The Pros and Cons of an Early Offer

As many of you know I spent my summer vacation working like crazy at L’Oreal. Well, I guess you could say that all the hard work paid off. On August 28th, I received a phone call that made me excited, relieved, and somewhat complacent. Excited because I was offered the exact career that I wrote my MBA admissions essays about. Relieved because I felt like I did a good job at my internship but couldn’t really compare myself against the other interns until an offer either came or didn’t. And finally complacent because it’s August 28th and I’ve been in school for less than two weeks, and I have a job offer…….

So for the last month I’ve been contemplating the pros and cons of getting a job offer early in the school year. The pros of getting an early job offer are obvious. The stress that you have as a second year is quickly alleviated. You can stop stalking human resources managers, and you can start picking out apartments. The cons of getting an early job offer, well let me just quote one of my classmates when he found out that I got an offer, “What are you still doing in class?” This is the sentiment that I heard from a lot of my classmates along with: Why are you still doing homework? Why are you still reading cases? and the list goes on. I’m not going to lie, it is tempting to slack off a bit, but let’s be realistic about the situation. In order to get my job I have to actually get my MBA, which means that I have to go to class and pass. Additionally, tuition at the Freeman School is $40K, I don’t know about you all, but that is not money to play around with and I need to get all of my monies worth. That means, I’m still going to read, do my homework, and show up to class. By all means I’m not complaining. In this tough market I’m grateful to have a job that I’m excited about, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t sneak in an extra episode of Mad Men when I’m really supposed to be analyzing the state of international business.

Amina

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