Free Fall | A snippet of my MBA journey
There are moments in life when you decide to take the jump off the cliff and then a couple seconds later… it feels like time has frozen and all that your brain cells can muster to think at that moment is…
“AAAAHHHH, I have no control over what is happening right now!!”*
*Even though you thought a 100 times before deciding to jump and convinced yourself about this on the long hike to the top (where you decided to jump from).
This is how this I have felt since I decided to start the journey of exploring business school
June: Adios Houston, TX
While most of my peers who were also about to start their MBA were “checked out” and “bored out of their mind” at work, I was busier than ever during my last stretch at Shell. I was leading a project for 1.5 years and wanted to see that to completion.
Apart from work, I had one goal during my last 2 weeks of Houston. Get on that plane in one piece. In addition to handing over at work, I was packing up my entire home and life into one car and two suitcases**, saying bye to my friends and closing out every admin task related to being a resident of Houston (one can never overestimate time for this category — inevitably, it always takes way longer than you plan for).
** I’ve always dreamed of fitting my life in a car since high school. I’m impressed that I have maintained this track record for 10 years now!
During those last weeks, I also celebrated my birthday over many days and took some vacation days to squeeze in two trips that I needed to make before I headed to India — D.C. for a much overdue to visit my dear friend from college and Michigan to see my extended family.
2 days before my flight — l drove to my office for the last time to hand over my employee card and my hard drive, to the lead taking over. The moments felt unreal. I had crossed the finish line of 5 years of a career that dreams were made of.
August: India, 2 months later
Fast forward to the weeks leading up to my start at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB). Where did 2 months go? I thought a summer in India would be slow and relaxing ( I hadn’t had a 2 month vacation since high school). Turns out life had not slowed down. Not one bit. My summer in India and Japan, in true Agneta style, was filled with trains, planes, buses and I did not find myself bored at home for even a single day. I’ll save my adventures & travels for another post (wink!).
I was trying hard to get myself to be ready for heading back to the U.S. and going back to school. As life would have it, Hurricane Harvey had hit Houston the week I was supposed to return from India and my flight was cancelled. I could not fly into Houston for another few weeks (where my car was+ my life that was stuffed in the car). To make things worse, my mentors, who were gracious enough to make space in their driveway for my car, were stuck in Mexico and could not get into Houston due to the Hurricane as well. I literally had no idea if my car and my things would survive the flooding.
I could do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just like how you feel when you’re off the cliff — there’s absolutely nothing you can do except wait and watch.
Now I was definitely not ready for school.
“Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later.” — Bob Goff
November at the GSB: California, 5.5 months later
I have started writing 6 different posts between June (beginning of a glorious summer) & now (1.5 months into my quarter) about my journey to/ life @ Stanford. And none of them have been published. Not one.
Every single day at Stanford is like starting to read a new chapter in a new book. No exaggeration. Life at a forward-thinking institution is so fast paced and filled with so many moments that leave you breathless. A And it’s hard to condense your thoughts and do justice to your experience in a single post. I texted Sana (the co-author of this blog) in exasperation last week, ‘Sana, by the time I open my browser to finish my post.. the original draft I wrote a few days ago feels as expired as old milk’.
After many days of struggling with not being able to finish my incomplete thoughts about my experiences at business school, I’ve decided that perhaps I might never be able to summarize my experiences at business school succinctly. I’m so glad Sana and I agreed to call this blog MBA Real talk because otherwise this post would have never been written. My first post at school would have been more of a wise and happy ‘my life at Stanford so far’ kind of post. I mean such posts are deemed to come your way at some point but I’m glad this blog creates the space for us as writers to just be.
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P.S. 1 Even though life has been half a year of an extended free fall, I’ve settled into Stanford quite wonderfully
P.S. 2 My car and all my belongings that I’d left in Houston survived Hurricane Harvey.
