A bad student’s confession
My Graduate Study of MSBA at Brandeis University
By the time I wrote this confession, I just accidentally finished my last homework assignment, and skipped my last class in my entire student life because of a time conflict I cannot avoid. Besides this, I did a lot of things way worse than skipping classes in this one year and a half, as student in Master of Science in Business Analytics program at Brandeis University. Though this program is designed for excellent students like most of my classmates, I skipped a lot of classes, dozed during classes, spent most of my time out of school. Because before I started my graduate study, I knew that I should regard myself not as a student anymore, but as a full-fledged member of the society.
Many of us came for master programs for different reasons. My reason was to make up for my regrets of my undergrad life. I was trying so hard to have a four-year undergrad experience, but I failed. Because the whole problem was, I viewed myself as a student inside the classroom, but wonderful things happen outside of our comfort zone. I dared not to break a tradition and try new things I wanted to try because I thought comfort zone is there to comfort people. It takes courage to go outside, to experience the new world. It might be painful. But after the pain, it could also be fruitful. Therefore, I challenged myself to step outside of my comfort zone and try crazy things in my graduate study. I have not crossed out so many things on my undergrad wishlist. I hoped that I could make up for it during my grad study.
During the lunches of orientation, the vice dean invited one student from each program to stand in front of everyone and do a self-introduction. I had always been a shy and introvert before, but I challenged myself to raise my hand and go for this self-introduction. Because this was the time to break my tradition of being a wallflower but let my new classmates know me, I had no reason to hold myself back. I just did my first public speech in my entire life. I did not feel humiliated, but got a strong sense of accomplishment, and it felt so great!
This was just a start. I kept breaking out of my comfort zones, doing crazy things I have never imagined. For example, I knew a good student should not skip a class. But I kept skipping lectures for networking events, career fairs, and other time conflicts. Because I knew this was way more interesting and precious to have conversation with people in the field than sitting in class and listening to lectures.
When I was an undergrad, I always tried taking classes for easy A. I could have not even imagined that I would petition to take tough classes even though I was not allowed to. This was because I always regretted that, for my undergrad study, I took too much easy classes and not having a good coding background. In my graduate study, I kept challenging my advisors by breaking the requirements of our program, but to my surprise the business school is so open-minded and allowed me to take courses at other departments. Because, in my point of view, “business analytics” has 2 concentrations, either “business” or “analytics”. I am more interested in analytics, in how to analyze large sets of data to provide insights for the company and clients to make right decision. Therefore, I knew that I should work on the techniques of analyzing big data and have better coding skills. I kept petitioning to take the difficult computer science courses outside of business school even though my required courses in business school are way easier. Ever since the second semester, I have been spending most of my time on those CS classes rather than business course. I did not even feel that I belonged to business school anymore. I felt so enthusiastic because I got the chance to speed up on my own path and make up for my regrets.
My motivation for study was not even from school, for getting straight As or taking a lot of course. My motivation came from my desire of leaving the school. During this a year and a half, My most productive time was the January of 2020, because I was preparing so hard for my internship interview from Google. To prepare for this interview, I used all the time I could have to study the things that my courses taken in school did not teach me. Even though I was eventually rejected, I was still grateful for this chance because it pushed me to try and made me learn way more skills and knowledge than the courses in school.
During our study of master programs, the most unexpected challenge for all of us is, undoubtedly, Covid-19. We only lived and studied with classmates for half year, but we needed to split because of this pandemic. This was a sad moment for me when I have no classmates around me. On the other hand, this was also a precious chance for me, a bad student, to take a bold move that past students could not do. I moved from Waltham, MA to Bay Area, CA.
I took college in San Diego. I remember that for my last day in San Diego, I took an Uber and told my driver that I was leaving. He asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ I said ‘Maybe Boston, even though San Diego is so beautiful and temperate, I want to see how Bostonians live in snowstorms. I want to go to a new place and have a different experience.’ That time, I did not know the result of my grad school applications yet. But to my surprise, I only got 2 offers from my grad school, one is to keep studying at my undergraduate institute and the other is Brandeis. I chose Brandeis with no hesitation for this wonderful and different experience.
Because we are taking classes online, I can actually live anywhere I want. After a year I still did not get used to snowstorms, so I wanted to escape from Massachusetts before winter is coming and to enjoy California’s sunshine. But most importantly, instead of living close to school, I prefer living in Silicon Valley with all those tech companies around. I want to keep my adventures going, to move to a new place and to get another brand-new experience, just like the time I decided to move to Massachusetts and went to Brandeis.
The life is all about experiences. When I am old, all I have is not how much money I make, how high my score is, but how much precious and peerless memory I have. After such a year and a half, I was so awed that I did so many wild things I wanted to do but dared not to do before. I felt that I spent such a substantial time with my program of MSBA at Brandeis. Brandeis allows and pardons me to be a bad student and to go on my own way, so that I finally become someone I used to admire and also someone I used to hate.
