Read this first: What am I doing here? And what are you doing there?

And can I start a blog with 2 3 questions?   Guess we’ll find out…

The short answer is this: if you’re heading to b-school and you’re looking for information on how to prepare yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, academically and all of the other -ally’s you can think of, you’ve come to the right place.

My name is Andrew Schulman and I recently graduated from the full-time MBA program at USC’s Marshall School of Business (you can find more info about me here).  During my time in school, I realized that there are lots of things that you don’t find out about b-school until you get there that might have been helpful to know ahead of time.

I also discovered that while there are scores of guidebooks, consultants and classes on how to pick the right MBA program, study for the GMAT, write great essays and ace the entrance interviews, once you get into school and make the commitment to go, there’s very little out there in the way of guidance and information to really prepare you for what’s ahead.

That’s where B-School Pre-School comes in.

Just as regular pre-school helped prepare you for the finger-painting, recess, and story time of kindergarten, I hope this site can help prepare you for the career searching, group projects and fun of b-school.  Now, at this point, you might be asking yourself a couple of questions:

1)      Already having been through an MBA program, why would I take the time to do this?  What’s in it for me?

2)      Do I really think that my b-school experience will be anything like yours?

Both are valid questions.  But ones that I have good answers for.  (And if you have other valid questions, I’d love to hear them in the comments section below.)

Q1) Why am I doing this?  What’s in it for me?

A) The honest answer is that I see a decent-sized need here and I think I’m the kind of person who has the ability to fill it.   I’m not really sure why nothing like this exists yet, except that once people get out of b-school, they move onto jobs, get back to their friends and spend time doing new things.  So what makes me different?  A few things.

• First, b-school for me was a truly a life-changing, transformative experience in many ways (some of which I’ll try to cover from time to time).
• Second, I was made for b-school. I’m not boasting — and hopefully that will come through if you keep reading — but my personality, skills, interests and perspective, made me an ideal fit for an MBA program at this point in my life (and through this blog, I intend to share those things with you).
• Third, due to several life circumstances, I was able to throw myself into the program 100% for the 22 months I was part of it.

In essence, I feel like I “did b-school the right way,” and reaped tremendous benefits — and now I want to share my methods, ideas and learnings with you in hopes that they can help make your experience better.  It’s for those reasons that I believe I can be a good teacher and guide you through B-School Pre-School.

As far as the question of what’s in it for me, I’m going to be totally honest and say, yes, I hope to gain some rewards from this endeavor, be they financial or otherwise.  But, if by starting this blog I can help you have one-tenth of the experience that I had, that would be worth more to me than any financial reward I can imagine.   That may sound corny.   That may sound cheesy.   That may sound like an out-and-out lie.   But it’s the truth.

And if you don’t believe me, please keep reading – hopefully I’ll be able to convince you of that at some point.

Q2) Just because I “did b-school right” and it worked out well for me, why do I think my experiences can help you prepare for your b-school experience?

A) Let me start by saying this: in all likelihood, for a million reasons, your experience at business school is going be very different from mine.

Maybe you’ll be going to a top-5 school and be in a class that’s 4 or 5 times larger than mine was (220 people).   Or maybe you’ll be going to more focused program with an entire class smaller than my section (72 people).   Perhaps you’ll be getting your MBA in the city you currently live in (I moved across the country), or maybe you have a strong quant background (I didn’t), or will be starting school with a spouse, children or significant other coming along for the ride (none of which I had).   Maybe you’re not a career-switcher (I was) or are totally unsure of what you want to do when you’re done with school (I was pretty focused).   And the list goes on and on.

So it’s true, everyone’s experience – even within the same program – will be very different.   But my hypothesis from the very first day I had this idea (if you’re interested, I’ll do a post on how this came about at some point) is that this blog could provide one viewpoint on a lot of information that isn’t readily available elsewhere.

It’s not the end-all, be-all, by any means.  In fact, I guarantee that I don’t have 99.99% of the answers, but if I can help you ask the right questions now, your experience will be that much better.

An off-shoot of that hypothesis is that I believe there are a certain number of things that all incoming MBAs (whom I refer to pre-MBAs) are likely thinking about, and preparing for, before they get to school – and if you aren’t then you probably should be.

Some of those things you’d figure out on your own – either before you get to school or after you start – but isn’t it nice to get a preview?  Stick around and let me know if you agree.

So there you have it.  I hope you’ll click around and read some posts.  And if you like what you’ve read here, I hope you’ll come back from time to time and/or subscribe to my RSS feed.

If you have questions about what I write, or about topics I haven’t covered, I hope you’ll speak up and ask them.  Finally, if you have friends, relatives or future classmates in a Facebook group somewhere, who you think would also find this information useful, please let them know about it.   Hopefully they’ll thank you and the more people that participate here, the better the discussions will be.

One more thing:  If you are a pre-MBA, I hope you’re starting to get excited.  You have a lot of great things ahead of you.