The power of the crowd

Well. This accounting assignment doesn't seem to be getting done anytime soon, so I might as well rant a bit. Someone told me this morning it's cathartic.

I'd like to think that I've never really given in to peer pressure much, be it in terms of career, lifestyle, relationships, or most notably, as several of my friends would tell you, fashion choices. It's strange then, that the immense pressure to give in and run with the pack has finally caught up with me now, at business school, in my mid-20s.

I came to B-school with three years of consulting experience behind me, with the aim of going into general management after school. That was the plan, right from when I wrote my essays to when I received my offers, to when I accepted the offer from this school. Then I received these mails about pre-workshops to learn more about consulting; all my peers travelling India were arriving early to attend this, so I figured, why not? And spent the rest of the summer thinking I would look at both management consulting and general management as career options.

After the workshop, however, I simply wasn't sure if this was what I wanted. And the more I go to information events or company presentations about consulting, the more my discomfort increases. The more I become convinced that this is really not what I want.

But saying that, and simply going after general management, isn't so easy. I'd like to say I don't give into peer pressure, but when you see everyone around you dressed in formals because some consultants are coming to give a company presentation, and you're sitting in your jeans and a sweatshirt, you can't help but wonder if you're missing out on something. I told a Second Year student I'm dithering between the two, and his instinctive reaction was "Trust me, you'll end up in consulting. Never underestimate the power of the crowd."

Part of me also wonders if I'm being an escapist, if I'm trying to take the easy route, if I'm giving up something I should be doing. But then I go to a general management event, and I'm excited by what they say, and I know why I want to be there. I go to a consulting event, and I have no idea why I'm there. Maybe I should trust my gut instinct a bit more.

But it's not easy running against the pack.

Goin' a lil' crazy

If you follow me on twitter and/or my other blog (which I'm sure you do, because I don't see how else you could know this blog existed), you would know that two months ago, I moved half a world away from everything I knew and everyone I love to join B-school.

During Orientation, I was gullible enough to sign up for something called a Izzy Dizzy relay, a fascinating activity where a team of 4 or 5 people essentially run a relay where they have to take turns to place their head on a baseball bat held to the ground, walk around it ten times, and then run to a point and back. Everyone thinks, as as they watch others walk around the bat, and then sway to the other end of the field, that they'll be able to do it just fine - there's no way they'll get so dizzy that they fall to the ground. Then it's their turn and you see them fall to the ground almost as soon as they straighten up from that cursed baseball bat.

It's the same with business school I think. You hear from all your Second Years how crazy and intense it gets, and you believe them, but a part of you is always sure that you'll cope just fine. You did consulting after all, or you worked for a start-up, or you did banking - you know what it's like to have long hours and crazy schedules.

But you don't. Not the way business school makes you learn. There are classes, and there are career events, and there are clubs that you must sign up for because prospective employers must see you as a holistic personality, and there are social events where everyone thinks they're back at a college frat party, and there are people to get to know, and teams to learn to work with, and an apartment to clean, and meals to be cooked, and just SO MUCH TO DO and not enough hours in a day.

You speak to your family, and they tell you what's happening back home, and they tell you not to worry, and you can't explain to them that you will forget what they told you two seconds after you end the call, because that deadline two hours away must be met. You want desperately to speak to your friends back home, but when you do, you have no idea what to say, because it's hard to explain the intensity of what you're going through without sounding like a whiner. Your fellow FYs ask you how's it going, and invariably the answer is "it's going" or "swimming" or "so far so good" or just something that indicates you're surviving. 

Then a SY you bump into in the corridor asks you if you regret quitting your job, taking that huge loan, and joining school again yet, and you look at him and realise that you know what, you don't. Because while this is intense, and you're going to have no sleep whatsoever for the next four months at the very least, if then, you're also learning a lot - about people, about subjects you've never studied, about what you need to do to get that dream job, and about yourself. And you wouldn't give up that experience for the world.

And then it strikes you that damn, this is just the second week of school. How am I ever going to get through this?

And now I really must go work on that presentation.