do? I had no preparation, I was heading out of town. It was just one of the worst. So when you get the email, by all means, drop everything and sign up.
I think I called my sister first, because she was coming over to pick me up to head out of town, and I was just like, tears coming down my face, I don't know what to do. I tried calling - now this was like 5 or 6 pm Pacific time, so Carnegie Mellon's also away for the night. I sent them an email and was like, please, is there any other time, here's what's happening. And then I had this moment of, I have to do it, this is my shot. They don't have to offer me another interview time, they could very well say thank you so much, we're moving on. At that point I just wanted to get into a school so badly. I was like, I have to make this work.
My sister picked me up, and we were going to stop at my parents' house so that I could take the interview in the morning and then we would continue driving. My sister and I, in the car ride, practiced a few introductory interview-type questions. It was a 30-minute Zoom, so I was also like, those go by so fast, there's not so much that they can cover. Luckily, one of the things my sister shared with me - she went to law school on the East Coast, and coming from California, they often worry about California kids in the wintertime - she was like, Kate, they're going to ask you what you think about the snow. And I was like, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, no way. But I'm so glad she told me, because sure enough, he was like, so coming from California, have you spent time... Overall the interview went off just fine, and of course I ended up getting in, and they offered me an amazing scholarship. But it was just one of those moments of like, my God, please don't let this happen again. So schedule the interview when you get the invitation, as soon as possible.
Just a note on the rest of them: all of them felt more comfortable than I anticipated. They're not there to grill you and make you feel uncomfortable - maybe some schools do, but the ones I interviewed with frankly were so relaxed and so nice. They just want to get to know you and see you, and they ask interview questions you have to be prepared for, but they're not there to say you're not getting in unless you ace this. It's like, just be yourself.
It totally depends on the applicant. If the rest of your application is really strong, it could just be a test of, is this person a nice person, can they carry on a conversation, and that's all it is. It's not like some technical interview - they truly are not asking you anything that you can't answer.
The only other thing I'll say about interviews too is, I think it was for Georgetown, we got to select our interviewer. They gave us this list of - it must have been 80-plus names - that I was scrolling through, and they were like, select your interviewer and your interview time. So it's a way for you to find the best time that works for you, and then whoever's available, great. But I was just sitting there scrolling, and I don't know who in this universe was looking out for me, but I came across a name that I knew, someone who went to it, and I immediately booked her first time spot and reached out to some mutual friends. If you have the opportunity to select who's interviewing you, take a look at who's an option, don't just go with what works.
You applied with a partner who wasn't going to be in the same city - how did you balance that, and how did that factor into the process?
Our timing was sort of
Interesting, where Adam and I started dating and then weeks into it I was like, I'm going to start studying for the GMAT. I sort of made this decision on my own. This was a brand new relationship, but this was something I knew I wanted in terms of my career next steps. When I was studying for the GMAT and going through all that, I told him I have no idea where I'm going to go, I don't know what scores I'm going to get, I don't know what my options are at this point. So he and I just started honestly communicating about it super early on, which we were early on in our relationship, and both of us just had the approach of, well, we're in this and we're happy with this, and let's just wait until we have more information.
As I picked my school list, something I just had to share with him was, I grew up in Northern California, I've lived and worked here, this is all I know. I really want to do something else. I want to end up here, I love Northern California, but I have to experience something else. And I'm very fortunate that my partner met that with a lot of understanding and support. Never once did he question that or make me feel like that shouldn't be an option, and I think if he had, we wouldn't be sitting here right now. But it really truly was, look, I want to get out of Northern California. USC was sort of the exception. At first I was like, I want to get out of California, I want to go East, I want to do something different, and then I'll come back. But obviously it all worked out. Honestly, just how open we were about talking about it, and I was just honest and I said exactly that, that's how I felt, I've got to do something different. And the fact that he looked at me and was like, okay, I support you, all right, we'll figure it out, and right now you just focus on getting into schools. I'm super lucky and it worked out the way it was meant to.
