Kryzak's Semi-Blog for Themes, Essays, and Apps

Alright, I'm the biggest procrastinator known to man. There I said it! If only I can put that on my application to make me "unique", haha!

Anyway, I'm going to start a "semi-blog" of my thought processes, just so people can comment on things, help me brainstorm, and maybe this will be helpful or funny to read once it's all over. Who knows. It's a "semi-blog" because I'm not going to update it with all the steps I'm taking, but it's more of my own little process tracking utility and sounding board.

The first thing I managed to finally put down tonight was my theme/handles. No, this isn't the theme/handles like "Empathic Leader who's a Quant God" type "slogans" that people talk about, but the 5-6 "Chapters" of my essay package that I want to make sure I talk about. Feel free to comment as you like, but I think these are the things I want to talk about in my essays:

My 4 themes are broken down into Work Leadership, Career Motivation, Non-Work Leadership, and Community Involvement/Volunteering. I'll also put some comments out there on why I'm including the item:

Work Leadership:
- Leading a summer intern program: This one is a shining example of my leadership skills, even if it was roughly 3 years ago.

- Other minor examples of leading smaller groups in 2 different functions (5-15 people)

Motivations:

This is for my "Why MBA/Why Now" essays. These three "brief mentions" will combine into a coherent story of my thought process and reasons for how I decided on what my career goals are and why I need an MBA. Think of them as one big theme encompassing three minor ones:

- Brief mention of the leadership program I was in: This explains how I got exposed to the business side of things

- Brief mention of a "startup" group I was in within a big company, and how I enjoyed seeing the process of concept exploration to fully funded program. My entrepreneur friend said that this is the best story to show why I'm interested in entrepreneurship even though I've never done it.

- Brief mention of my quest to shift from a tech position to a more business position in my company


Non-Work Leadership:
to show my well-roundedness

- Company and local tennis team(s) founder/captain

Outside Community Involvement:

The key is to show that I am involved with the community *and* school/alma mater whenever I find an opportunity. It also shows that I focus my involvement in things I'm passionate about.

- Music and Astronomy teaching:
- Mentor/Advisorship of an alma mater student society:
- Starting a social network for new employees at the company:

Alright, so this what I'll be using for the various essays for each school. 4 major items, Work Leadership, Why MBA, Non-work Leadership, and Community involvement. Work and Non-Work Leadership each have one major example, and I'll leave it at that. Motivations always encompass a wide variety of reasons that go throughout your career, so having 3 brief examples is good. Involvement I'll pick and choose the best ones that fit the essay question.

Since my background is engineering, I will leave the tech stuff out of all my essays, and let me transcripts, GMAT, and GPA do the talking. My focus is on leadership, people sklils, well-roundedness, minor innovations, and passion for the things I do.

Comments? Questions? Hope this brainstorm is at least of some use to others... at least it's been good for me to type it out...