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December 01, 2008
The famous Michigan weather
It’s interesting how much people may warn you about the weather in Michigan before coming here and how unprepared you will nonetheless be in the end. We have not gotten into winter but the streets are already covered with snow. I just returned today from Thanksgiving break and found Ann Arbor covered in snow. Of course, this made the route back home very interesting. This weather can sometimes make you feel as if you are winning a small battle in the street, going from home to the business school can be an interesting journey, crowned once you cross the door of the B-School and feel that welcoming warmth of the lobby. Winter in other countries starts to feel as a joke already, yet we continue to receive the same warning: “This is nothing yet”; so obviously, it still seems that we are underprepared.
What has the weather to do with the school experience, apart from making it a journey to get in time for early morning classes? Well, I think Michigan weather is very much like the experience of coming to school to be challenged in an MBA. You get to the city while it’s still warm outside, everything feels like new, you realize that getting here was a big challenge but that you’re already done with the application, you know that there is more still to come, but you think it will not be as difficult for you. However, the cold weather steps in so quickly that it might even be overwhelming at times; you soon understand that it really is here to stay and that you have to and will overcome this. You realize that you need to adapt to this new time quickly. It not only changes how you dress but how you think about the environment.
So why do I think that the MBA experience resembles facing the Michigan weather? Because it is about quickly learning to manage a changing environment, an environment that will not be indulgent, an environment that will demand you to think differently, an environment that will challenge you consistently. However, you also get to realize that although the environment might be demanding, it is still shaping everything into a really awesome experience, parallel to the beautiful and picturesquely white-covered streets of Ann Arbor right now.
Posted by jorgelrh at December 1, 2008 02:01 AM