Mothers at Booth

Below is the start of a very unique story by one of the current first year student mothers at Booth about her internship recruiting experience.  Since it was a little long, and we wanted to keep you in suspense, we’re posting it in two parts… stay tuned for the end of this first-year’s recruiting saga, coming soon!

I remember sitting at my dining room table 3 days before my first baby was due, massaging my aching midsection, finger hovering over the submit button for my Booth admission application.  My husband was encouraging me to just get it in before the baby came. Technically I had a couple of weeks to polish it some more – but there was this whole labor-delivery-newborn-baby thing coming so I listened to him and clicked the button.   I got the news of my acceptance while on maternity leave.  Wow, this would change the next couple of years!  Initially my husband and I wanted to put 3 years between children.  Now waiting 3 years to have another would require me to have a baby right after starting a new job.  I could put 4-5 years between them or have another one while still in school.  Although it doesn’t seem that way sometimes, student life really is more flexible than work.  We decided we’d have another soon and put the kids close together.  It’s pretty hard to precisely plan a pregnancy, as anyone who has tried knows… so I went on with my life as a first year MBA.  I attended career immersion, prepared my resume, and began attending night after night of corporate conversations.

I found out I was pregnant before finals during first quarter.   I had spent weeks at that point up to my ears in recruiting for General Management, Healthcare, Marketing and Consulting – and had given up many hours with my then year-old daughter to chat over non-existent coffee and be educated beside invisible fires and generally try to become known among recruiters. My initial calculations had the baby coming in mid-summer.  My first ultrasound confirmed a July 19^th due date, leaving no time for an internship.  I didn’t know what to do.

I briefly contemplated slowing down my time in school and staying an extra year.  I could take two classes at a time and do my summer internship in 2011.  Unfortunately, I’m past the carefree prime of my life (and onto other primes, of course).  I have a mortgage and childcare expenses.  It just wasn’t financially appealing for me to stop the momentum.   I felt strongly that I needed an internship as I was primarily after Corporate roles.  Many of the organizations that I wanted to work for only hired from their intern class.  I hated the idea that having a baby meant closing the door on any opportunity.  I refused to give up on anything.

I sought the advice of Career Services to see how they felt.  I figured someone had done this before.  I’m not sure anyone had.  It took some time for them to come back with a recommendation for me.  They advised me to tell prospective employers that I was pregnant during my second round interview.  The advice was based, I believe, on maintaining a positive long term relationship with firms – both for my own full-time recruiting efforts as well as Career Services in general. I could certainly respect the advice. However, my gut was to disregard the idea.  In full-time recruiting this would have been a no-brainer.  You’d recruit as normal and then work it out after the offer. A pregnancy would result in a delayed start date, an early (but probably unpaid) maternity leave, but not a no-go.  With an internship, my giving birth in the middle of the summer rendered me unable to commit to 8-10 weeks of work starting mid-June.   If someone in our class had no choice but to schedule elective major surgery in the summer, I have to believe they’d be in the same boat.  If you can’t do the job, you can’t do the job.  Without doing any research into legal concerns, I pressed onward with the personal belief that a company was in its right to decide not to hire me for an 8-week engagement.  However, I wanted to wait and see if I got any offers, and then see what could be worked out.  I would keep the pregnancy a secret and wait until I (hopefully) had an offer before discussing my “situation.”

A minute of procrastination from studying for finals to post our final installment of our first-year student diary series.  Thank you to our student author!  And thank you to those who are reading along… please leave comments to let us know if there are any other things you would like to hear about from our group of student mothers, alumni, faculty and staff!  Happy Spring to those in the Chicago area (the weather has made a beautiful turn…), and happy Spring Break to all you current Boothies!  Without further adieu…

Wednesday:

I am out of bed at 7am to pick up the phone! It’s my mom – she calls me early so she’s sure to catch me. Either at home or in my car on my way to school! Kids are dressed and out and I can start my day.

I decided to accept my offer for the summer so I sign my contract and email a dozen people to thank them for their help in the recruiting process and keep them posted about my decision. It feels good to be done. But I wish all my friends and classmates had found already so we could all rejoice together.

