First Year Life at Questrom
Your 1st year as a full-time Questrom MBA student is sure to bring lots of choices– from clubs, to spring break trips, to electives, you’ll have many opportunities to carve your own path.
Coming back to grad school full-time is a major adjustment that provides both rewards and challenges.
Launch
Launch is Questrom’s 2-week orientation that gets your ready for a successful first year of your MBA! It is an incredibly exhausting but fun time that introduces you to all that Questrom has to offer. From a student BBQ to evenings at Cornwalls (Questrom’s local bar of choice), and from welcoming chats with professors and administrators to bonding with your new classmates, Launch really makes you feel a part of the community. You’ll have the opportunity to learn about clubs, campus safety, health insurance, and more. All these experiences mean that you’ll feel comfortable and ready to go once classes start.
Academics
A distinctive feature of first year life at Questrom is that all classes run on the quarter system (each quarter is called a “Mod”). The first three mods are comprised of core classes that you take alongside your cohort. Together, you will journey through quant-heavy Mod 1, work together on cases in Mod 2, and launch into your first live consulting project in Mod 3.
Each class meets twice a week for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Professors and TAs typically hold weekly office hours, as well as optional review sessions.
At the end of each mod, there is a cumulative project that combines all your learnings from the three classes you’ve just completed, which you will work with a team of 5-6 students. In Mod 1, you’ll act as a private equity firm looking to take over an underperforming company. In Mod 2, the whole class competes in a “Strategy Simulation”– each team is a car company pitting themself against the rest of companies (teams) to gain market share and stock price. And finally in Mod 3, you’ll have the opportunity to conduct a consulting project with a real client! These projects challenge you to apply your skills. They really help solidify your learnings and teach you how to work successfully on teams.
Teaming
Questrom is well known for our strong emphasis on teaming. Each Mod project is conducted by a team of students in your cohort. Our teaming class begins during Launch, and meets a handful of times throughout the first year to teach you about different challenges your team is likely facing at that point in time (communication, embracing diversity, decision making). We take a hands on approach: we visited Thompson Island in the Boston harbor for a day of adventure education, took a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, and went on a scavenger hunt throughout Boston.
A big focus of these teams is learning how to reflect on your contributions to a team and how to support the professional development of your teammates. This requires compassion, self awareness, and flexibility, as we all learn to be strong teammates and leaders together.
We are encouraged to treat these teams as real professional teams. We take time for team bonding (board game nights, team lunch, dinner at someone’s apartment). Openly talking through disagreements is encouraged. One of the best parts of teaming is the opportunity to make friends, especially with students you may not have met otherwise.
Community
One of the highlights of the Questrom experience is the community we build. Our classmates are incredibly genuine, hard working, supportive and fun. This is definitely somewhere you can come to make lifelong friends. Because the program is relatively small, it’s possible to get to know most of your peers at least a little. This creates an environment that goes beyond making a few close friends, but where everyone really supports everyone. A few examples of this community are:
- Cohort Cup– each cohort competes throughout the first year for the “Cohort Cup” title. Through sporting event, trivia nights, food drives, and bake-offs, each cohort has the chance to fight for the cup. While sometimes the competition gets hot, the Cohort Cup is ultimately a great example of the commitment students make to a fun and supportive community here at Questrom.
- Link Day– each spring, around 100 Questrom students participate in Link Day, a one-day non-profit consulting project. Students are put on teams of 5-6 and are paired with a local non-profit. This event is a great opportunity for students to work together to put their newly learned skills to work to help the Boston community.
- Internship Fund for Social Impact– the Internship Fund is a student led fundraiser in which students donate to support their peers choosing to take an unpaid or underpaid summer internship related to social impact. The event is a hallmark of the Questrom Community in which nearly 100% of students donate, many of whom pledge to “donate a day” of their internship salary.
We hope to see you on campus this Fall! If you have any questions about student life at Questrom, please email connect@bu.edu to set up time to speak with a student ambassador one-on-one.