That was me in my hotel room on the 14th floor of the Pasadena Hilton hotel on Friday night.
Other than while sleeping I probably spent a maximum of 90 minutes in the room over the next two days. This past weekend I completed my first graduate level class. (actually, that isn’t true- in the summer of 2003 I took two graduate level Art History classes) The class is unique to Pepperdine among MBA granting schools. The first weekend after classes start in the MBA program at Pepperdine your “class” is huddled inside a small hotel conference room in a circle for two days. I won’t say what happens inside the room, as I believe I’m not supposed to. I don’t remember signing a non-disclosure agreement about it – but they made quite a point of not revealing anything about the weekend until we were there. Past attendees wouldn’t spill the beans either. We didn’t do any of that ridiculous walking on coals or closing our eyes and falling into our teammate’s arms or anything like that. The workshop focused on getting to know our team members and their strengths. By the end of the five three hour sessions we had to work together as a team to accomplish a goal.
As you can imagine this “sharing” meant a lot of talking about ourselves. As you can also imagine I was covered in sweat by the end of each session because I abhor talking about myself for any length of time – especially in front of mostly complete strangers. However, I don’t think I’m ready to run for public office, but it did get easier as time dragged on, and I definitely feel more camaraderie with my fellow MBA students now.
Side note: When I was applying to school people kept telling me “ooh, you’ll meet a lot of girls in school.” I’d like to quash those rumors right now. Maybe in art school or psychology or something I would meet a lot of girls, but there were only three in my incoming class – and they’re all married (or getting there). Most of the guys were married as well, which made me wonder if it will be easier or harder for me to do this “alone.” On the one hand I don’t have to worry about meeting anybody else’s expectations or “ignoring” a girlfriend/wife along the way (a friend told me today that divorce rates are high among married grad students). On the other hand – nobody can do things when I’m running out of time – like get groceries for me when I have a paper due the next day – or just simply give me support when times get tough.
One thing that was nice to see in the workshop was that there were quite a few of us that were scared to death of the program – or at least failing out of the program. Some people even admitted that others in the class counseled them out of dropping the program after our first two classes.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that nobody disclosed any information that would lead to giving away their age. I can tell that everyone seems to be between 25 and 35, with most of them being a few standard deviations higher than the mean (ooh, look, I’m doing it already!).
Oh- and I finally found someone else that lives in Winnetka and knows where it is.
I didn’t know you had to join a secret society in order to get your MBA. Let me know when you have to wear a special hooded robe and chant in a circle.
Now I know how to torture you–turn on the spotlight and pepper you with questions about yourself. How do you expect any woman to get to know you (and like you) if you don’t want to talk about yourself?
Grad programs aren’t the only ones that love to do the “getting to know you” stuff. Every single flipping Early Childhood Ed. class I took had some sort of component like that. I don’t know why my professors thought it would enhance the education experience. It certainly didn’t have anything to do with the class material. At the end of the semester it wasn’t all that likely that I would see the same people again. But in a program like yours, it might be different.
I’ve also had professors who were the exact opposite. My Geology professor was like a high-school teacher and would snip at anyone who made the slightest sound whatsoever. I sat next to the same guy all semester long and never knew his name.