All the things we should have said that we never said

I had to borrow that line from Maxwell.

I had always said I would not turn into those Queen's bloggers who started blogging but never quite got around to doing it. WELL WELL WELL! Sock in my mouth I tell ya.

To be completely and utterly FRANK with you. The MBA is not the easiest experience on the planet. Especially not the Queens MBA. I mean it's hard enough going back to school after a few years re-learning student life, not having that fat paycheck (or slim one for that matter) at the end of the month. For me not having Kenya around me too was a huge challenge.Then they throw in the whole team working thing for 8 straight months and mix you with some different personalities. Its a bit like putting some rats in a cage with some adrenaline meds mixed in with some depressants and watching their reactions.

For my team , it turned out pretty well. For me, I donnu I guess and I'm trying to stay very very very honest here, truthfully, this MBA has taught me far more about who I am as a person, how I thrive and survive and how I can get along better in life in the future than any other of my life experiences.

I was already stressed with the discovery that my brilliant financing plans were thrown to the sea, get this, the day before I was due to get on the plane. Its a miracle I survived the first upset and I will forever be grateful to the people at ISLOAN, and The Paras Loan Foundation, check them out at www.isloan.org. You will thank me later expecially if you are an international student.

Then I'm in a classroom where I am the only black African female, all I had to do was add the label lesbo and I'd be a part of almost every recognized minority group. I really felt out of place and I must say this the world is supposed to look at you the way you look at it, but this time I was sure I was getting played.

If there is one tip I give all you future Queens MBA's and actually anyone for that matter, always remember who you are or at least try to remember who you are. I had completely let my guard down at the start of the year. Thinking everyone else here was like me just wanting to make their fair share of mistakes and learn a few good things to avoid them in the future but I was wrong. Any mistake I made, came back to haunt me and i realize now why the layers are used so often in business.Mask your mistakes and your weaknesses the MBA is no place for them well at least until the elective period depending on the personality types in your team. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE. I am a LOW SELF-MONITOR you'll learn about that from Tina (great proff as are most here), very reluctant to change for the environment and thats an important skill to have on the program. I failed myself miserably here. I did not take time to really observe my environment and learn it. I just made assumptions. I put a foot in my mouth volunteering to lead or being the first to volunteer to do one task or the other.... OUCH!!! Be careful here. I found the more cautious people in this regard were safer.

If I could go back to before the MBA and give myself a pep talk, here's what i'd say to naive little me. Don't forget who you are, don't become who people think you are, do whatever you must in order to get that A, be wiser about letting down your guard, trust the system, it is set up for your success, get to know people a lot better, don't trust just anyone, and most importantly, don't think you can keep up a blog on the program...you know you better than that...hehehe.

In a nutshell all I am saying is this. You are what you make of your life. I allowed myself to believe the stories around me, when someone shouted oh you had an easier time getting here since there was no competition form your continent, I believed it, when that same person shouted nothing good can come from Africa, I believed it, when someone shouted, you don't think before you speak I believed it, and when someone else shouted you have communication problems I believed them too.

Since the Christmas vacation begun, I asked myself a few things... how come I have never had communication difficulties before this program, how come I was such a success before, how come I believed in Africa so much before.... Its because I looked at the world through a different lens and I was allowing myself to look at myself through other peoples lenses.

This is a great program, and the school will give you all the support you need and the systems to support you are in place. The BIG question is....WILL YOU BE SUPPORTING YOU?

My two cents on Queens

I really want this blog to be as informative as possible for anyone out there thinking of getting a Queens experience. In my very biased opinion I think this is the best B-school there is in Canada. The best B-school of course for me. See I think that is the key to feeling like you are in the best school there is in this world.

I'm going to tell you what made this the best fit for me when I was looking to get into business school. I get easily distracted and so i needed a school where the pressure would be on all the time so what better place than a 1 year program. If you are anything like me you like living on the edge. ( trust me from my appearance you probably can't tell but from my life experience I have found myself to be much happier and more fulfilled and produce my best work when the deadlines are looming and the pressure mounting.

I felt happier designing and implemented solutions for my clients @ my old job, trying to find a way to get our services to match their needs and selling them the idea just as much as I liked just talking and kicking it with them. When I was handing over, I spent three months away from the fun and excitement and I was really almost pulling out my hair with boredom. I actually ended up leaving my job a month earlier than I had planned to do some traveling and such just to get some of that zing of life back. Now at Queen's the zing isn't a total match. I mean these are assignments and exams so its a whole new level of pressure. While at the same time, you are supposed to be actively trying to place yourself in an after school employ so research careers joining clubs juggling your personal life which can get a bit DEAD. But not to worry your Queen's classmates will be your new social life and best friends. Its not a cliche. Trust me you'll see. But all in all it all adds up to one thing. A super busy super engaging lifestyle.

On the downside; it is emotionally draining and you can feel super lonely especially when the work just piles up and your teammates suddenly seem like slave drivers and not the lovely supportive people you knew a few days ago.Sometimes, you crash, and for the most part it happens when you have a day off. For me it was our one week of in the summer. We had no assignments and a CAP ( career advantage program) week to start of right after the break so all in all more relaxing activities. I slept like I had never slept before on my break. I visited canada's wonderland with my friends in Toronto and just let loose. It felt as if I had become the routine. But thats a story for another day.

The team emphasis at Queen's was another of my number one reasons for picking this school. I am a firm believer in working together with people and have been learning how to make interpersonal relationships work for a looong time. Now as I said before i had experience working with clients, and I am considered a great people person by my friends. However, I wasn't sure I really kknew how to work in a team. My job placement so far was mainly in leading teams but not directly outside of the leading role and that had really been the story of my life. I was always the one who took charge, the prefect etc, I needed to be in an environment of equal leaders. I had anticipated I would have a pretty easy time with my team but I was in for a surprise. Don't get me wrong, my team is the best team on the class of '08; unfortunately I had set myself up for disaster by concentrating on my weaknesses in team working skills for most of my module 1 and 2 and spent much of that time trying to fit into a mold I assumed was ideal.

Turns out, as with most things in my life, I am not comfortable in molds and need room to stretch and grow. I also realized that the reason my team was flourishing so well was what I find works well in my own relationship with my boyfriend. We aren't trying to make each other be anyone other than who they are, AND more importantly, everyone does exactly what they want to do and what makes them happy. Why is that a good thing, its good because we all came on this program to learn and complete it successfully, if we each follow that pursuit because it is what we want then..... we do our assignments to the best of what we can and we maintain some level of sanity and doing it. We also have come to accept each day as a part of itself and any disagreements are resolved head on and forgotten.

OK

I'll leave it at that for now especially considering I have an elevator pitch to deliver tomorrow and assignments to do, and an info session to attend...did I mention the finance test I have day after tomorrow that I must study for.....

later

My First Post

Wow its been a while since i started dreaming of having a chance to share my queens experience with you. Yes...YOU.

Before I joined the Queen's program I found the personal insights via blogs totally helpful and I wanted to give a little back in terms of giving YOU a glimpse of the life at Queen's in the amazing (very biased view) MBA program.

I'll do a re-cap of the things I can remember in my next post then we can get to the good stuff... What is actually going on now.


Welcome to my view of my MBA world.