For a brief moment we talked about, you know, if I do go far away to the East Coast, maybe he comes out with me. But as I was narrowing it down, when I was actually deciding between schools, for me it really came down between Georgetown and USC. And I loved DC. Georgetown's campus is like Hogwarts, it was stunning, and I walked around DC and I tried all these restaurants and I just fell in love with it. I wanted to go. But I had also just been to USC and have family connections there, it's in sunny LA. I also loved USC, and there were a number of factors that went into the decision, but one of them was, this is easier and better for my relationship, and this is a relationship that I care a lot about and want to make work. So if I can have the same experience, you drop me on the doorstep of Georgetown or USC, either way I'm fine. Other things had to come in and weigh in.
If you don't mind sharing with us the other factors?
Relationship is obviously an important one. I had a conversation with my parents too where they were like, why wouldn't you factor that in? And hearing it at the time from my parents was really that moment of, okay, yes, I do want to factor it in. There's this sort of inner woman inside me saying, don't make a decision for a boy. And he would have come with me if it was somewhere on the West Coast, but it's also the reality of being in business school. It almost takes up more time than a full-time job with all the social aspect, and it was frankly very nice that he didn't have to leave his life, he could still hang out with his friends and coach hockey at his local high school and things like that that are hard to replicate. We're generally two independent people too, so it's great to be able to have separate lives.
That's probably how it would have been, if he had moved, if we had moved out to a different city, it would just be us in this new city, and then I'm in this new environment. But I can't speak too much to that because that's not what happened. We're very happy here in California, and I got to see you over break and you're not far away, so we're very happy. I wouldn't change anything for the world. I had so much angst over the decision-making, but I truly feel like I'm in the right place and made the right decision.
The other things that I considered, I went back to that Excel sheet, and I didn't do a pros and cons list, I did more of a side-by-side comparison. I just looked at, okay, class size comparable, both in fun new metropolitan cities, great, those things I can't really make a decision off of. One obviously is closer to my family, to my loved ones, my partner. I have always had this desire to live in LA. That is something new and different, it's very different from San Francisco. So that was on the list. I know the ranking at the time, USC was higher ranked than Georgetown. I took that into consideration, but it wasn't heavily weighted, just because I was like, again, who cares. And then scholarship.
I received scholarships from USC, Carnegie Mellon, and Georgetown. I think Carnegie Mellon really wanted, I know they're working on improving their female student percentage, so they had offered me a very generous scholarship under the Forté Foundation, and it just made it really hard for me to take Carnegie Mellon off my list, because I was foregoing an income and any amount of money is appreciated. But I looked at that and I really said okay, if I'm going to go to USC, can I sweeten this deal a little bit?
I called Admissions. This is a little bit of a longer story, but originally I had asked for an extension on my decision deadline, which they promptly denied, which is why I was out visiting schools in January when it was snowing. But it all worked out and I don't hold it against them. I called them again and I said, I've just visited these schools, USC and Carnegie Mellon were tied in rankings, and I let them know I've been admitted to Carnegie Mellon and they've offered me an incredible scholarship that I just, I really want to come to USC but this is making it really hard. I am going to be giving up my income and I'm going to have to take out student loans, can you help me?
I remember one of the first things he said at the USC Admissions Office. He said, well, what you can do if you want us to reconsider your scholarship amount is retake the GMAT and see if you can get a higher score. As we both now know after three times hating myself with the GMAT, I said, absolutely freaking not, what else can I do? Obviously I didn't say it like that, but I was like, okay, thank you, what else can help? And he basically was like, you need to give me a reason to increase or to reconsider your scholarship amount. In other words, how else can you strengthen your profile?
So I hung up and I sort of sat there and I remember thinking, my God, if I have to retake the GMAT I'm going to end up in Pittsburgh and I don't know how this is going to turn out. What I ended up doing was writing him an email and reiterating the accomplishments and the impact I had at work and how I would bring that to school. It wasn't in a way that was redundant to my application already, it was more like, look, I'm coming, you've admitted me, we agree this is a good fit, I will help USC.
This is also something I kind of played to my advantage. USC was the first MBA program to reach gender parity. I think they did this in like 2014, and they haven't quite reached it yet, but one of the things I loved about Marshall about the program is, I think my class is 46% female, which is amazing, and that was something that was important to me in the application process. Carnegie Mellon was at 20%. I wanted to come to USC, I wanted to be surrounded by smart women and men, but to have that be a more diverse environment. And I articulated to him, look, I want to come as a strong female applicant, I want to come to this school, I will help you bring more strong female applicants, I'll be an ambassador in my own right.
