The mbaMission Podcast

EP 72 | Attending B-School in the U.S. as an International Student

• mbaMission • Season 2 • Episode 72

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In this week's episode of the mbaMission podcast, Harold Simansky and Jessica Shklar welcome back Aman Singh, a former mbaMission client and current student at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Today Aman is sharing his an experience as an international student attending business school in the United States. He discusses the ways in which he connected with other admits before arriving at school, the support he received from the International Students Office, and whether he feels -- now halfway through the program -- that coming to the U.S. to attend MIT Sloan was the right choice. If you are an international applicant considering MBA programs in the U.S., this episode is a must-watch!

00:00 Welcome to the mbaMission podcast
01:10 Welcome to our guest, Aman Singh
02:30 Arriving on campus 
05:45 Housing assistance 
06:07 Connecting with students before orientation
07:39 The impact of school size and structure
10:38 Academic intensity and time management
15:19 Planning for Year 2
16:46 Business clubs and certificate programs
19:39 Was it worth it?

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Jessica:

When you first got to MIT as an international student, how did they help you adjust?

Aman:

At MIT we have the International Students Office, which obviously was great help. I really kind of felt at home. How did you meet students over the summer before? We created this massive WhatsApp community with everyone in it. So we had Sloanies in London, Sloanies in New York, Sloanies in LA, and things like that. My core team and people around me were great. They helped me through it. And I think that was one of the best things ever. Was it worth it? I think right now, because of the people I met and some of the things I've learned, 100% worth it.

Harold:

Aman Singh journeyed from Ireland to London to Boston for his MBA at MIT Sloan, and we are eager to learn more about this transition and his experiences.

Jessica:

So, Aman, thank you for continuing to speak with us. I think what I would really love to hear about, and I hope that our listeners would too, is the whole business school experience, kind of specific to MIT, but also at least at the beginning, specific to come on over here as an international student. So I know we're not going to talk about visa issues and all that because that's in the past, but when you first got to MIT as an international student, how did they help you adjust or did they help you adjust?

Aman:

Yeah, at MIT we have the International Student's Office, which obviously was great help teaching us what to do, um, helping us with applications and things like that, or like visa applications. However, with MIT itself, I think the induction week was pretty induction is like an orientation. Orientation, sorry, yes, orientation week was pretty, pretty amazing. So in it you kind of meet your ocean, which is kind of like your section that you're in and split into about five sections with about 80 to 70 students. And then within your section or ocean, the way we call it, um, you're in a core team, which is a group of six to seven people, and you essentially stick with that core team throughout your whole first semester. You do all your classes together, you do all your group projects together.

Jessica:

So it sounds like your first semester, you don't have a lot of electives.

Aman:

You have one that you can choose out of four. So I think it's strategy, marketing, finance, or operations, uh, where I chose strategy, but everything else is kind of set in stone for you.

Jessica:

Tell us more about induction week.

Aman:

Oh, yeah, perfect. So it was about four days just for classes start, but one of the days in it was we go out to this camp called the Warren Center, and it's basically a day out where you are in your core team and you're doing a lot of things like building a boat together and sailing out to a specific area. Um, you're talking more about getting to know each other, uh, about your favorite foods and things like that. I think that's where we like really, really gelled. Um, and I really kind of felt at home. I met these, you know, six new people for the first time of my life. And right. Um, very quickly, who were those six people? Backgrounds, where they came from, all different backgrounds. So there was a few international students, so there were two consultants that we had, one from McKinsey, one from Bain. We had someone that had worked uh in a lot of different places. She was um HKS and MBA Dooley. Um, we had another LGO, which is Leaders for Global Operations, a dual degree at MIT. They had an investment banker. So no one from tech except for me.

Jessica:

But you were the tech person. I was the tech person, but and then what about their um domestic or international background?

Aman:

Most of them were uh from the US. There were two that were had international backgrounds but had spent a significant time in the US. I was the only one who had just kind of come off the plane.

Jessica:

Now, had you lived in the US at any point before?

Aman:

I did a J1, which is kind of a three-month uh work visa. Uh I lived in New York after I finished college, and it's kind of popular within Irish students to come to America for the summer and work um jobs in and around America for just for the summer before you go back to university. Um, but even then when I came over, I never really uh got into kind of making friends around me. I was just sticking with other Irish people that had also come over.

