Mothers at Booth

This week we pick up with the story of a former first-year who found out she was pregnant the summer before matriculating at Booth. Part I described what it was like to find out about the pregnancy and enter business school in a very different state of mind than she expected to be in when initially applying. In this segment, we learn more about going through internship recruiting while very pregnant.

Phase II - Recruiting and the Third Trimester

Do you know that they do not make maternity suits? They make slacks and blazers but no actual coordinated suits. I could not believe it. I scoured the internet and every maternity shop in the Chicago area. This was my first sign that I was entering uncharted territory. I was one of the lucky ones with bidding. I got every interview for which I bid. Which is good because I definitely needed all of them. By the time recruiting was in full swing, I was in my 3^rd trimester. This was the hardest part of being pregnant during b-school. I was tired of squishing my swollen feet into dress shoes and trying to convince people that I was the woman for the job.  I probably completed more than 30 interviews. I got a wide range of interesting comments in my interviews “You do know that the internship is this summer?” “You must be so tired. We will try to get this over quickly.” and so forth. Eventually, I did get an offer. In fact, I got two.

Winter quarter finals were about 3 weeks before my due date. Thankfully, I made it through those. My spring break consisted of me walking about 2 miles every day trying to jumpstart labor and taking a day trip to exotic Milwaukee. My spring schedule consisted of two classes on Saturday at Gleacher and a Tuesday night class. Academic services tried to convince me to take only two classes but I have a fellowship and am required to remain in full-time status. We do not have any family in the area so the plan was that I would stay home during the day with the baby and go to class at night and on weekends when my husband could stay with the baby.

Come back for Part III next week to learn about the rest of first-year life with a newborn.

Welcome back to school class of 2010 and welcome class of 2011! We’d like to pick up where we left off from a story from a Booth alumna ‘09 about her experience leaving her family behind in Europe while she completed the full-time program.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background. Why did you want an MBA and what were your post-MBA goals?

I am originally from Europe and I have a degree in Economics and Sociology. I decided to do an MBA with concentration in Finance when I was still an undergraduate. However, later I got a great job in international politics and had children and it seemed to me that I should give up that plan. Three months after my second child was born my husband asked me why I was not pursuing an MBA. I laughed and told him it was too late … then the next day I looked up the MBA rankings to find out which school was right for me.

My post-MBA goal was to work in investment banking and this is where I will be heading after graduation.

As an international student with a family, did you consider attending a program closer to home? What made Booth worth the relocation for you?

Yes, I definitely considered being closer to home. However since I was a career switcher, and I wanted the degree to be worth the time I would spend on getting it, there was no question I would not do it in the U.S. where the best MBA programs are and at one of the top schools. Booth was a natural choice for me: I had a degree in Economics and Sociology, two disciplines that the University of Chicago helped shape and this was a great recommendation for me; I wanted a full-time program with a flexible curriculum to allow me to adjust my school schedule to my family life and Booth was the only top school to offer it; I wanted to be in a big city and not to have to commute; and, of course while having all of these qualities, Booth was one of the top 5 MBA programs.

Tell us about the decision making process/factors that led you to decide to complete the program without relocating your family to Chicago?

As I have mentioned, I wanted to recruit for investment banking. Investment banking recruiting is very time consuming, with many recruiting events taking place all throughout Autumn and Winter. At first, I signed up my children for school and I found a nanny for them.

Yet after it became clear that my husband would not be able to work in the U.S. (because of his immigration status) and that the children would be spending most of their time at school or with the nanny with me coming back home around midnight, I decided that they would be better off staying in my country with their father and a nanny they were used to, (I could not invite her to the U.S. because of immigration laws), friends from school they enjoyed spending time with and, of course, my parents.

What did you do to make the experience more manageable for you and your family? Was anything harder or easier than you expected?

I have an amazing husband, amazing children and amazing parents and thanks to all of them everything worked well. We were seeing each other once a month on average, I would travel back to Europe for weekends and my family came to visit me a few times in Chicago. I took slightly longer Winter and Summer breaks and we kept in touch over the phone.

Is there anything you would have done differently or know now that could have made the experience better for you?

I had to give up some of the social life at school and sometimes did not work out my homeworks but overall the experience was worth it and I do not think I would have changed anything significantly.

Now that you’re done (yay!) how do you feel about the experience? How does your family feel?

