I met up with a university senior of mine who completed his MBA in London a few years ago. He was telling me how an MBA isn’t just about studying - in fact that was a relatively small consideration (!) compared to the networks that one could build.
The premise is: We are all strong and weak in different areas. We should therefore help our classmates in areas that we’re strong in, and in turn they might help us in areas where we’re weak.
My senior helped a Korean classmate who was a high-ranking exec from a MNC. As this Korean’s English wasn’t as good, he asked my senior to vet his work, which he did. They didn’t keep in touch after that.
Years later, though, my senior received numerous business leads from this classmate of his, because the classmate remembered that in his first week, my senior had helped him. My senior had even forgotten the precise details of how he helped his classmate, but the classmate never forgot his act.
These are the sorts of friendships and alliances forged in business school and I hope I’ll have my own stories to tell, in the years to come.
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