My Lbs Experience

“Times of stress can also prove to be signals for times of growth, and if we utilize situations of adversity properly, we can leverage it as a core as strength ”…

Introduction

Being a baby girl, who has always gotten all she wanted without any form of stress, the MBA program at LBS came to me as a challenge and a true example of the rough ride out of a comfort zone. My experience so far has been a roller coaster of emotions. From getting extremely overwhelmed with the daily routine (talk about a minimum of 5 cases prepared and delivered), the realization that my day has only become a monotony of activities (group meeting at 7 am, class at 8 am, continues until 3:30 pm with only an hour of break) day-in-day-out…

Initial Attitude Towards MBA

MBAs are stressful and I mean every word!. Coming to this realization made me cry for days. It was the first time I was getting exposed to the case pedagogy and found it hard relating with and discussing these cases (they were the true example of finding x in an integral variable). I viewed and analyzed the case materials differently from everyone else (these classmates showed they were Harvard quality and made me feel like an Ajengule university graduate). Then the facilitators also made me weak with their new approach to almost every case being studied (remember that feeling when you have finished cramming AOC only for none to come out in an exam). My final sweet thought and the happy moment was time to eat (at least I won’t need to know the carbon structure of chicken before I enjoy it), I had day dreams of the next meal and taste of the delight in my tongue even before lunch time…Abeg I can’t kill myself.

Effects Of Being Intentional

However, this experience helped me seek new avenues of strength and showed me that I needed to be intentional about my approach .towards getting it right. Eventually, I started paying more attention to cases, analysis, and being intentional with the way I follow and ask questions in class. Everything seemed to start adding up and I could see a significant improvement.

Demography

My class has fourteen women and twelve men. We are a perfect mix of tribes, backgrounds, and professional experiences ranging from consultants, engineers, accountants, and medical practitioners. Each group was disbursed in a way that each sector individual was included in each team. Having to interact with people from different fields and intellectual capacity has broadened my knowledge about a lot of things and I see things differently now. It’s safe to say that meeting a lot of individuals from different fields has impacted my knowledge to a large extent.

Class Participation

Did I mention the struggle to get a class participation mark? Goodness! Some students will talk at the slightest opportunity given to them and ignore others while some, even though they are quite knowledgeable about the subject matter will be hesitant to talk during the class. Of course, the program is designed to favor those who are intentional about participating in class, and after some facilitators made known our participation scores, many people have now decided that the coming session will be a survivor of the fittest in terms of participating in class.

The class Governor, Anthonia has been amazing. She always made this statement “We are a family”. She brings the whole class together irrespective of individual differences and challenges. For me, I do not know if it’s Anthonia’s words, but I am beginning to see some people as though they were family. 

Having gained so much experience within this short period, I can say that I am evolving and becoming a better handler of pressure. 

“ How we perceive a situation and how we react to it is the basis of our stress. If you focus on the negative in any situation, you can expect a high-stress level. However, if you try and see the good in the situation, your stress level will greatly diminish”