I am glad I did it. Two years is a long period of time yet it feels like 2 months at most. My objective was to change careers and have more professional flexibility and I feel that I got it thanks to the fact that I did not chose just ANY program. In my mind choosing a top program with strong recruiting opportunities is critical for those whose objective is getting a new career. My husband is a businessman who does not appreciate government work and he is glad I was evenutally able to switch to business. My children almost forgot I was in Chicago. But they do remember Chicago’s museums, two level transatlantic planes and… the school’s locker room in which they enjoyed running.

Is there anything else that you would like to share? Any words of wisdom especially for international students?

Changing careers is a serious move. Prepare for this seriously and choose the best program: a strong degree will open new doors.  For international students that often means moving to the U.S. where their partners do not have work authorization. But you should not be worried about money: many families manage to survive on the student loans. If your partner does not want to stay at home, the challenge is greater but still possible to overcome.

You will be surprised how time consuming an MBA is, especially for career switchers. It will be tough if not impossible to pursue the degree without your family’s psychological and emotional support: whether your family is with you or stays at home, you need to know that they will do fine without you being there for them all the time, and you need to find a way to compensate for your absence when you are not at school studying or recruiting.

Walking across the stage in the Harper Quadrangle yesterday afternoon were at least 15 women Chicago Booth graduates with children. (Those that we know of from the full-time program.) While it is important to acknowledge these women’s accomplishments as individuals, we also want to applaud their accomplishments as student mothers. We know the kind of perseverance, confidence and intelligence it takes to succeed at Chicago Booth while raising small children. It is no small feat and we are thrilled that Booth is fortunate enough have such women join the alumni community.

And to all the mothers, at business schools and elsewhere, who graduated this spring - Congratulations and all the best to your families and your careers. Your children will thank you!

We wanted to thank our peers for their vote of recognition in this year’s student awards. Mothers at Booth received the Diversity Award which is selected by the Dean’s Awards Committee and the Office of Diversity Affairs based on nominations from the Class of 2009. This annual award recognizes outstanding individual or student group initiative in celebrating Chicago Booth’s community diversity as well as active involvement and significant contributions to ongoing diversity efforts.

Thanks for your vote of support! We appreciate the recognition in our inaugural year and look forward to many fruitful years to come.

Mothers at Booth co-founders Mia and Meghan are featured in a recent article on moms in MBA programs. We are excited about the coverage and hope it will encourage more women to pursue an MBA even if they have or are planning to have children.

As we mentioned in a recent post, most of the wage gap between male and female MBAs can be explained by the choice to have children. This recent New York Times article mentions that according to work by Goldin and Katz (co-authors of Bertrand’s recent study) the penalty is highest for those in finance and consulting who want to take time off for children. The medical profession affords the best pay and flexibility through arrangements which allow physicians to share work through group practices. The punch line is that this flexibility is a more recent evolution in response to growing numbers of female physicians and it seems feasible that other professions could find similarly creative solutions.

We were pleased to see the University of Chicago and Northwestern University collaborate recently on a Motherhood & Success in Science Panel Discussion (follow-up article here). Though the particulars of our careers differ we are all ultimately working mothers and face similar challenges in fulfilling our personal and professional aspirations.Kudos to Chicago and Northwestern for spearheading this conversation!

In related news, the May ABA Journal contained a mention of consulting firm Flex-Time Lawyers which helps firms save money and lawyers attain more job satisfaction through telecommuting and reduced schedules. Additionally, check out their article about dual law career couples making time for work and family. The article is reminiscent of our recent Getting to 50/50 event which Booth students and alumni can access online.

And lastly, check out the Wall Street Journal’s recent Extreme Child-Care Maneuvers article!

This the first installment of a story submitted by a now second-year about her experience being pregnant and giving birth during her first year at Booth. Stay tuned for Parts II and III …

Phase I - Finding Out

Okay, here goes. This is my first blog posting ever. I guess that it goes without saying that everything that is not an obvious fact is simply my opinion but I thought I would add the disclaimer anyway. I was born in Arizona, went to college in Los Angeles, moved to the Midwest in 2005 for a boy (now my husband) and started at Booth in the fall of 2007. Before business school I worked for a couple of well known companies, Yahoo! and Progressive Insurance, and one of the few successful Internet start-ups that came out of the Idea Lab incubator in Pasadena, Overture Services. I worked mostly in strategic planning and at Yahoo! and Overture and had a more data/analysis intensive role at Progressive. Honestly, I loved all of my jobs post college and pre MBA. I didn’t really plan to switch careers. I knew that consulting and investment banking weren’t for me. I was most interested in marketing/strategy roles in a corporate setting. I felt that long term, an MBA from Chicago would give me the knowledge and credentials to move faster and farther in my career.

