After working as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting, Stephanie Simpson (Ross, ‘21) entered the University of Michigan Ross MBA Program to build her leadership and management skills. During her first year at Ross, Simpson relied on her own preparation, past experiences and guidance of Ross Second Years to successfully navigate the transition. In this interview Simpson shared her journey to Ross, how she prepared for business school, and her advice to prospective students for successfully navigating the first year of business school
MBASchooled: What did you do prior to business school, and why did you choose to come to business school?
Before starting my MBA, I was a Technology Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in the Chicago office. I always knew I wanted to get my MBA – the only question was when. I decided a good time to go back is when I started to lead small teams – it would allow me to have some good experience of how I was as a leader before matriculating to Ann Arbor where I could focus more on building my leadership and executive presence skills.
MBASchooled: After you decided to attend business school, what was your timeline like leading up to business school? What did you do leading up to coming to school, and when did you arrive on campus?
I left Deloitte on June 1st and then I spent the next week moving my furniture from Chicago to Ann Arbor and preparing for a month-long travel across Europe. I ended up traveling to 13 countries with my friend who also left Deloitte to start her MBA. After I was back in the states, I did some more local traveling such as a national parks road trip from Portland to San Francisco. At Michigan, orientation starts early August and after a couple weeks of orientation many students go off on a 10 day trek to another country before classes start in early September, which I also did.
MBASchooled: The first semester of business school can be an exciting but challenging time. How did you navigate these challenges early on, and what resources, programs, etc at Ross were helpful in your transition?
The beginning of the MBA program really was like drinking from a firehose. There are so many opportunities available all at once – from academic to professional to social, it’s very overwhelming at the beginning. After the first couple of weeks I took a couple of hours on a Saturday to decide what clubs I wanted to join, which clubs would get more of my time than others, and how much time roughly I wanted to dedicate to academics, professional, and social each week. Having this goal helped me plan and decide between competing priorities.
I think the biggest resource are the MBA2’s – from recruiting tips to which classes to take to where to explore in Michigan, they are always willing to meet with MBA1’s to talk and to help us. As I am now a MBA2 I wanted to make sure to be as open and helpful because that was the best resource for me as I was wading through the crazy waters that is the first year of the MBA program.
MBASchooled: During your first year, was your favorite experience at Ross during your first year, and why?
My favorite experience at Ross was MAP. I had the opportunity to travel to southern India with three other classmates to work on a social impact project by traveling to rural villages and conducting user interviews. The client we worked with became family – we traveled together, we ate together, and we learned together. It was a great way to get hands on learning and to learn about business in a different cultural context.
MBASchooled: What was the most important lesson that you learned in business school during your first year?
One of the lessons I learned is that it’s equally as important to make time for yourself. I thought I would do well because I was busy as a consultant, but MBA busy is an entirely different beast. To combat this, I put self-care time into my Google calendar. Activities such as working out, getting a facial or massage, having a wine night with friends – whatever it is, I put it in my calendar. I’m glad I did this because those were nice times for me to shut off my brain and just relax or catch up with friends outside of the school building – and I never forgot to do them because they were on the agenda for the day.
MBASchooled: What did you want to do when you came to business school and what did you end up recruiting for? If it was different what changed?
According to my application, I came to Ross wanting to recruit for social impact. While that was still very important to me, I learned more about technology recruiting once I got to campus and found I was more excited by that than social impact internship opportunities. I felt with technology internships I could utilize the skills I had from consulting while learning about new and exciting tools and strategies that were making some positive impacts. Additionally, I knew that through various Ross programs I could still work on social impact projects (like MAP) throughout my time here.
MBASchooled: Knowing what you know now, what else would you have done prior to business school to prepare for the first semester?
I get asked this question a lot and it really depends on the skills and experiences you have coming into the program. Because consulting leaves you with a good set of business skills, I felt I didn’t need to do too much to prepare in that sense. For me, traveling and connecting with friends and family was the most important thing for me because I knew I was about to have a very busy two years. So I wouldn’t have done anything differently before starting the program, but that’s just me.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for how prospective MBA students should prepare for going to business school?
My advice is to get the GMAT out of the way as early as you can and even if you don’t do as well on that, don’t lose hope. I didn’t do amazingly well, either, but I knew Ross was the place I wanted to be so I spent time getting to know the program and connecting with the Ross network. I think doing that really helped my application.
Besides that, my advice is to invest in a little up front planning so you can really enjoy the time between your job and starting the program. If there are certain skills you think you aren’t as strong in, try to find a good book or online course and prepare before school. If you want to do some travel, get started planning so you can do that as soon as you leave your job.