Carlson for International Students
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
As I packed my bags to leave home for London in 2006, I had no idea what was waiting for me. I had never travelled outside the country; leave alone a nine-hour flight by myself! On the designated day, when Jet Airways landed in Heathrow, I was excited and petrified all at the same time!
Moving to a new country is never easy, especially as a graduate student. You are expected to be independent – so no halls of residence; and settling into a new culture is difficult as hell. Everyone speaks English but the cultural contexts and nuances take a while to understand. That makes bonding with people even harder. All in all the first few months in a foreign country have the added feeling of battling constant loneliness over and above the school work and energy that goes into finding and hunting for a new job. My experience in London was tough. I took several months to make half decent friends, struggled with academics as I tried to acclimatize myself with the new teaching techniques, while running around trying to find a job to help me pay off my massive student loan!
My experience in the UK made me older and wiser. It was so much easier to pick the right MBA school in the US after that!
Here’s why Carlson is a great place to get an MBA for any international student…
Dedicated Career Coaching staff focused on international student issues
Writing the perfect resume and cover letters are crucial to the job hunt process and so is networking. While the career coaches are dedicated to helping the entire class to put their best foot forward, they are also committed to helping international students succeed by providing them with the right balance of information on visa and work permit advise as well as strategies to find ways to get their foot in the door at their dream companies.
The Graduate Business Career Center - or the GBCC - Carlson's career advising center for MBA students.
A boutique class size and a chance to really bond with your classmates
As opposed to some of the top 10 schools, Carlson’s small class size of about 100 students per year enables all students to get to know each other really well and form a strong community over the two years they spend there. These are not just great potential business connections but also close friends for life!
A strong close knit community of alumni
Following my previous point, since class sizes are small, our alumni network if extremely proud of Carlson and would make every effort to support their community. Alumni working for various fortune 500 companies and other firms are always friendly and ready for a coffee chat to help out an MBA student. This is a network that can really help international students understand different work cultures in the US and identify the best company for them to shine at.
Home for several of the Fortune 500 companies
Most internationals come to study in the US with the hope of an opportunity to apply their higher learning at a company in the US. Minneapolis is home to several of the fortune 500 companies and enjoys excellent relationships with them. 3M, General Mills, Mayo Clinic, Medtronic, Amazon, Ecolab and several other fantastic companies, court students. Coming to Carlson is an opportunity to network with professionals from these companies and to learn from them.