Sloan Fellow Life Cycle & How To Make The Most Out Of It

March 4, 2013 · 5 min read

Before we know, 8 months have flown by and now we're 4 months away from graduation. All good things will come to an end, and our wonderful journey at Sloan Fellow Program in Stanford GSB is of no exception.

Confession of a Stanford Sloan Fellow Series EP47

I think the Fall Quarter from October to December is the "sweet spot" that we should take the most advantage of.

Stanford GSB Sloan Life Cycle

When it comes to forming relationship and bonding with our fellow Sloans, there are two dominant factors that will influence how much we can put in and how much we can get out. One is time available for socializing with the classmates, and the other one is our desire to bond with others in the class.

By my observation and analysis, our desire to bond with other Sloans roughly follows a curve (red one in the diagram) where: 1) overall it's always increasing (of course); 2) it's accelerating in the first half and decelerating in the second half. That convection point occurs somewhere in Fall Quarter or Winter Quarter.

In Summer Quarter, we take all the classes together and we're the only one on campus (MBAs are out doing internships). So the classic grouping dynamic plays out - we're curious to find out everyone's background and try to stack ourselves against the group to find out where we stand. This is the period where personal reputation is built from the classroom discussions and group projects. On average a Sloan may not be able to call out everyone else's name yet in the class, but we're getting there.

In Fall Quarter, the accumulative social activities have gradually been adding up to a critical mass to enable most Sloans to remember everyone else's name in the class. The most aggressive alpha males (or females) have already identified themselves and stepped up to take some class officer roles to serve the class and make their presence felt. Sloans still take most of the classes together. A variety of personality types are flashing out and bumping with each other. We still take study groups pretty seriously and try to get decent scores. The MBAs have arrived in Knight Management Center but they are preoccupied with orientation and neither camp has the bandwidth to reach out to the other side yet. Dinners with Sloans are still possible.

In Winter Quarter, things are getting really hectic as academic curriculum is taking a hefty toll and the daunting prospect of finding that dream job is looming on the horizon. Sloans on average are in 3 - 4 study groups working on different projects. Most people seem to be taking around 20 units. Two streams of classes are killing people left and right: 1) hard-core investment/finance classes; 2) startup classes. We are only taking Marketing and Finance together and it feels like we never get to see certain classmates in this quarter. This is also when we start taking many classes with MBAs. Stanford MBAs are pretty solid and sometimes more fun. Some Sloans start hanging out with MBAs and spending even less time with each other. At the same time, many Sloans begin their job search and cut down the time in holding hands with other Sloans singing jambalaya.

This is where we stand now. Looking forward at Spring Quarter, I can see Sloans will be struggling to strike a balance between two competing forces: 1) the singular goal of finding a job and stay in the Bay area; 2) the desire to solidify friendship and spend more time with Sloans as every day that goes by reminds us that the clock is ticking and we're walking out of a beautiful fantasy dreamland.

Besides the desire for bonding, time available for social activities is another important factor that will shape the group dynamics. Summer Quarter looks like a walk in the park now - we even had regular weekly basketball games! It's hard to believe we had so much free time then! It certainly didn't feel that way when we were in it - maybe because we were still taking the courses pretty seriously and reading every case assigned. Fall Quarter's Accounting class alone will usher many people into recurring nightmares and reduce their social drive, but it is still not too bad as we still have a sizable group that goes to Wednesday's ETL regularly. In Winter Quarter people start disappearing all together, or simply just go different ways into various BBLs, seminars, conferences, across-the-street classes, endless market-research interviews for startup projects, etc. People are worrying less about the qualify of academic work and just want to finish the work and move on. People are exploring Stanford/Bay area at large and paying much less attention to Knight Management Center. Very few people can afford to attend the ETL series. Dinner time with Sloans becomes a luxury. In Spring Quarter, the key focus for the self-sponsored Sloans will be job search and job search. We might see a slight rebound in time put aside for social activities, but I doubt it's going to be anything substantial.

So, given all the forces in the universe that are pushing us into various directions, it seems that Fall Quarter is the "sweet spot" where Sloans still have considerable desire to social and are able to afford the time. Carpe diem!