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[分享]Wharton's unique - 1

[日期:2005-01-26] 来源:ChaseDream论坛 作者:netghost [字体: ]

I understand that as an applicant, it is difficult to determine what makes a school unique. Now that I'm a first year at Wharton, and have had the opportunity to speak with my friends at other business schools, I can tell what makes Wharton unique.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I think the four week pre-term is very unique to Wharton. About 75% of the class showed up to campus on July 30 to begin pre-term. It's a month long program with classes designed to prepare you for first semester, but the reality is that it's a month long party. Grades in those classes don't count for anything. We have grade non-disclosure as it is, but we don't even receive grades for our pre-term classes. It's a relaxed time to settle in and meet your classmates. I'm not aware of any other school that has this. Some other schools might have a week long orientation, or perhaps a trip with a small group of your future classmates. But Wharton brings the entire class together in Philadelphia.

At Wharton, we have the opportunity to gain real world experience in the first year. Granted some other business schools also have this, but most of my friends at other business schools say that they don't have any projects with external companies until their second year. Wharton first year students are required to complete the FAP, a field application project. It's basically a consulting project for a company, and will give us the advantage of this experience before our summer internships. I'm fulfilling my FAP requirement with the Global Consulting Practicum (GCO). My team is working with a client in Israel that wants to launch their product in the US. Added bonus, the client covers our travel expenses for a meeting in Prague over Winter Break.
I think another unique part of Wharton is the student-driven culture. The MBA students practically run the school, and are involved in everything! We work on the admissions committee, organize amazing conferences (there seems to be one every week!), we coordinate treks to visit companies all over the country that might not necessarily recruit on campus, we volunteer to do consulting projects for Philadelphia nonprofit organizations, we provide feedback to our professors halfway through the term so they can modify the class based on student needs, and we organize amazing parties such as the Wharton Winter Ball, Walnut Walk, and the Halloween party.

Another great thing about Wharton is that 80% of us live in Center City. It makes for a very close community when we all live within blocks of each other. Center City is about a half hour walk from campus, so even though we all live near each other, we also have that separation from campus. I could go on, but I'll stop now. I'm sure there will be perspectives from other students as well.

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It's funny, because as I go through the intership search process, I find myself asking the same question of companies, and I often hear the same answers over and over. When it comes down to it, it's how a variety of factors that appeal to you come together AND, in the end is largely driven by culture. Where do you feel "right"? For me, Wharton feels right.

I've listed some reasons below why I love Wharton, but you can find bits and pieces of these points at lots of schools, just not all at the same school.

1) The people- people here are extremely motivated, want to get involved, and help each other out; for example, at exam time, everyone is sending around study sheets to help each other prepare, during the recruiting season we read each others cover letters and mock interview each other. There are always exceptions, but overall I find it a competitive but friendly environment

2) Teamwork- I am on a team with one other US student and students from Chile, Japan, Taiwan and India- whether you want to go into global business or not, this is a tremendous opportunity to build friendships with people across the world and gain new perspectives on everything from business to socializing to food...

3) Teaching method- personally, I learn best from a mixture of lecture and case methods. Case's are fun and often more interesting, but I'm not going to learn how to find net present value through a discussion.

I could go on and on- I've found the professor's very interested in their students (my finance professor took everyone in his classes to lunch or happy hour in groups of 6 this past semester). Everything is student run- if you don't like something, you can do something about it (you just have to take the initiative versus sitting around complaining...). And, I actually think Philly is a great city...

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That is an interesting question. If you ask fifty Wharton students what is unique about Wharton, I bet you would get fifty-one answers. And that, in and of its self, is what makes Wharton unique. Wharton offers its students an infinite range of possibilities to shape their own educational experience here. If there is something that you don’t like about Wharton as a student, then you can change it. The faculty is very responsive to student input and the students are willing to do the extra work if they think that they can improve on Wharton in any way.

I’ll give you an example. Wharton has Pub every Thursday in order let MBA students congregate and blow off steam after a tough week at school. A Wharton student decided that while Pub is a good idea, the environment was too rowdy for families and people who do not drink. She procured extra space and opened up the Salon, which takes place during Pub and features softer music, pizza, ice cream, and forms of themed entertainment (such as International Salon or Live Music Salon).

Now that Salon has been around for a semester, the student body received a questionnaire about whether or not we thought Salon was valuable, what could be improved, and what we liked the most about Salon. We will either scrap Salon or make it better. This is a very typical example of any sort of initiative that takes place at Wharton. And there are a lot of initiatives.

This continual innovation and the ability of students to make their Wharton experience fit their own needs is what makes Wharton unique.

As a prospective student, you need to think about what this means for you. It means that you will need to be proactive. You will need to be able to not only stomach change, but if you want to be truly successful, you will need to know how to instigate change. You need to be able to thrive in situations of uncertainty and you need to be supportive of others in uncertain and uncomfortable times. These are the qualities that I would like to see in my future classmates, and later, alumni, at Wharton because if Wharton has students with these qualities, then Wharton can continue to maintain its position as an innovator in the future.

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