I have to prepare a negotiation for tomorrow’s class. It’s the last class so we’ll be negotiating a salary. I know I’d be really bad at that in real life. I am lucky my role for tomorrow is that of the boss. I feel it’s easier.

Speaking of which, there’s a Lunch n’ Learn organized by CWIB today to talk about the recent economic research that suggests that the pay gap between men and women is related to a lack of negotiation by women.  Hummm…. I think they might be right!

I wish I could have gone but TRADEOFF alert !

My daughter is “Star of the Week” at school, which means she gets to invite her mother to school. So I go to her school this afternoon to read the class a story and I bring my daughter’s favorite food… sushi! I also bring cupcakes for the kids who will not even look at sushi.

It’s such a nice day today.  My car says it’s 68 degrees outside. I have a hard time believing it but it is really really nice outside. So after school, we take the bikes and scooters to play outside with the kids and we enjoy the sun for an hour and a half.

At night, after the kids are asleep, I start reading the case for my Competitive Strategy final, I edit my Operations final paper, and call it a day!

Thursday:

Thursday is my full day this quarter. I have class in the morning and in the afternoon. The kids are up early today so I actually have time to give them breakfast before I head out at 7:15.

Today we have the last classes of the quarter. The professors did a great job at wrapping things up, summarizing the key take-aways and I actually was moved when they said good-bye and wished us a great career!

I planned on studying at lunch-time but decided to eat my sandwich in great company and sat with two second-year French students in the winter garden. Another student joined us, and another one and quickly it was a French reunion. At one point there were eight of us around the table. And so old habits kicked in and the typical French 2-hours lunch break became inevitable! It was a very nice distraction from schoolwork and finals.

After my afternoon class, I met with my Negotiation study group to go over the final paper one last time and we agreed it was perfect!

One of my extra-curricular activities includes coaching. I followed a course to become a business and life coach and am currently coaching Booth students. So tonight I have a session. I really enjoy it.

And tonight I have an extra perk: my coachee gives me a quick and free Finance 101 lesson! I really needed it… lol.

Home at 8:30pm, both my kids are in bed. My son is sleeping but my daughter is waiting for her kiss goodnight.

Tonight I do a few things for my student groups but no real work. I’ll watch a movie with my husband… and try not to fall asleep in the middle. That would be a great accomplishment!

In a week from now I’ll be in a plane to Paris… am counting the days…

Here’s Part II of our day-to-day diary series, “A Week in the Life of an M@B”…   good luck to all of the current Booth students on their finals, and don’t worry, just because Spring Break is next week doesn’t mean you’ll stop hearing from us!

Monday:

I get up at 6:30am. I must be in my car at 7:15am to beat traffic and be in school on time. Yeah… I have two kids so I wanted a big apartment with a backyard… and I wanted to live next to my brother for family support… so I am up north and have a 45 minute drive to school.

My kids get up around 7am so I have time to see them a few minutes and give kisses goodbye. My husband will get them dressed and take them to school and daycare. No… I would not have been able to go for my MBA without a very supportive husband.

I am in school at 8am and run to the computer lab to print the review material and sample finals that my professors posted online. I feel like I just killed a tree…

I am the co-chair of three student groups. Today I meet with the Mother at Booth co-chairs from 8:30am to 11am. We go through the mission statement and plan the events for the spring quarter – great things coming up!!!

I then head to the student lounge for some studying… but I say hi to a bunch of students… and then receive a call from a friend in France that I haven’t spoken to in ages. It’s so hard to focus… so yeh, I haven’t done anything and it’s noon already – time to meet with one of the JBSA co-chair. We have lunch and go through the details of an event we’re organizing.

It is 1pm when we are finally done… we are done eating and done working… we are also done listening to music (it’s hard to believe I listen to Linkin Park… and hard to believe we need to reminisce about our teenage years listening to Tupac – Hit Em Up J)… we are also done showing each other YouTube videos (you must watch the sand art videos from Ukraine got talent)… okay we are really done!!

So I MUST study now. I spend another 1.5 hours on Operations Management. One thing I learned from this class: I do not want to run a factory.

