After working as a technology consultant at Deloitte Consulting, Stephanie Simpson (Ross, ‘21) entered the University of Michigan Ross MBA Program to build her leadership and management skills, and has found herself right at home at Ross and in college town like Ann Arbor. In this interview Simpson shared her journey to Ross, how she identified her criteria for selecting an MBA program, why she’s enjoyed her time at Ross, and her advice to prospective students for choosing the right MBA program.
MBASchooled: What did you do prior to business school, and why did you choose to apply 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: What characteristics were important to you in selecting the right MBA school?
I evaluated schools on three major aspects: 1) teaching style, 2) culture / community, and 3) location. I do not learn best through cases, so I wanted a school that used a variety of teaching styles. In addition, I wanted to make sure my community was strong, inclusive, and not so competitive that classmates wouldn’t help each other. Lastly, I wanted a school in a college town to avoid the distractions of a big city and I wanted a program that was in a nice building – you do end up spending most of your time in that building so I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be a place I dreaded going to.
MBASchooled: Why did you choose to attend Ross?
Given the three characteristics described above, Ross hit the trifecta. With a program that has tons of opportunity for hands-on learning, I knew that at the end of my time at Ross I would be able to have learned in a way that best suited my learning style. In addition, Ross has a huge emphasis on team culture – it’s even part of the interview process! That was important to me because everyone at Ross will help each other out, even if that means someone else could get the same internship you are applying for, etc. Lastly, Ann Arbor is a fun town that has a lot to do but isn’t a big city, and the Ross building is great – it has a Starbucks (which can be dangerous for my budget) and a gym (which admittedly I don’t use as often as I had planned).
MBASchooled: What about the culture and classmates stood out to you about Ross?
Besides the helping attitude described above (which is super important and helpful from an academics and recruiting perspective), the Ross culture is very social and that provides many different opportunities to get to know your classmates. One of the big draws of a MBA is the network, and at Ross you really do get to know your network. I knew at Ross I would never be bored – and it’s true! Even during this new virtual reality we are living in, classmates have set up movie nights, game nights, exercises classes, and more! We are always trying to find new ways to connect with each other virtually and that’s been a great comfort during quarantine.
MBASchooled: How has Ross helped you work toward your own career goals and aspirations?
What I love about Ross is the variety of resources and activities. I love to learn and try new things, so from MAP to the Crisis Challenge to club activities, I get the opportunity to learn a lot. In fact, usually Ross has too much going on and I have to choose which activity to do and it’s so hard. The Ross network is also great – I have spoken to so many alumni by connecting on LinkedIn, just explaining I’m a MBA student wanting to learn more about their company or position. It’s good to know the Ross network is so helpful and willing to talk to students and that’s definitely something I want to take with me after I graduate so I can return the favor.
MBASchooled: What parts or aspects of the academic experience attracted you to Ross?
At Ross we have experiential learning in many different forms. One way is in the classroom – besides some activities in normal classes, every first year participates in a quarter long class called MAP. We are assigned groups and given a real client to solve a real-life problem, putting what we learned in our core classes to work. Then there are programs you can sign up for, such as the Crisis Challenge. And Ross keeps adding new opportunities – just this year we opened the Impact+ Studio that allows students to work with clients to use design thinking principles to solve their toughest problems. For me these opportunities are a chance for me to fail in a safe space and learn from these failures and from team feedback. If I want to try out a tactic or something new for me, even if it doesn’t work out, at least I know that now versus when I go back to the real world. I learned so many different things about myself and how I handle different situations. Overall it just helps with a lot of the soft skills that you can theoretically learn in the classroom, but you really have to live it and adjust as needed.
MBASchooled: What’s something you wish you knew more about before starting your MBA at Ross?
I wish I had learned more about dual degrees. I am now doing a dual degree with the School of Information to study User Experience Design, but since I had already started my MBA program when I got into that program, I will not be graduating with the classmates I started with. Most students choose to start their other dual degree first so they can do their MBA years back to back and I can definitely see the appeal. It’s great that at Michigan there’s the opportunity to still do a dual degree after you start the MBA program, but I wish I had spent some time researching that so maybe I could have graduated with my starting class. But now I get the added perk of having an even larger MBA network since I’ve gotten to know and be a part of two graduating classes.
MBASchooled: What has been your favorite moment or experience during your first year of business school?
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 advice do you have for those who are evaluating where they want to attend business school?
I think it’s important for you to first decide what aspects of the program are important to you. If you noticed in my earlier answer, rankings were not at all important to me. But for some that is one of the top reasons. You need to decide what is important to you and then evaluate schools on those parameters. I often would get confused talking to others going through the same process, listening to what they thought was important, and I would think I was analyzing schools all wrong. But at the end of the day, what is important to me may not be important to others, and vice versa. But if you have a solid list going into the school analysis phase, you can choose the best school for you, and at the end of the day that’s the most important thing.
For more information on Ross, check out the following stories