Jessica:

And had you ever been to Boston before?

Aman:

No, that's that was a first, but I was surprised by how great the weather was in September.

Jessica:

Did that last?

Aman:

It lasted till about Halloween, and then after that I was like, okay, this is terrible.

Jeremy:

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Jessica:

So here's the key question where did you buy your winter coat?

Aman:

I had a winter coat that I had in the UK and it did not work at all, but I just layered and layered and layered, and just yeah, I was like, you know, only a few more weeks before it's sunny again.

Harold:

Even as a Bostonian, I feel exactly the same way, which is a few more weeks till it's sunny again, and then at some point it goes to why am I still living here?

Aman:

Or it was like, when's my next trip? When's my next trip? Yeah, yeah.

Jessica:

Now, how close to campus did you live? How much outdoor time did you actually have to get to class?

Aman:

I live technically on campus, but my accommodation is the furthest thing away from Sloan. So Sloan is uh uh on one end of the campus and my accommodation is on the other end of the campus. So it's about a 25-minute walk.

Jessica:

Oh, that's a big campus.

Aman:

But um Sloan does or MIT does have the shuttles, so there was a shuttle stop right in front of me, and it kind of dropped me off right in front of Sloan. So that was also pretty handy. The shuttles come every 10 minutes.

Jessica:

And did the International Student Office help you find housing? Um the housing office helps you find housing.

Aman:

The housing office gives you loads of options where you can get housing. Um, there's some that are really close to Sloan, um, there's some that are far. Um, but also we had a roommate matching Excel sheet that the students have set up where you could uh find a few people that you wanted to live with and then find a house in Central or Kendall Square.

Jessica:

So let's actually back up before even you got to campus. How did you meet, once you had paid your deposit, you were going to MIT, how did you meet students over the summer before?

Aman:

Yeah, great question. I think we created this, we had the Slack channel that everyone gets invited to, and then we created this massive WhatsApp community with everyone in it. And then within the WhatsApp community, we had Sloanies in different areas. So we have Sloanies in London, Sloanies in New York, Sloanies in LA, and things like that. Uh obviously, living in London, I joined the Sloneys in London chat, and then we organized some meetups throughout the summer. Um, also the Slack was great. Uh, so my roommate found me on Slack and we were talking to each other and we had a few video calls, and that's why I decided to live with the three of them. Um, but it was very kind of self-started. I think there was a few people who took the initiative and we just went with that and very grateful for them to doing it. Um, I think another big thing was a Labor Day weekend where a lot of international students didn't know what that was or weren't kind of going home, and we had a four-day weekend essentially. Uh, and there was this one guy who basically planned events for the whole weekend. They planned mini dinners, uh, about I think 30 of them were groups of five or six were meeting and made reservations. They planned a barbecue, a sports day, they planned a party and all these things. And it was just this one guy who planned everything.

Jessica:

Just all that work ahead of time. When I showed up at HBS, which was, you know, eons ago, I didn't know anyone.

Aman:

Yeah.

Jessica:

And not one. I just showed up. I'm like, okay, I'm here. But the experience now, and I look at my kids going to college, when by the time they get to college, they have Instagram groups, they've met everyone. Like they're it's a completely different experience. So showing up must feel like, oh, I know these people already. They're already my friends.

Aman:

Having that kind of core um uh semester where you're doing all the same classes with your set ocean, I think that really helped me get to know my ocean really, really well. Uh, because if we were in different classes and everywhere, I think it would have been a bit harder to stick with the same people in.

Jessica:

And that is something that I think is important when you're doing school research is to figure out for yourself, do you want that built-in community at like a uh MIT or Harvard where it lasts for a full year? Or is the purpose for you more to being able to pick your classes and go to like a Chicago booth where there are no requirements? And so you're owning your curriculum from day one. And there are advantages and disadvantages. Nothing is is that it's not a good or a bad.

Harold:

That's right. And just to sharpen it a little bit here, this notion here of going to business school and going to Tuck, where it is an incredibly close group of people, because it has to be, versus going to a Columbia, which is far less uh connected for the simple reason our people already have their relationships in New York City. And at the end of the day, that is probably something that's underestimated or under acknowledged.