At 2:30pm, it’s time to go to the Gleacher Center. I am reviewing my Competitive Strategy course with a friend. We try to go through last year’s final. Ouch! We would have failed! Two hours later, we have only gone through 40% of the final. Thank God we have another week to study…

I am home at 6pm and have time to play with my kids. I have to keep them away from my husband who is trying to build the IKEA wardrobe!!! After they’re asleep, I study for an hour and then we decide to watch a movie. But at 9:30pm, half hour through the movie, I fall asleep!! I did not stop for a minute today… so when I do, I fall asleep immediately.

Tuesday:

It’s hard to get up this morning. Especially because I know I do not have to be in school before noon. So I am a little slow this morning… Once my kids are out, I have breakfast, empty the dishwasher and go through my emails.

Today, my husband is coming to school with me! We’re going to the Debra Fine conference on the Fine Art of Small Talk. It sounds so easy when she talks about networking… We come out hoping we’ll be able to use some of her advice in the near future.

In the afternoon, it’s competitive strategy. Last class of the quarter!  It went by so quickly, it’s crazy.

After class, I must go to a study group to finalize this week’s homework. My mom calls. She’s upset I can’t talk to her now… With the 7 hours time difference, it’s hard to connect.

Finally home at 7pm, and it’s already time to put the kids to sleep. But I am tempted to spend time with them so it is past 8pm when they finally fall asleep.

I must file taxes now. I know it’s not due for another 2 months but I am a LIFO type of girl – Last In First Out. So, I just got an email from the Office of International Affairs telling me to how to file taxes as an Alien with no income… so I decide to get “rid of it” so I can forget about it!!!

I then go through my Negotiation final paper so we can hand it in on Friday. I have a great group and we started working on the paper early so I am happy not to have to worry about it.

The Mothers at Booth 2010-2011 co-chairs are excited about a new series of blog posts this year!  We are looking forward to sharing with you the stories and thoughts of current students, faculty/staff, and alumni who are successfully juggling work/school and motherhood!

To kick things off, we present to you a real-life, day-to-day diary series from a current first-year student who has two children.  For those of you thinking about how you can possibly make it work, being a full-time student (specifically, one who is involved in recruiting and student group activities in addition to classes) and a mother, this will hopefully give you an idea of how it can be done… and inspire you to do it!  If you are a prospective student and want to learn more about M@B, please feel free to get in touch with us at mab@lists.chicagobooth.edu.  Without further ado, I present Day 1 of….

A week in the life of an M@B

There are times when I don’t know how to explain what it is like to juggle being a MBA student and being a mother, so I thought I’d take you through the last 5 days in my life.

When I first re-read what I wrote, I thought… “oh no! the readers will think my life is so sad…that I really do nothing else than school and kids”.

But I think you’ll realize it is really not sad. It is exactly what keeps me happy!

My happiness lies in this balance… or in this equilibrium since we’re at Chicago Booth.

My happiness lies in this ability to completely intertwine my personal and my professional lives… I can’t substitute one for another and my indifference curve is that of perfect complements J

Sunday :

I did homework on Saturday night and stayed up pretty late… I must admit I am a bit of a b****, I mean difficult, when I am sleep-deprived… so my husband happily takes care of the kids when they wake up at 7 so I can sleep late – in mommy language, that means I get up at 9:30…!

After a quick breakfast, I notice a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables are getting bad in my fridge and decide to cook. My 5-year-old daughter washes all the fruits while I sauté the vegetable. I also cook rice so we have a full meal ready for tomorrow night – planning ahead is the only way it all works. I then cook all the overripe apples, pears and grape into a delicious compote.

Quickly, the constant beeping of my computer gets to me… and suddenly I NEED and I MUST go check my email NOW. My desk is next to my kids’ playroom. So while I check my emails and read about my study group meetings, the student group events I must organize, and the recruiting events I must attend, my daughter shows me her artwork and my 18 months old son proudly presents the three Lego’s he managed to pile up!

At 11:30am, I realize we must get moving! We’re going out! One of the directors at the firm I will be working for this summer is taking us out to lunch. I am taking my husband and children and he is bringing his wife and son. We have a great time. We talk about school, about work and mostly about our personal experiences and how we manage to balance it all.