We moved to Chicago at the beginning of August. Two days after uprooting our lives and leaving family and friends behind, I discovered I was pregnant. We always knew we wanted kids and had talked about possibly having our first child during my second year of school. This was shocking but celebrated news. I first took my little secret on my Random Walk to Belize and through a category 5 hurricane evacuation. Next, I went to Wisconsin bonded with my classmates and swung from ropes all the while wondering whether the harness would somehow harm my unborn child. Honestly, I was petrified to tell anyone. Most of the women that I had met were younger than me, single, and very interested in going out drinking. Not that any of those things are bad. I simply did not know what type of reactions I would get. Once classes began, I met more and diverse people and began to form friendships. I broke the news slowly to people that I trusted not to react negatively. I am not sure why I was so afraid of judgment except that I felt very out of place and self-conscious. Over time, a number of my friendships blossomed into wonderful relationships that made it much easier to ignore the negative comments I got from time to time. Most of the first quarter of school was pleasant and honestly, the timing seemed perfect. The first quarter was as it would have been for anyone, minus a bit of nausea and the urge to sleep a little longer in the mornings. The baby was scheduled to arrive in April, which would give me enough time to recuperate before my internship. I had it all planned out!

Next week we continue with the experience of recruiting while pregnant.

In the fall and spring quarters the student moms at Booth have tried to make it a habit to gather now and then for lunch. An illusive feat with all the goings on at Booth and our hectic schedules.

Now that the weather in Chicago has turned summery and lovely we’d like to revive this tradition. We invite all MaB members, friends and prospective female students to join us every Friday for lunch for the reminder of the spring quarter in the student lounge or back patio (weather permitting) for some good old fashioned social capital building. Or, in other words, let’s catch up and make friends!

(Prospective students, email us to let us know you want to attend and we’ll be happy to send someone to greet you in admissions rather than send you wandering around the student lounge on your own.)

We are very excited about an upcoming discussion with author Sharon Meers about how working couples can achieve better work-life balance by partnering together towards that goal. This is a fresh and much needed take on the much loved work-life balance discussion and Sharon has been very well received by audiences around the country. We are thrilled that she is willing to make time with us.

Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples can Have it All by Sharing it All*
*and why it’s great for your marriage, your career, your kids… and YOU

When: May 4^th, 2009 at 6:00p.m.
Where: Gleacher Center, Room 600
For whom: Booth students and alumni and their guests
Why: Managing a career as a parent can be tough, but also incredibly rewarding.  Sharon Meers, co-author of the book Getting to 50/50 and former MD at Goldman Sachs is coming to Chicago to share the insights from her work with hundreds of successful working parents, particularly, how to tap into your best resource (your partner) to achieve your goals.  Learn more from The Today Show.

RSVP by April 30th to Andrea Sparrey - asparrey@chicagobooth.edu.

Book description

Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober, authors of Getting to 50/50 are professionals, wives, and mothers with five young children between them.  They understand the challenges and rewards of two-career households.  They also know that families thrive not in spite of working mothers, but because of them.  You can have a great career, a great marriage, and be a great mother.  The key is tapping into your best resource and most powerful ally-the man you married.

After interviewing hundreds of parents and employers, surveying more than a thousand working mothers, and combing through the latest government and social science research, the authors have discovered that kids, husbands, and wives all reap huge benefits when couples commit to share equally as breadwinners and caregivers.  Mothers work without guilt, fathers bond with their kids, and children blossom with the attention of two involved parents.

From “baby boot camp” for new dads to exactly what to say when negotiating a leave with the boss, this savvy book offers fresh ideas to today’s families.  It also offers encouragement, hope and confidence to any woman who has ever questioned her choices regarding work and family.

The book has received several endorsements from members of leading business schools

“Getting to 50/50 is the first book I’ve read that gets it 100% right.   The advice is brilliant, the examples cogent and compelling, and the tone wise and humorous.  For anyone who wants to enjoy a full career, be a complete parent, and remain a supportive spouse, this is the book that will help you chart the way.” Roderick Kramer, William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior, Stanford University Graduate School of Business

“Getting to 50/50 builds on what the latest research tells us:  that children can thrive with two working parents and that fathers and mothers play equally important roles.  I wish this book had existed when I was raising young daughters.” Kathleen McCartney, Dean, Harvard Graduate School of Education