MBA Mama Spotlight: Stephanie Farabaugh of Wharton (part 2)
As MBA Mama continues to gain traction, we want to feature different types of women. Our latest Spotlight focuses on 2nd year Wharton MBA, Stephanie Farabaugh, who is expecting a baby boy this month. Our CEO, Divinity Matovu, sat down with Stephanie on Wharton’s campus for a 1-on-1 interview to get the scoop on her decision to have a baby during business school. Check out the full interview here:
Divinity Matovu: From Notre Dame’s investment office to Goldman Sachs, you’ve had a pretty traditional pre-MBA finance career. But, then you decided to go work in Ghana for six months. Tell me a little bit about your time in Ghana.
Stephanie Farabaugh: It was an externship sponsored by Bain Consulting. My husband was a Bain employee at the time. The firm offers their employees the chance to go and do something different, whether it be working at Groupon or Nike or a social enterprise somewhere in the emerging world. When considering our options, Ray and I reflected on how much we’ve been given. We saw the Ghana travel as an opportunity to give back and have an experience that would bring us closer together as a couple while allowing us to do something different and grow personally and professionally.
We got married in June and then left in September to spend the next six months in rural Ghana - having never spent any time in Africa. It was an eye-opening experience that inspired me to be more involved in a social impact career track.
DM: Wow! It’s always great to talk to your classmates and learn something new about them. Did you and Ray plan to apply to the same business school? How did that work out given that you don’t want one person to get admitted and the other person risks not getting in? How did you guys think through that and what was your b-school application process like?
SF: Ray already knew he was going to business school. That was part of his Bain track and his plan. For me, it wasn’t until I was in Ghana that I decided I wanted to go to business school too. I realized that I wanted to do something different professionally, and I didn’t think I necessarily had the skills set to be able to do that. So, I started applying to schools, Ray started applying to schools and we focused on exactly the same place because it was important for us to have this MBA experience together if we could. We never really went through the iterations of “what if you get in here, and I get in here.” We would have found a way to make it work if we’d gotten into different places, but fortunately we made it clear on our applications that we are in this together and we’d really want to go through this experience together if possible, and it worked out. We were both accepted at Wharton and were thrilled to come here. Wharton has been a great fit for both of us personally and professionally.
DM: This is such a wonderful love story. That leads me into my next question. Tell me why you and Ray decided to have a baby during business school? Did you come in knowing you wanted to get pregnant during school?
SF: We always knew that having a family was very important to us.
When we initially started at Wharton, we thought we were going to wait until after business school because that would make the most sense both personally and professionally. But, throughout our first semester, and especially over winter break, we started having conversations about trying to start our family while in business school because we realized the flexibility that Wharton provided us in terms of being able to structure our classes, extracurricular activities, and community involvement. We realized we’d never had that flexibility again, necessarily, in our professional careers. So, we as we reevaluated what our long term plans and goals where over that long-term winter break of last year, we figured that this is a better time than probably we’ll ever have and figured it was perfect in a number of different ways.
We will have 9 to 10 months with the baby during business school, and then with the summer off before we resume our careers, it will be really nice. For my husband especially because he is going back to consulting which has a rigorous travel schedule. Our parents have been very influential in terms of shaping me and Ray into the people we are today. So, Ray wants to be a very involved father. When we go back to the working world, he’s going to be travelling four days a week as a consultant. To have this period of time were he is going to be home a lot and be really involved in our son’s life for those first 9 or 10 months, he may never get this experience again. As a couple, we may never get to have this experience again, to have free time and flexibility to devote to being parents and going through this experience together.
DM: In terms of the timing, did you plan it so that you would be giving birth during the winter break of your second year?
SF: Yes, we did.
DM: How does that work? Is it like in the movies when they have ovulation days on a calendar, or were you ball-parking it?
SF: My husband had a white board!
DM: Seriously?
SF:( Laughter) Seriously. We got really lucky. We figured we were going to try and if it worked out that we could have the baby over winter break, awesome, if not we were going to re-evaluate and see if it made sense to have a baby next semester. We set out a plan, and it worked. We were very fortunate, and I guess it just means it was meant to be.
DM: Have you faced any challenges being pregnant in your second year and if so, can you share the biggest challenges with the MBA Mama community?
SF: It’s been easier than I expected, to be honest.
I thought it was going to be incredibly difficult to be pregnant at Wharton in business school because there are so few women who have done it and most people think it’s crazy.
The Wharton community — including my classmates and professors — has been incredibly supportive. Ray also been very involved. The biggest challenge has been shifting my priorities.
Last year over Thanksgiving break, we were going to Thailand and Cambodia and planning a trip to Argentina, so there were a lot of travel and social opportunities. But, we’ve had to take a step back this year and focused on slowing down a bit. Knowing that we are going forward with the path that is most important to us, and prioritizing what we value, has made it a little easier.
Fortunately, professionally and academically and even personally, I would say that being pregnant in b-school has not taken a toll on my Wharton experience.
In part 3 of this MBA Mama Spotlight to be published next week, Stephanie will share details about telling her summer internship manager she was pregnant, the maternal care resources she is utilizing at Wharton/Penn, as well as her maternity leave plan for the Spring 2016 semester. Stay tuned!
