Some questions answered

I just heard from one of the new admitted students who has several questions about the program. Here are my views on the subject:

1. Does the school provide a hands on experience in entrepreneurship and consulting?
The MBA has a student government which is called the MBA Society. The society includes several clubs including entrepreneurship and strategy (consulting). Team presidents organize company visits (the entrepreneurship club is visiting Silicone Valley in May), speaker events and volunteering projects. So in brief, the opportunity to have an experience is in your hands… Presidents are elected from the MBA students (the incoming fall class will be electing its representatives in November).

– Does the school provide entrepreneurial networking opportunities?
The MBA clubs and the Business career centers organize some networking events, like the Leader’s reception and the Business Now series, in which you can meet some entrepreneurs, several of which are Sauder MBA graduates. There are also speaker events during the program with speakers of different specializations, including entrepreneurship.

– Does the school have a proven record of “Home grown” entrepreneurs?
Yes! The graduate school at Sauder is named after Robert H. Lee, who graduated in one of the first classes of the Sauder MBA. The program allows you to specialize in entrepreneurship. Profesor Thomas Hellmann and his Maurice Young Centre for Entrepreneurship foster entrepreneurs. There is a great class in postcore where you partner up with an engineering student to make a business plan for a product launch, so that is a great experience too.

– What do you think about the student body of the school – is it really diverse? Can one build a real, useful network of peers? What is the general “Quality” of the students, is there a real opportunity to learn from your classmates?
I’m really happy with this, personally. This year, though we are a smaller class than usual, we have students from over 30 countries and so many diverse backgrounds. It’s a really unique opportunity to be able to sit with people from all over the world and see their different points of view on issues. It also adds so much to our class discussions. Apart from the network of your classmates, you will also be connected to alumni. We have alumni events, a Linkedin group and the BCC is working to strengthen those networks and join them with current students.

– What about the work load versus social life (is there any?)
The full-time MBA is pretty intense, but we manage to have lots of fun too. A couple of students here started a dining-out club and go to different types of restaurants every week. We celebrate finishing exams at local pubs, house parties and some of the international students organized nights out featuring their typical foods. You’ll definitely have a really big workload, especially during the Core, but a big part of the program is about organizing your time, balancing social and academic activities and taking advantage of this amazing experience to spend with your classmates. Because networking is such a big part of your career, you’ll have a lot of social outings related to that too.

– What about the location, how important is it?
I’m not sure if you refer to Canada, Vancouver or the Point Grey campus. Vancouver is an amazing city. Though it is not as big as Toronto (and there are so few big businesses here), it’s an amazing place to be a student. The campus is amazing and it’s great to go to school there. During the core you’ll be going to the Downtown campus a lot too. If you choose to take classes with the part-time students, you’ll be going there very often too.

I hope this helps!!!