Jessica:

But I would guess that for MIT it's not it's sort of in between the Columbia model where so many people are living in New York and the talk where nobody is living in Hanover, New Hampshire, um, because I don't think that many people are from Boston.

Aman:

There was surprisingly quite a few. Um, but what was great about them is they really took ownership over showing people around and telling people what's what. Um there was a lot of group chats, there was a lot of lists of like these are our favorite restaurants, you should go here, you should go there. So I think one of my best friends out of MIT as actually from Boston, went to BC, uh went to DC after that, but he really kind of helped me kind of become know what's what. And then I think there was a lot of exploring in the beginning, but everybody was up for it. Yeah, I think everybody, you know, you asked, would you like to go for dinner, lunch, or coffee? And I think people rarely said no.

Jessica:

What's the radius? Do you go into downtown Boston? Do you go to the suburbs, or you pretty much stay in Cambridge?

Aman:

We pretty much stay in Cambridge and Central. The odd time we would go into downtown, um, just in case, like if there's a party there or something like that. But um, I wouldn't venture into downtown. Like I do go for um an Irish pub because I feel at home there. But um, there's one in the down in called the Dubliner, but other than that, um, yeah, I rarely go to go into downtown.

Jessica:

Okay.

Harold:

That makes sense. And and in Boston's defense, downtown, eh, it's all right. Cambridge is sort of a little bit more of the happening place.

Jessica:

I both grew up in Boston, so he still lives here. So um, yeah, so we can say that. So you've got your how long did it take you to stop laughing at calling yourself an ocean?

Aman:

Oh, we still call each other oceans, even though some of them aren't oceans, but I was Pacific Ocean. What Atlantic. Okay.

Jessica:

Do you know why MIT does that?

Harold:

I have no idea. Yeah. And then were you in a school too? As far as we used to have oceans and then our core teams were called schools.

Aman:

No, our core teams are named after birds, so we're the herons. Oh, okay. Okay.

Jessica:

I think that changes every year.

Aman:

Okay.

Jessica:

Yeah. The and the the core team names change. The oceans don't, but the core team names change. So your first semester, you're taking mostly core requirements, one elective. Um how quickly did the academic intensity start?

Aman:

It started kind of right then and there, like I think second week I was stressing because I'd never done case method or readings, and I joined this class called competitive strategy uh with Don Sell. And for the first time I was reading this 15-page case, and he would quiz us about it when we got into class and cold call us, and I was like, I was I'd go into the class nervous and anxious. But um, you know, my core team and people around me were great. They helped me through it, and I think that was one of the best things ever. And I really felt that I could rely on them. So we from like the beginning, we were making you know weekly meetings that we would meet up. I think in the second week we all entered out for dinner, made sure that we were kind of all on the same page. Um, we also kind of made a homework schedule of like who would tackle what and made sure that we would own up to it, which was uh amazing. Um, and then we had a core team mentor. So that's a second year that kind of tells you what's what essentially and will give you some guidance, tell you how to behave as a core team, and also give you advice. So our core team mentor, a guy called Berto, amazing guy. I think without him, it would have been very difficult to gel.

Jessica:

And is that a volunteer activity that's just take on?

Aman:

So um three people from my core team uh volunteered this year for to be core team mentors, and it's a um uh well, I didn't do it, but it seemed like a very rewarding job. Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, yes.

Harold:

No, I no, I understand. I I certainly remember the intensity of it. The the question is where did you end up spending your time? Obviously, you have the social piece, you have the academic piece, but then also recruiting gets thrown in there and possibly even fan, yeah, f family obligations or what yeah.

Aman:

I think in the beginning I was a bit all over the place. I think recruiting wasn't at top of mind because I'd heard that PM kind of starts a bit later on. Um I did want to academically learn a lot, especially coming from like a CS and technical background, I'd never done economics or never done accounting. So to me, all these concepts are new, and I really wanted to hone in on those. Um, whereas social aspect came in, I feel like I was pretty social. I'd go to all the parties. Yes.

Jessica:

Actually, I want to interrupt you there, for what you just said about the economics and accounting. Did you or do you know of people who took classes after getting in and before they started in order to make sure that they were had a baseline level of skills? And is that something you would recommend?

