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Friends in Business School

I realized the other day that a fair number of my good friends at Kellogg come from very different circles. While some of them did come from my section, others I met in student clubs that I’m involved in, others while going throughout the recruiting process, some while transitioning in the JD-MBA program, and others study groups that I’ve been assigned to in class.  To my initial surprise, a smaller number of them actually come from the fun nights I’ve spent in Evanston or downtown Chicago.

This quarter, I’ve been working a lot with smaller groups that I did last quarter.  I’ve spent a lot of time with one group for a project in my media management class, and we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well in the process. Likewise, I’ve also spent a fair amount of time working on planning a KWEST trip for the incoming students in August, and I’ve also gotten to know these students really well, especially Josh.  I’ve also spent a lot of time working with a small group of people in the consulting recruiting process, especially my friend Vishal, and we’ve gotten to know each other quite well given the intensity of that process.

In addition to Kellogg, I also realized the other day that I have been working with a few people with regards to my blog.  Dino, Marquis, andEmanuel to name a few. My friend Marquis and I have been talking a lot about our websites and about potential start-up ideas we have for almost two years now.  My friend Emanuel and I have been talking a lot about new media and how to leverage that to have a large impact in the community.  And I’ve also stayed in touch with my classmate Dino since the application season, and we’ve discussed ways that we can improve our blogs and catapult Kellogg’s reputation in the internet atmosphere.

Over time I’ve come to realize that you don’t all-of-a-sudden make friends with people like these after one fun night in the city.  But instead you have to create friendships through a series of more personal interactions. You have to spend more time with them to understand their personal story and learn their career goals. You have to work with them on hard assignments to get a better sense for what they like to work on and how they perform under pressure. And you have to have longer, uninterrupted discussions with them to see who they really are and what they believe in at the core. In the business school environment with hundreds of people in each class and not enough time to make friends with most of them, establishing some of these deeper relationships is critical even though it feels impossible.

One of the simplest things to do in business school is making lots of friends. But one of the hardest things in business school is finding good friends that last well after business school is over.

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