McDonough Reviews

Experience during the program

" The moment I saw the mail from my dream university, welcoming me to their MBA program, I was so happy and on cloud nine. I lived the time of my life for the rest of my days in India before I flew to US. I was doing nothing stressful, enjoying all day, meeting friends and partying. I was happy that all my effort and struggle for the past 2 years , finally came good and I was as excited as ever to live my dream of MBA in a top school. I received a surprise gift of USD 50,000 from the university to fund my tuition to double my Joy. The day finally came and I got the best sendoff possible with my loving family and caring friends , all coming to the airport to say bye and wish me the best. I am generally an emotional idiot and would cry a lot for missing anything I like, but the euphoria of being able to realize my dream and the perception that I can come back whenever I want, made me leave as if I am going on a holiday. I never knew that I cannot meet any one of them at least for the next year or so :-(.

I had a good flight. I was travelling alone and during the flight, all my life till date flashed in my head. I had 100 questions running in my brain. Is it true am on the flight? Am I still dreaming? what if I did not apply to this school? can I survive in US? Did I made a mistake to not take the safer option? I kept on thinking and before I realized , I reached my destination. My cousin came to welcome me. Few hours after reaching his house, I started feeling that I am very very very far from my home and I started to miss it. My first tears in US rolled down my cheeks and I checked the price for a return flight. I felt like I am behaving like a 5 year old kid and calmed myself. In a few days I started enjoying my time. My best friends are around and I had a very good time with my cousins and friends.I spent two weeks in New Jersey and then left to Washington DC for my school. I felt sad,anxious, nervous , what not as I will have to live in a new place with people I never met.

I had a few days to adjust before my school starts. Luckily I have good roommates and it helped to settle down. I went to the school to complete some documentation and the moment I entered the school , I fell in love with it. I was soo excited to go to school on the first day , only to realize how strenuous and exhausting it is to be in the business school. I had a extremely demanding, horrible, terrible first week at school , which is just the orientation. I was happy that the Orientation is completed but I never know that what was to come is thousand times worse. The pre term or famously called hell at Georgetown started and we had a intense intense 3 weeks, full of classes and meetings. I was under a lot of stress to stay on level with the class. Everything in life seemed to be a fight. To cook and eat, to find some sleep, to study , everything seemed like one. I struggled a lot but at the same time enjoyed the challenge. I got the best possible study team with 4 awesome Americans and an equally awesome Zimbabwean and by the end of the term I had mixed feelings. I was happy that the term is over and sad at the same time that I will miss my team. Finally my MBA started officially...

The Euphoria ended. I sit in a class where people are from all parts of the world. I enjoy the mix and diversity but at times when I feel like sitting next to an Indian, I hardly find one. The feeling of missing home, friends, food and life back at home started to get to me. I started missing India each day and feeling like flying back home. I be with all kinds of people , I like some and frankly I hate some. Even with people I like a lot, people who are so good, I find it tough to be , because of the difference in age and thinking. Being so young, I have completely different view of taking things and I started to find it difficult to be with people even with those whom I like. I do not drink , I do follow a lot of religious practices that stop me from eating meat at times. As a result I do not find fun in parties. Every week its a fight between my resilience and my necessity to live the american life.Every simple thing seems so tough and it adds up to the frustration. I always thought MBA in US to be completely different from MBA in India in terms of the rat race for grades. I thought of taking time and learning something without the pressure of grades but surprisingly its the same situation here and the relative grading makes it even worse. I love the challenge but all other factors that pull me down , do not let me do my best. It took me a good part of 2 months to get used to this and now I enjoy it.

About professors, classes and curriculum

The professors are really good. Especially the finance and strategy professors run the experience of how your MBA will feel like.

Overall BSchool experience (5.0)
Schools contribution (5.0)
Classmates rating (5.0)

Strengths of the program:

Alumni Network
Career opportunities provided by school
Brand/Ranking
Culture & Student Support
Facilities
Admissions Team

Best fit at this program:

Consulting
Tech

Can be improved:

Student body, diversity
Specialization in a particular area (e.g. Finance, Consulting, Healthcare, etc)

Read More