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What Do You Want to Get in Stanford - PFIKER Model

· 5 min read

When I look back at the past year in Stanford/GSB/Sloan Fellow Program and reflect what was it that we tried to get out of this incredible experience, I think our goals fall into six mutually exclusive and collective exhaustive categories, namely, PFIKER.

What Do You Want to Get in Stanford - PFIKER Model

Confession of a Stanford Sloan Fellow Series EP61

When I look back at the past year in Stanford/GSB/Sloan Fellow Program and reflect what was it that we tried to get out of this incredible experience, I think our goals fall into six mutually exclusive and collective exhaustive categories, namely, PFIKER. It is important for us to know what our goals are, from Day One into the community, so that we can strategize priorities, plan our academic and social life accordingly, to get the most out of our time in Stanford. 12 months go by really, really fast. Without clear goals in mind, it's easy to let the time and opportunities slip through our fingers before we know it.

Goals in Stanford

  1. Partner

Some of us are looking for partners, in business or in life. For business partners, spend more time with alumni, in study groups, social gatherings and pay attention to those who tend to take initiatives/run for class officers. Take one of the four major startup-themed classes to interact with students from Computer Science (CS) and Engineering, who are the real movers and shakers of the Silicon Valley. For life partners, spend more time with MBAs starting from the Autumn Quarter. It's ok to date another Sloan, but it might get tricky.

  1. Friend

Some of us are looking for new friends, from new cultures, from new industries, from new interest areas. Regularly hang out in the Sloan Study Rooms ("Slounge") and make sure to leave the door open, attend all the TGIFs, join all the study trips (the Seatle one, the East Coast one, and the self-organized international one), and take the initiatives to organize small-party dinners (six person is the ideal size). Running for social chairs will also help you make friends quickly.

  1. Inspiration

Some of us are looking for inspirations that connect dots, bridge isolated domains of knowledge, expand our horizon, or provide that "eureka" moments. Attend Wednesday's ETL in Engineering School religiously, attend as many seminars, talks, BBLs in and around GSB as possible. Take some classes outside of GSB. Attend industry conferences around Silicon Valley by taking advantages of student discounts. Read the blog by Sten and me.

  1. Knowledge

Some of us are looking for knowledge, things that we have never been exposed to in prior jobs. Max out the cap level of 22 credits Autumn/Winter/Spring and audit as many classes as schedule allows. If your Sloan classmates can still remember your name by Spring Quarter, you should consider yourself a big failure in this regard - OK.. that's a bad joke. The point is that if you're so academically inclined, you can never study hard enough and Stanford has enough interesting courses to keep you intellectually stimulated.

  1. Experience

Some of us are looking for the quintessential "Stanford" experience and try to experience as many actions as possible that Stanford can offer. Run for a class officer role - whatever it is, as long as it helps to serve the Sloan class and GSB community. Attend all the sports events in the summer and the autumn (the football season is only in the summer-autumn quarter I think). Take some physical exercise classes in Winter and Spring Quarter, like golfing, horse-riding, yoga, or swimming. Join some student's clubs. Participate in a flash mob if someone in your class has the balls and guts to actually organize that.

  1. Reputation

Some of us are looking to establish a personal brand that people can remember us by. I think the importance of reputation cannot be overstated. However it seems to have been ignored by many. GSB (including 80+ Sloans and around 800 MBAs) is a very competitive environment (duh....) and Sloans have only one year to leave our marks. If you don't do something to put your name out there, people will not remember you, and you don't want people at the end of day to comment you along the lines of "yeah, he's a really nice guy...". There are just too many overachievers around the campus in all disciplines. Since you've already made it all the way up here, you might as well just try a bit harder to get more mileage out of this journey.

For me, the top 3 priorities are Inspiration, Reputation, and Partner. That pretty much explains why and why not I did certain things when in Stanford, for whoever is curious about it. I come from a very heavy business/finance background with extensive global trails and mix of corporate/startup experience. Not too many courses in GSB are completely new to me, nor do I really want to refresh my memory in Accounting, Economics, or Statistics. So I tried to minimize my study load and free up myself to do other things. I've lived in too many countries before to care about checking all the boxes to make sure I've "been there, done that", not to mention I was planning to settle down in the Bay area even before I came to Stanford.  Why Inspiration, Reputation, and Partner? My BBL has explained it all. Now it feels like a full circle is completed.

Carpe diem!

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