Aman:

No, um, I think the way they did the core team was amazing. So um we had a guy who you know did applied math and had done all these accounting classes. We had a guy who was working in finance, had done all the finance things and economics. And I think what was great is when we had exams and we had um when we did a homework, we would actually have a session where the person who did the homework would explain the homework to everybody else and made sure people understood it. Um so that way I think it was perfect.

Jessica:

Do you think that your core team was one of the better ones? It sounds amazing.

Aman:

I think most core teams did. I don't want to brag, but our core team was pretty great. I mean, it's so great. Three of us are actually living together this year. That's right. That's right. So I think we're we got really, really close. Uh we met over the summer, we talked constantly, uh, and I think yeah, we just gelled really, really well with each other.

Jessica:

So then your first semester, at what point in your first semester do you start to think about second semester classes?

Aman:

I think it's around October, uh, where the bidding system gets released, and you're you know, asking second years, asking for their bidding strategy, asking for what courses are good, what are not good. And I will say the bidding strategy is uh not one of my favorite things in MIT. Can you explain it a little bit? Yeah, I think there are some courses where you really want to do them, and I think you have to bid enough points, and sometimes you don't bid enough points and you don't get it. But what that means is if you bid uh a major amount or major section of your points, you basically waste them and you get them back, and then you have to bid in the next round. But then what happens then is all the good classes are taken by them, and then you're gone back to the drawing board, like, what should I take? What should I take? Um, I think this happened to me this semester where I had um bid most a thousand points on two separate classes, and I had to drop one of them because they had a prereq and I couldn't get the other one, and that made me uh a bit anxious because I had no classes coming in. So I was kind of running around trying to find classes, get wait listed on different classes, and then um luckily uh Harvard's um Harvard's uh academic calendar lines up with MITs this uh semester. So uh I looked over at Harvard to cross-register there. So I'm doing uh I'm so far I'm doing one class there, but I'm looking at doing another class there.

Jessica:

And is that um does it work the other way too? Are there Harvard students who cross-registered MIT?

Aman:

A lot of Harvard students. So in our PM class, we had a few Harvard students in um the class I was in yesterday, entrepreneurial finance and venture capital. We had a few Harvard students there. So there's a lot of back and forth.

Harold:

What are you most looking forward to as you start your new year?

Aman:

Yeah, I think we have all these new first years coming. I think I'm really looking forward to helping guide them. So obviously, when you come in, you come out with a lot of excitement, you're nervous about recruiting, what to do, where to go. And uh, I think one thing we were told when we came in is that PM is impossible to break in. It's very hard. If you don't have a PM background, you're not gonna get it. And I don't think that was great advice. I think you will get an interview, you will be able to get the interview, you just have to be prepared. I think this year we want to really focus on making PM or aspiring PMs to be comfortable and make sure that they're well prepared for interviews if they do get them. Um, other than that, I'm co-president of the South Asian Business Club, so uh hoping to kind of bring the South Asian community uh together and host a lot of events. And then class-wise, I'm this year I'm taking a mixture of classes. So if I told you I was doing a PM and you saw my class list, you were like, this doesn't make sense. Um so I'm doing like uh business analysis using financial statements. I'm doing this one class called Leading Creative Teams, which uh is part of a certificate at MIT for engineering leadership called Grad L. And anyone at MIT can do it, which is great. So it's outside of just the business school, yeah. Um so you can do a lot of classes outside the business school, and this is essentially you know teaching you how to be a a good leader for creative teams, but from an engineering perspective, so we have a lot of PhD students, we have people from everywhere that come in and do this class. Um so I'm doing that class and then the the entrepreneurial finance VC class and then one on entrepreneurial sales.

Jessica:

Are you doing is there a PM club that you're part of?

Aman:

There is a PM club. We're very active this year. I'm not leading, but I'm helping with a few things this year. Uh, four of my really good friends are um leading this kind of academic side of the PM club where they have seven weeks set aside where they're gonna break down every sort of question you can get in a PM interview and then teach you how to answer it. But they're doing it this semester, whereas we didn't really get that in our PM club. We got a lot of guest speakers come in and talk to us, which is amazing. Um, but when it came to recruiting, we were all a bit lost.