Then we head to IKEA. We were pushing it off for months but we really need a table in the kitchen and a wardrobe for my clothes! How long does it take to buy these two things??? About 3 hours… My daughter is at the kids’ play zone (YAY!) and my son alternates screaming in the shopping cart and hiding in every PAX closet we pass by. On the way home, they are both asleep in the back. They’re so cute when they’re sleeping…

After the bath and a quick dinner (vegetable soup out of the freezer; when I cook, I cook a lot and freeze some… so convenient!), it’s already bedtime. A story, a song, a kiss… and we’re free!! Well then there’s the glass of water, the monsters under the bed and the bathroom break… but then we’re free!

Tonight I am baby sitting at my brother’s house so he can take his wife to dinner for her birthday. So I go to my brother with my computer… and I study!

Most of the homework due this week is done – I usually do everything on Saturday night. So I review my notes for my Operations class and start working on my cheat sheet for the final!  I like Ops today: I just learned that my team ended 6^th out of 50 in the Littlefield game we played for this class – a simulation in which we had to run a factory.

At 11pm, I am home and my brain is not responding anymore so I call it a day and head to bed!

When is the ideal age to have or adopt a first baby? For most women it is between the ages of 25 to 34 years old.

“Slightly more than 75 percent of women questioned in a joint survey by ForbesWoman.com and TheBump.com believe it is the perfect time to become a mother. Forty-two percent narrowed it down further to 25-29 years old, and 17 percent said there was no best age.”

This interesting article I found on msnbc.com seems to say that having a baby while at Booth or early in your career is “ideal”

We finally leave off with the conclusion to the story of a former first-year who found out she was pregnant the summer before matriculating at Booth. Part II described what it was like to go through internship recruiting while very pregnant. In this final installment, she tells us as an almost newly-minted MBA what it was like to give birth during the spring of her first-year.

Phase III – Birth and the aftermath

Believe it or not, I went into labor on my due date, which also happened to be a Saturday, which meant that I had class from 9 to 4. I had read all about early labor and decided class would be the perfect place to wait it out. Plus, I really liked my Saturday classes and knew that I would likely miss them next week. I sat in the back row and timed my contractions via the clock at the front of the room. I was admitted to the hospital that night and soon after had my beautiful baby boy. I had imagined that it would be easy to get all of my homework done during the days when I was home alone with the baby but this turned out not to be the case. If I had it to do over again I would have hired help so that I was not so stressed during this time. I should have been focused on my son but rather I was stressing about my homework. Looking back, I kick myself for caring so much about my homework during that time. For me, it took a while to adjust my priorities and figure out my new role. Next time I plan to fly in, hire, or otherwise obtain as much help as possible. We hired a full-time nanny for my internship. I started my internship when my son was 8 weeks old and for the most part things went smoothly. We have kept the nanny for 3 days a week during the second year and it has been perfect. I have enough time for 3-4 classes and I fit my work in during the evenings or before or after my classes. In fact, I really enjoy having two days a week to spend with my son and the 3-day limit on childcare keeps costs down and keeps me efficient.

In closing, I landed my ideal full-time job in the city of my choice and we are moving back to where we have family after I graduate. The first year was tough. The second has been much easier (great nanny, supportive husband, and not recruiting while pregnant). To the women with children, expecting a child, or wanting a child who also want a career and a top tier MBA, I believe that it is tough but doable. By tough I mean tougher than completing an MBA without children but not necessarily tougher than having a baby on the job. In the end, I got what I wanted out of b-school and got to begin the most fulfilling and challenging part of my journey as a woman, motherhood.

If I had it to do over again I definitely would. It was difficult to adjust to being in a new city, a new school, and knowing that I was about to go through the most life altering experience possible. For me the good things about having a baby during my first year include the flexibility in my schedule to spend a lot of time with my little one during my second year and less pressure (self-inflicted pressure) to have a child soon after starting my post-MBA role. I am not sure if there truly are cons but I will admit that I don’t take advantage of all of the social opportunities and that I would never choose to go through the hell of recruiting while obviously (hugely) pregnant again.

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.