I played that card and I was just like, this is something I care about, I want to be part of the Trojan Network and I will make sure Marshall continues to have strong female applicants and students who end up coming. I attached my Carnegie Mellon scholarship information to the email, sent it off, and at first his response was like, Carnegie Mellon, it's Tepper School of Business, Tepper is a great program, congratulations, and that's all he said. Was that a no, what is happening? But then it must have been before the end of the week, it was just a couple days later, he ended up coming out and matching my Carnegie Mellon.
Do you mind sharing, if you're comfortable, how much of a scholarship did you receive?
Yeah, so it initially was $25,000 per year and he upped it to $50,000. He basically doubled it. As someone who has student loans, I would have taken any amount. And that, I think I should mention, is I made it very clear that I was extremely grateful for already receiving a scholarship and that I did not take that for granted. I think it helped tremendously that I had this other program that was a peer program to USC showing the amount they gave me. Maybe it's a bit of a unique circumstance, but I'm really glad that I was encouraged to just ask, because they weren't going to say, okay thanks, never mind, you're no longer admitted. But that of course was a fear, maybe irrational, but it was, I was like, what if when I say can you reconsider my scholarship amount they're like, yeah, we've reconsidered and it's zero?
Is this something that you applied separately to for Forté, or is Forté just something else? Tell me a little bit more about it.
No, I did not apply separately for this. So I didn't know, to be honest, again it shows how much I didn't know going through the process, but I didn't quite understand how the scholarship foundations worked until I had been admitted, and part of my congratulations letter was this scholarship letter. I was like, wait, what? And that was an amazing moment, but it goes to show that there's probably a lot more up for grabs if you seek it out more intentionally. It just came to me and they named it the Forté Fellowship.
So each of both Tepper and Marshall scholarships were Forté Fellowships for me. The Forté Fellowship, for people listening, it's a set of scholarship programs for women specifically. You don't have to apply separately, you can get involved ahead of your application, and they're worth looking at for different resources, but they work with a collection of schools and they have a pool of money that they assign to female admitted students that can win these scholarships through these schools.
Have you had any connection with them since you started?
Yes, so after being admitted and receiving the scholarship amount from USC but through Forté, then they put us in this group of, you are our Forté fellows, and there's a giant conference in the middle of the summer that's all admitted female students of all business schools across the states, which happened to be in LA, which was convenient for me because I was apartment hunting. But I got to come and meet these other amazing women at other business schools who also had applied and been admitted and received scholarships. Really remarkable, just one of the connections you can get through it.
Part of that conference, there's a bunch of early recruiting opportunities. I didn't take so much advantage of those, looking back, could have, should have, would have. But uploading my resume into the resume book, I have, even now months after the fact, had recruiters reach out and say, we found your resume in the Forté resume book, we'd like to talk, or are you interested in this position. So it's 100% a great resource. Fortefoundation.org I think is the landing page. I wish I had known more about it earlier on, but it's not hurting me that I'm still learning about it now.
Negotiations are all about leverage and how much you're sharing or not disclosing. Did you basically say if you can match I'm coming, and did you mention the geography factor at all, like being closer to family and friends, or how much did you disclose?
It's so hard, because you are kind of teetering on this line of sounding like an ungrateful person who just wants more money. I didn't ask specifically to match, but very much implied by showing here is my scholarship letter from this other school, see how much more that they gave me. And I think that that was all I needed to say. I remember thinking, in my head I'm coming to USC either way most likely, he doesn't need to know that though.
I said, the only hesitation I have before committing is regarding the financial component of my decision. I'm very grateful for the scholarship amount that has been awarded to me by USC, however I have been granted a larger amount from Carnegie Mellon, which as a competitive program is difficult to turn down. I really want to make this work and I hope you can assuage my financial concern. Both my USC and CMU scholarship letters are attached to this message for easy reference. It's gentle but clear, being clear about what you want without being too pushy.