Jessica:

Is the focus of those questions for the first years for internships or for all of you for full-time jobs?

Aman:

Everyone. Yeah. Um we're we're taking a page out of the Investment Banking Club and the Consulting Club where they were kind of on the ball from day one. They knew what they needed to teach people, and we're trying to do the same with PM.

Harold:

Yeah, very quickly here. I know MIT Sloan also has a number of other certificate programs that are also open up to uh really any graduate student at MIT. I think there's a sustainability, I think there's some sort of entrepreneurship.

Jessica:

Can you talk a little bit about the lab classes? These are like G Labs, C Lab.

Aman:

Yeah, so um I've done PM lab, which over our IAP period, and for those who don't know what IAP is, IAP is basically the this month of January where you technically uh do independent study. So we don't have classes that uh month, but you can do labs or you can do other classes that wouldn't be in your uh curriculum.

Harold:

And one of those Yeah, I mean one class that undergraduates, I'm not gonna say always engineering, but many undergraduate engineering students do. It was called the charm school. And you can imagine what that is. It's basically imagine what an MIT engineering student looks like. Imagine what someone should look like in a social situation, and that's supposed to be the bridge. But that said, I don't want to cut you short here. There are clearly a bunch of other courses.

Aman:

What did lab classes do? Uh so I did PM Lab where they partnered us with local businesses, small businesses. Uh there were some big ones as well. So Whoop was one of them, Toast was another one, um, Ember Lab. So some founded from Sloan and they have their partnerships. And what you do is you work with them for about three weeks over January and you get a sense of what product management means.

Jessica:

So if it's if a class is called a lab, that means there's a hands-on element that you are, whether in i lab in India or C Lab in China or USA lab in a disadvantaged part of the country.

Aman:

Yep. And the other one I did was ID Lab, which is leadership lab. And that went for a lot of points last year uh in the spring, but it was one of my best classes at Sloan. Uh, it was all about leadership. And I went in thinking um they're going to teach us frameworks and how to deal with difficult situations and how to do what, but uh found out leadership is none of that. It's all about vulnerability, it's all about opening up, it's all about, you know, trying to understand the other person, active listening. And it really just kind of changed the way I think about leadership. And when I went into my internship, and even like in my daily life, I think it's really changed the way I approach conversations and people now.

Jessica:

Was it worth it? You spent a lot of money, you gave up two years of income, and you look at MIT.

Aman:

You know, I think throughout my life, whenever you ask that question, it'll have a different answer. I think right now, because of the people I met and some of the things I've learned, 100% worth it. I think MIT admissions specifically do an amazing job at who they admit, and it's I think the people just make it. Yeah, I think the people I've met, and you know, a lot of people say MBA is all about the networking, and you know, but it's the genuine connections you make. And I don't think of them as my network there, but some of them are like truly great friends. And the classes, the classes, yeah. Uh, I think if you have your bidding strategy down, 100% worth it. I don't, but all the classes I've done so far, bar you know, one or two, um, have been phenomenal. And you may not get what you think you'll get from the class, but you do get something out of it that you wouldn't realize. Um, and I think one class that comes to mind was improv for leadership that I did. Oh, awesome. Um, so I am not an improv guy, I'm not an acting guy. I could not act for the life of me. But I decided to take this class on a whim. It was like um a half semester course last year, and it was amazing. I like I we went in and we were like running around the classroom and acting and kind of you know, based on other people's actions, we were doing actions. And after that, it she started translating it into how that translates to leadership, like how you don't say if you're a leader, you have to say yes and never yes, but and it makes the other person feel heard and comfortable and open to sharing ideas. I think that class, I don't know what it was, but it was amazing. You know, I tell most of my it's it was a lot of work and it took a lot of coming out of my shell. But during my internship, I just kept recalling lessons from that class.

Harold:

That's so interesting.

Aman:

And yeah, it's wild, yeah.

Jessica:

Okay, we would love to hear more about the internship experience, but maybe we'll do that in another conversation. Sure.

unknown:

Okay.

Harold:

That is terrific. Aman, thank you very much. We really appreciate your time. Yeah, thank you.

Jeremy:

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