The term ‘Fear of Missing Out’ never rang so true as in business school. Kate Sternstein, Fuqua ’15, looks back at how she weighed her options and prioritized which extra curricular clubs and activities would most benefit her time in business school and her career path afterwards.
After learning about the plethora of Fuqua’s club offerings during its Blue Devil Weekend extracurricular fair, I arrived to school with my eyes as wide as a kid in a candy store. Consulting Club. Check. Hospitality & Travel Club? Check. MBA Association? Check. Association of Women in Business? Check. International Business Club? Check. Luxury Brand and Retail Club? Check. Marketing Club? Check. Tennis Club? Wine Club? Of course!
Thankfully, some wise second year friends hid the Snickers and Twizzlers just long enough to remind me that I would soon also have classes, group projects, and recruiting events on my plate as well. The activities fair was informative for gaining a view of everything the school had to offer. However, I found that speaking with second years more personally about each club gave me better depth regarding the time commitments, cycle of events held each year, overall club culture, and which options might be best for me.
I thus developed a strategy for determining my involvement in extracurricular activities based on a simple (yes, I’m a nerd!) decision tree:
- Will I have fun? If yes, continue to #2.
- Will it further my career or personal development? If no, consider getting involved but realize the opportunity costs involved. If yes, seek out leadership roles.
For me, #1 Yes + #2 No applied to both the Wine Club and the Tennis Club. Both held some interesting events that I chose to participate in but I didn’t actively seek out any leadership roles because for me, there wasn’t a ton of direct career value. That said, I made some great friends through these clubs which many would argue provides indirect career value.
Continuing down the tree, a few clubs received my #1 Yes and #2 Yes vote. My true passion is for Hospitality & Travel. I came to business school with the goal of working as a consultant in the short- to medium-term to hone my analytical and management skills. I hope to have the opportunity to work on some projects with hotels, airlines, restaurants, cruise lines and more. For long-term, I am considering a transition to a corporate position within the Hospitality & Travel industry. As a result, I applied for leadership roles in both the Consulting and Hospitality & Travel Career Clubs. At Fuqua, the Consulting Club is one of the most popular clubs and receives up to 100 applicants each year for less than 15 leadership positions. Thus, the process is more rigorous than other clubs and involves submitting a few slides and then a short interview. The resulting cabinet roles are very specific with a fair amount of institutional knowledge for direction. The Hospitality & Travel Club was started by two of my outstanding peers now at Delta Air Lines and Wyndham the year before I arrived at school. Given its infancy, the club’s events were less institutionalized and the role was more entrepreneurial in nature. It also involved greater outreach to alumni to make them aware of the club and overall student interest in the field.
As a first year, I sought out and was elected to cabinet positions in both clubs. It was a large time commitment but I truly enjoyed the roles. I decided to continue my involvement second year. I ran for and was elected to co-President of the Hospitality & Travel Club and managed the Consulting Club’s case competitions as a Cabinet member. I am most proud of all of the outreach and organization that went into the Hospitality & Travel Club’s second annual symposium. Convincing the COO of Southwest Airlines, Mike Van de Ven, to be our keynote speaker along with leaders from Delta Air Lines and Travelport resulted in a strong participatory student turnout. This event not only solidified my passion for the hospitality and travel industry but also made me feel like I was giving back to the Duke MBA community.
My overall advice for those looking to join clubs in business school is to make sure you’ll enjoy the responsibility. Also, be selfish. Every day, particularly first year, I felt like someone or something was competing for my time. Once your classmates view you as a responsible and timely leader and participant, you’ll soon be asked to manage X career event, plan Y party, show up for Z speaker. I signed up for the email listserv for about 10 clubs but limited my leadership to 2. I practiced saying ‘no’ in order to participate in the activities that meant the most to me. Doing so helped me really focus on my career passions, my original reason for attending business.