How to connect with your fellow class mates and which mistakes you should avoid | MBA insights

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In this video, I am shedding some light on how to network and connect with your fellow classmates. This is not a complete guideline and is subject to your business school and location, but it certainly gives you a good indication on what you can expect and encounter before and during your program.

0:00 - Intro

0:17 - Find roommates
Before you arrive at the location wherever your business school is, make sure you find people to live with. Even if you are in your 30s and have lived alone previously, or maybe you have never lived with anybody before, for your personal MBA experience, I highly recommend you team up with 2 or 3 class mates – at least for the first year of your program. And the reason for this is super simple: This will give you a great head start especially in the beginning. You will find yourself in situations, in which there will be events or even parties of which you didn't know of, but your roommates might do. That way, you will always be informed what's going on on-campus, in the program, on upcoming events, rumors and what not. In short: you will always be in the loop! It's even better to have room mates in different cohorts or sections, because everyone will have new or additional information that you and your other roommates won't have. It's super helpful to be able to exchange information when you live together with someone.

1:18 - Connect with people ASAP
Make sure to meet and talk to as many people as possible especially early on. Because if you do your own thing, you will be left out and this can happen super fast. People are forming their circle of friends very very quickly and these circles are pretty much closed fast. You will observe this on various occasions, and I personally found it always hilarious how protective these people were of outsiders trying to enter their holy circle.

01:43 - Go to events
Another great way to connect with your fellow classmates, is by going to student events. Whether it's country dinners, movie nights, excursions, these events are always fun to attend and highly recommendable.

01:56 - Join clubs
Then there are professional clubs, such as finance, consulting and the likes; there social clubs, like arts & culture maybe, and of course sports clubs, where you meet people enjoying the same sports as you do. These clubs offer the perfect platform for people, who more or less think alike.

02:14 - Attend "mixers"
If you choose to study in the US, you will be able to attend mixer parties. The business school's student ambassadors normally organize such events with other student ambassadors from other schools to get to know each other for the sake of networking and to have fun. I also recommend taking classes at other schools of the university, where you will meet people from other programs. Check my other video, in which I am comparing an MBA in the US vs. Europe. I am covering this topic there as well.
And if you end up in Europe, your options are a bit more limited to the extent of being able to network within the university. European business schools are usually stand-alone business schools and not affiliated with a larger university. However, they are normally in metropolitan cities, where you can meet people at the local gym for example. To connect with locals, I also recommend taking dancing lessons, like salsa. You can find these clubs literally in every bigger city throughout Europe.

03:09 - Outro
Alright, I hope I was able to shed some light on how to network and connect with your fellow classmates. This was not a complete guideline and is subject to your business school and location, but it certainly gives you a good indication on what you can expect and encounter before and during your program.

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