Foster’s Collaborative MBA Community
Students cite learning alongside classmates among the most valuable aspects of a Foster MBA
Ask Foster MBA students about the most valuable aspects of their education, and the answers include favorite professors, a valuable internship, or an experiential learning experience while traveling abroad. But the most common response is how much they enjoyed learning alongside their classmates, and the strength of the friendships they made within the Foster MBA program.
Jay Patascil
Consultant at Boston Consulting Group
(MBA 2022)
“The community at Foster makes me accepted, it makes me welcomed, it makes me like I can come here every day as an authentic (version of myself),” says Jay Patacsil, now a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. “The Foster community is very tight knit. I know every single person in my class. I have what I consider to be a strong relationship with every single person in my class. And I’ve never experienced that at any level of school.”
As an example, Patacsil cites Slack channel #interviewinvites on which his fellow Foster MBA students would post interview opportunities. “And we would all celebrate,” he says. “It never felt like a competition.”
Claire Herting
Senior Replenishment Manager at Walmart
(MBA 2021)
Claire Herting, now a Senior Replenishment Manager at Walmart, also cites the community aspect as a highlight of her time as a Foster MBA student. According to Herting, when a classmate had an interview at any given company, they would share preparation tactics, even potentially at their own expense, in order to have everyone have the best chance to succeed.
“I was very excited to find an environment where everyone’s working together to push everyone further,” she says “The idea of getting to learn from my classmates rather than simply competing with them was huge. I really wanted to learn from all these smart people I was going to be going to school with.”
Patacsil and Herting are representatives of traditionally underrepresented communities in MBA programs, and both say their classmates and the larger Foster School of Business community celebrated the diversity they brought to the program.
Emily Kwong
Senior Strategy Consultant at Accenture
(MBA 2022)
Emily Kwong was considering multiple MBA programs to help advance in her career in human resources. For her, the Foster community was the deciding factor in choosing where to earn her MBA.
“When I spoke with the students at Foster time and time and again, I felt like I could connect with these people on a very human level,” she says. “They were deeply passionate about something bigger than themselves.”
Learn more about the Foster community and how you can be part of it.
