Preparing Your Friends and Family

This is the second in a series of “MBA Building Blocks,” posts that focus on the key things pre-MBAs should be thinking about and doing before they start school.

Business school is exciting time.  You’ll have all kinds of new experiences and meet tons of new people.  And with all of that activity, it’s easy to lose contact with the outside world and the people that you care about – even if you live in the same house with them.

With that in mind, I believe it’s important to prepare your friends and family for what you’re about to go through and how it might affect your relationships with them.

First, a reminder about what the first of school might be like:

• You’ll likely be busier than you’ve ever been
• You’ll be attending classes, doing group projects, looking for an internship and, oh yeah, probably being a little social here and there
• You’ll be starting the day early and ending it late – probably getting less sleep than you’re used to, even on weekends
• You’ll have to make tough choices of what to do with what little free time you have: spend it getting to know your classmates (who will become your b-school network) or spend it with your current friends and family.

So — even if you’re a master of time management — after the first month of school, your friends and family might wonder what happened to you, especially if you move to a new city for school and they can’t physically come to your house make sure you’re still alive!

To avoid that, I suggest having a conversation with them and letting them know what’s ahead for you and why many of them might not hear from you as much as they’re used to.

If you’re starting school with a family or significant other, it obviously even more important to discuss your expectations – and theirs – about how much time you’ll be putting into school and how you want to make sure they’re a part of the experience (many schools have events and even clubs that focus on getting all of the SOs and families out to socialize both with and without their MBA partners).

This is obviously a very personal exercise and what’s above is just the tip of the iceberg, but having these conversations ahead of time can save a lot of frustration down the line when people start to wonder what’s up with you (and your weird Facebook status updates) and you can’t find the time to IM, or return emails or phone calls.

Oh, and one more suggestion: Make sure “spending time with friends and family” is on your list of activities to do before school starts.

Have any thoughts on how you’re going to do this that you would like to share? Please post a comment!