After serving in the U.S Navy, Jackie Callahan moved to Durham, North Carolina to start the Duke University Fuqua MBA Program. In addition to the traditional challenges of business school, Callahan faced some additional personal adversity, which made a challenging experience even more difficult. But through her own resolve, and with the help of the Fuqua community, Callahan was able to excel and succeed. In this interview, Callahan talked about how she prepared for business school, how she navigated her first semester of business school, and her advice for prospective MBA students who are preparing for business school.
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
My situation is relatively a-typical and a bit personal: my family found out my Dad had terminal esophagus cancer in July prior to starting school. I spent most days leading up to school at the hospital or at home with him, and I flew home to New Jersey on the weekends during our introductory summer term. My dad passed away on the first day of our Fall Term and I missed the first 10 days of class due to the funeral and helping my mom figure out her next steps. It was definitely a very trying start to business school. However, the Fuqua team (administrators, professors, and classmates) were very supportive in helping me get caught up and continually checked in on me.
A more ideal situation would have been to have moved to Durham about two weeks prior to orientation. This would have given me ample time to set up my apartment and learn the lay of the area – grocery stores, restaurants, gyms, and to explore the campus. I would have set up new-patient medical appointments at local doctor and dentists offices. Additionally, I recommend using this time to get ahead on any pre-requisite course work (for Fuqua, you ideally want to finish the online Business Computer Analytics course prior to starting classes), and also download the syllabus for the summer term and get started on the reading (trust me: you will want to spend your time introductory summer term getting to know your classmates before recruiting starts instead of being stressed about reading assignments).
During these two weeks leading up to orientation, a lot of other students are also moving to campus at the same time. Take advantage of the free time to get to know each other — invite them over for dinner, have a BBQ, or go for a workout together! Once recruiting starts, most people barely have time to sleep and their lives revolve around casing and coffee chats.
MBASchooled: What was a surprise or something you had to navigate either in the transition to business school or early on?
I was surprised at how genuine people are at Fuqua. Fuqua does an incredible job selecting students with a high decency quotient (DQ) and it really shows. When others ask, ‘how are you?’ they really care and are looking for a more in-depth answer than, ‘good, you?’
I really love that Fuqua is all about ‘fun facts’ and students talk about their fun facts all the time, especially when you’re introducing yourself during orientation. It shows that most students are interested in learning more about each other than just the usual name, hometown, and last job.
MBASchooled: As you transitioned to school, what resources or programs were most helpful in getting up to speed?
I sent emails to club presidents (usually to the Veteran’s Club, Net Impact, or Women’s Associations) to get connected to current students to learn their perspective and gain a better understanding of their respective programs. I also reached out to peers from my undergrad university who were currently at various business schools, and then got connected to more friends of friends. Most people are willing to read your resume and offer feedback on your application – it’s part of the pay it forward notion that a lot of people embrace. I am eternally grateful for the numerous people who helped, including people that I knew personally and those that I was connected to via email.
For online websites, I spent a lot of time perusing the school’s websites to learn more about what opportunities and programs are available at each school. This helped me understand what differentiated the various programs from each other and helped me understand what opportunities I valued (consulting practicum, study abroad, diversity & inclusiveness, etc) and what I wanted to get out of business school. I also used Poets & Quants to read blogs to get third party perspectives about the schools and more perspectives from current students.
MBASchooled: During your first semester, what was your favorite experience, and why?
I absolutely loved my First Year team. At Fuqua, your First Year team is a group of 5-6 students that you take your Core classes with. The Core classes are Accounting, Statistics, Marketing, Economics, Strategy, and Management Communications. On my team, we have both a Peruvian and Chilean team member. It’s been incredible to not only learn about how they view business topics from their Latin American perspectives, but also learn about their lives in Latin America and sample their native food during team dinners. It has been exactly the global business experience I was looking for by attending business school.
MBASchooled: Knowing what you know now, what else would you have done prior to business school to prepare for the first semester?
If I could go back, I would take an online accounting class to learn the basics and have some conversational knowledge of the material. I think most students struggle with accounting because it’s a lot of unfamiliar material in six weeks and most students do not have experience with accounting. Gaining a cursory understanding of the material in a less stressful environment prior to coming to business school would help reduce the stress during the first Fall semester.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for how prospective MBA students should prepare for going to business school?
1). Before you come to business school, do some reflecting and think about what type of industry(s) and job(s) you want to work in and write those thoughts down. You want these thoughts to ‘spark joy’ and make you excited about the future. It ‘s easy to get caught up once recruiting is in full swing and forget about your initial goals once you learn about numerous new opportunities and start attending company events on campus. Do your reflecting early so you can keep your initial goals in mind as you explore new opportunities that come up throughout the recruiting season.
The same thing goes for your time at business school – think about what club cabinets you potentially want to join and what activities/program you might want to get involved in prior to attending school. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype once you’re on campus. Be intentional about your choices and prioritize where you will put your efforts because it’s extremely easy to over-commit yourself and get burned out.
2). Take advantage of pre-MBA events hosted by many large companies. Pre-MBA events are great opportunities to explore different career paths prior to starting school. Attending these events will give you a chance to see if you can picture yourself working for the company or in the industry in a stress-free environment. After the event, you’ll have a few weeks to reflect on the experience before the real recruiting season starts.
MBASchooled: What was the academic experience like? What helped you manage the classroom experience?
My virtual experience was great and the quality was similar to if we had been on campus, to include TA sessions, group project collaboration, and guest speakers, etc. During classes, several professors used Zoom’s breakout session feature to facilitate small group discussions, which made the experience more valuable and felt more real despite the virtual nature.
I participated in Fuqua’s Client Consulting Practicum, which is a student led consulting project. For this project, my team found that we often needed to meet 3-5 times a week. With this, we actually found it easier to meet virtually on Zoom than it was in person. This is because we simply had to log onto the computer instead of searching for a highly-sought after team room on campus. We also saved a lot of time by not commuting to campus, often solely for our team meetings.
MBASchooled: What tips or best practices do you have to help incoming MBA students prepare for a virtual MBA Experience?
Fuqua classes are electronics free. This means that Fuqua students are not supposed to use their laptop or cellphone in class, and we usually take notes on slide handouts. However, with virtual classes, there are numerous distractions. I found two things that were extremely helpful.
1). Put your phone in a different room and let your family/friends know your class schedule so that they’re less likely to message you.
2). Turn off notifications on your computer during your class time. If the class isn’t very interesting, you’ll be more likely to click on whatever notification pops up.
3). If you’re struggling to pay attention, try typing notes as the Professor speaks to maintain your engagement.
MBASchooled: How did you find ways to stay engaged, either with student clubs or organizations or socially?For Team Fuqua, we conducted Zoom events to maintain a sense of community, and they were were actually a lot of fun. Each week we did a trivia night organized by our student leadership, and also celebrated Fuqua Friday. Two highlights are 1). For our last Fuqua Friday, a professor was able to get Tiger King’s John Finlay to send a video recording congratulating Team Fuqua on completing the academic year . 2). My section had an end of the year superlative event where each of the 60+ students was given their superlative and had a chance to say their thoughts about the year. Since we have section mates all over the world participating in the virtual classes, it was a great way to spend quality time together and share laughs.