5 Minutes on Chicago Booth

In this conversation, Harold Simansky interviews Kate Richardson, a University of Chicago Booth MBA, about her experience at Booth. Kate highlights the reputation of Booth as a quant powerhouse and the flexibility it offers for career changers. She also mentions the focus on entrepreneurship and experiential learning that has grown at Booth over the years. However, she notes that the social activities were more spread out geographically during her time at Booth. Overall, Kate had a positive experience at Booth and encourages listeners to reach out for a free consultation.

Takeaways

• University of Chicago Booth is known for its quantitative and data analysis rigor.
• Booth offers flexibility and opportunities for career changers to explore different courses and network with diverse students.
• The focus on entrepreneurship and experiential learning has grown at Booth.
• Social activities at Booth were more spread out geographically in the past.
• Listeners are encouraged to reach out for a free consultation with Harold or Kate.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to the mbaMission podcast
• 0:38 Kate's experience at the Chicago Booth MBA program
• 2:40 What has changed at Chicago Booth?
• 5:15 Learn more about Booth and the application process

Transcript

Harold Simansky (00:18)
everyone. This is Harold Simansky with the mbaMission Podcast. And I'm here today with my colleague, Kate Richardson. Hi, Kate. How are you?

Kate Richardson (00:19)
Thanks for your time.

Hi, Harold. I'm good. Thanks for having me here.

Harold Simansky (00:29)
Of course, of course. Now, Kate, know you're a university of Chicago Booth MBA, and I'd love to just chat with you for a couple of minutes very quickly here. So tell me about your experience. What were some of the highs and what were some of the lows?

Kate Richardson (00:42)
Sure, absolutely. I really loved my time at Booth. I'm obviously a big fan. I went into the MBA as a career changer, like many applicants. I worked in corporate HR before business school and was interested in doing something more strategic, probably consulting, and kind of looking to get out of that HR bucket. And one of the things I liked about

Booth was that it came with that reputation for kind of quantitative or data analysis and rigor in that way. I think Booth has tried to become a more well -rounded program and I think they have succeeded at that. But at the time it was really known as like a quant powerhouse. And for me, had liberal arts, undergrad, HR, not really what you think of you think of quant.

It kind of gave me that immediate credibility with recruiters, which I really liked. The other thing that I really liked as a career changer hallmark of Booth is the flexibility. And it really is true. You you get a lot of opportunities to explore and take different and challenging courses and take them with different people too. I think that's something people don't always appreciate is that it's not just that you can take whatever you want, but you're

Harold Simansky (01:43)
Yes.

Yeah.

Kate Richardson (02:08)
you know, mixing and mingling with all different students. I even took a course where I had some PhD students in my class, or I took a course with the part -time students. So it really kind of expands your network and exposure. And so I liked that, that I could challenge myself in areas where I needed the challenge and maybe take a more basic course like finance where I had no exposure.

So I really liked that aspect of

Harold Simansky (02:38)
that makes sense. And some of the things that you think were just not as effective or maybe currently, I suspect a lot has changed, but some of those things that you wish were slightly different from the Booth that you went to.

Kate Richardson (02:51)
Yeah. Well, one thing that has changed for the good, for positive and in a good, really great way is the focus on entrepreneurship and more kind of experiential learning. mean, Booth is really well known for this now. I mean, when I was there, they were just getting started with the new venture challenge and the Polsky center and things like that. And those have just, you know, ballooned, right? There's now...

multiple new venture challenges and there's a whole focus on social entrepreneurship as well too. So that's been really exciting to see and just so many of the Booth students I talk to now are really interested in entrepreneurship, whether they pursue it right away or later in their career, it's something that they really wanna study during the program. But I think at the time,

the Booth community was a little bit more spread out, just geographically. And I think Booth has fixed this to some extent over the years. But to give you some context, Booth is on the south side of Chicago, not like the central of downtown, the loop, as people call it. So I was one of the rarer students who actually lived near campus in Hyde Park.

Harold Simansky (04:02)
Yes.

Okay.

Kate Richardson (04:12)
But I wasn't, most students were living closer to downtown or maybe spread out in different neighborhoods of Chicago. Now we did have everything all in one beautiful new building that kind of brought everybody together, but there was kind of a sense of, a lot of the social activities were downtown further away from the actual campus. So I think that was something that was more challenging for me.

I from what I hear from students today, you know, a lot of the students have coalesced around a few apartment buildings where they all live. They call them dorms, I think. And so I think there's a better mix of this now at Booth.

Harold Simansky (04:48)
Yes.

No, I think that's right. I have a couple of my clients who independently they've landed at I believe there's four apartment buildings, one right next to the other. And that's where all the Booth students live right now. Which is great. Which is absolutely.

Kate Richardson (05:07)
Right. Yeah, it sounds fun.

Harold Simansky (05:11)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, Kate, thank you very much for your for speaking with me today. And again, if you want to spend 30 minutes on the phone with either me or Kate answering any questions you might have with regard to your candidacy, the MBA admissions process, please do so by signing up

for our free consultation at mbaMission .com. Thank you very much, Kate.

Kate Richardson (05:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Happy to talk about Booth, Wharton, or any other school. Bye, Harold.

Harold Simansky (05:38)
Perfect, right. Bye now.