Preterm @ Wharton

The Wharton MBA starts a month before most others in August and the extra month is called the Preterm. It is largely an introduction to the madness that is about to start from September and a great way to actually get to know people from other cohorts (a group of about 65 students that you’ll have most of your classes with, for the first year). While the academic format is tailored to introduce you to the basics in calculus, accounting, statistics and economics, preterm is more of a non-alcoholic social setting for you to interact with 750 of your classmates and more importantly, to soak in the Wharton way of life before it hits you in September like a neutron bomb.

The school officially starts out with the Dean’s reception and the Convocation ceremony (this was surprising since in India, the convocation happens after you graduate – that’s called commencement here – sigh, they do everything differently in the US, starting with hugging the other side of the road). We thought we were busy in preterm, coming to terms with names like ACCT603, 604, 608, MGEC603, STAT603 and loved calling back home and talking about our crazy schedules at school – little did we know that we’d actually look back at preterm as the only time at Wharton so far that was relaxing. In terms of what I’d have done differently, I’d have paid more emphasis to meeting people than getting stressed out about a (non-existent) crazy work schedule during pre-term. There's also a math test that you must pass if you want to continue at Wharton and stressful as it sounded with all the calculus and the ubiquitous, all pervasive 'e' blindsiding you at every turn, it was a breeze to clear.

Reception after the convocation

At Wharton, most of the assignments are in the form of group work and the famous Wharton Learning Teams are introduced to each other at the end of pre-term during the retreat at the end of preterm. The learning team retreat is a bunch of really fun activities set in a camp in the Catskills mountains (more like hills, though) about 3-4 hours away from Philly. Meeting my learning team was fun – we are 6 people from Germany, India, Australia and the US. What was even more fun was getting used to working with each other in games, skits and competitions. Each cohort was identified by a differently colored tee-shirt and while the one for Cohort B was'nt the best (bumblebee yellow!!), it made for some good pictures.

Skit on Learning Team presentation of innovative products for Wharton students

My learning team - MVLT!!!!!!

Cohort B...B for Awesome:-D

I had been told by 2nd years that I MUST make it a point to party as much as I can during pre-term…I wish I had taken that advice seriously!! Either that, or I should have focused on tanking up on some sleep to make up for the next 3 months. Returning from the Learning Team Retreat, all we looked forward to was the 3 day break and hardly thought of what lay ahead of us.

Coming up next: Life as a Wharton MBA in Semester I