Everyone who I eventually talked to, current student ambassadors, yourself, Julia, everyone always said the first semester is the craziest, it's the hardest, it's the wildest, and I'm glad I had so many people telling me that because every bit of that is true. The first semester is just insane, but it's wonderful. Because I had those whispers in my ear, I was able to appreciate it as it was happening, of like, okay, this is the experience, this is the first semester, this is what I came to school for, and not get so overwhelmed by it. But not to say that I wasn't ever overwhelmed, because that would just not be true. It's been amazing, it truly has. Four months, I feel like I've lived two years. You're starting a new job almost, and you're spending 40 hours plus a week with the same people day in and day out. That's what it is at school. I'm with these people, I'm on campus by 7:30 in the morning, I'm there until sometime 7:30 at night, and we are living this experience together. I can't really articulate how grateful I am for it. It's turned out to be everything I could have wanted and nothing I could have anticipated.
What's been the biggest surprise so far?
Oh gosh, that's a great question. The biggest surprise, honestly, this is going to sound maybe weird and I'll try to get it right, but I came back to school, I wanted to be in school, and I wanted to redeem some academic whatever inside of me. Honestly, you get here and people are so focused on networking and recruiting and learning from one another. The value inside the classroom is alive and well, but people don't care so much about being that perfect student that a lot of us who end up at business school have been, this sort of academic, showing up to class on time every day and finishing every assignment early and getting 100% on every assignment. It's just not that same mentality. People by all means care about the work and want to do well, but it's not this, if I don't get 100%, if I'm not an A+ student, if I'm not in the top X percent. That's been the biggest surprise I've had for myself even, of like, wait, I need to tone down how much I care about assignments.
I don't think that was something I knew going into it. I was prepared for like, I want to be top of my class, and then everyone was like, we have so much else going on. Sometimes I think you learn more because you're more willing to listen and less focused on getting it right. I completely agree with that.
From where you're sitting right now, what do you think you're going to take away as the biggest benefit from getting your MBA?
I think the people, and maybe that's a cliche answer, but I've seen it already just in the first few months how much everyone is willing to support each other, whether it's helping people prepare for the same interviews. That was something coming to business school, that's another shock and surprise in a wonderful way, of people will be recruiting for the same thing and study together and prepare together, and I love that. It's surprising, but I love it. That just goes to show that people want their classmates and their friends to succeed, and if we're doing that now in the first few weeks of school, it's only going to increase and become more intense and more incredible as we go and grow in our careers and grow in our lives. I fully anticipate working with people from school, building careers and jobs with them, seeing them grow their family, and ultimately passing that down onto the next generation.
We've touched on pretty much my entire journey and experience, but I'll really hammer down or focus on, when you're considering schools, just figuring out how schools market themselves and what they're known for, and being a little bit more intentional than I was on narrowing down that list. Figuring out maybe what part of the world you want to be in, what part of the professional world you want to work in, and what sort of environment you see yourself in, and narrow it down that way. Because there are so many schools out there and they're all wonderful and will add value, but it's about finding the right one for you. I am extremely fortunate that my hodgepodge method worked out for me and I've ended up in an incredible place and I'm super happy, but it definitely could have been more organized.
You mentioned the Trojan is the USC mascot. If you had to pick a new mascot for the school, what would it be and why?
Two thoughts on this. One, I feel like the USC Trojan network is so gung-ho that if I were to suggest anything else I would have like 900,000 alumni come after me. No, I say no on changing the USC Trojan mascot. Actually, fun fact though, is the Trojan is not actually the official mascot of USC. Traveler, who is the horse that the Trojan rides. So if I were to change anything it would be giving Traveler more credit and more press. After every touchdown they bring the horse out and ride him around the field, and I'm sure he lives happily on some large acreage farm. I don't know where horses live. And then it wouldn't have to be associated with contraception.
Were you a big Harry Potter fan, and which Hogwarts house would you say you would have been in?
Yes. This question is so hard. I feel like growing up I was like Gryffindor, obviously, that's what everyone wanted to be in. The inner child in me who grew up on Harry Potter would say Gryffindor. If I'm being probably a little bit more humble and realistic I would say maybe Ravenclaw, very studious.
I really love and support what you guys are doing. As I mentioned early on, if I had a podcast like this when I was applying, maybe I would have done a few things differently. I hope this reaches a lot of people and helps them, because it's expensive out there and it's hard to figure the stuff out on your own. So I really love what you guys are doing. Happy to help.