MBA Insider

Ryan Hess is the Interim Director of Admissions at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. During our conversation, Ryan spoke about his career in admissions and his journey to Smeal, what makes Smeal’s MBA program unique, and the culture and community at Smeal.

In this episode, MBASchooled Ambassador Margaret Nealon (USC Marshall, ‘22) joins us to talk about her journey to USC Marshall. During our conversation, we spoke about Margaret’s career journey, why she chose to get an MBA, and her advice to prospective MBA students.

Tess Michaels is the Founder and CEO of Stride Funding. After going through the MBA application process, upon reflection, Tess realized there had to be better ways to finance your degree, and went on a journey to create Stride Funding. During our conversation, Tess spoke about how she built Stride Funding, how Stride helps MBA students and other students finance their degrees, and what she’s learned about building a startup while an MBA student.

Marlo Abramowitz is a Class of 2021 MBA Student at Tepper School of Business and the recently past-President of the Tepper Business & Technology Club. During this interview, Marlo spoke about why she chose to pursue product management, her own product management interview practice approach, and how she was able to successfully navigate product management interviews to land a PM internship at Tableau. She also spoke about her own interview preparation process for PM interviews, and her advice how MBA students can successfully prepare for PM Interviews.

Tony Hung is a Class of 2021 MBA Student at Columbia Business School and the Co-President of the Technology & Data Analytics (TDA) Association. After a career in consulting and tech, Tony came to business school to pivot to a career in product management. During this interview, Tony spoke about why he chose to pursue product management, his own product management interview practice approach, and how he was able to successfully navigate product management interviews to land a PM internship at Google. He also spoke about some of the differences in PM Interviews by company, and shared his advice for how MBA students can successfully prepare for PM Interviews

Abdul Rastagar is an MBA Graduate of UC-Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business and a Marketing Executive in the Enterprise Software industry. Over the years, Abdul has conducted numerous marketing interviews and learned important lessons along the way. In this interview, Abdul spoke about his experience with marketing interviews, launching his video series “Up Your Game” as well as his most recent book Up Your Game. He also provides advice to those who are in the middle of interviewing for marketing roles.

This episode is all about informational interviews, something that all MBA students rely on during the course of their time in business school. With the help of our MBASchooled community member Alli Jaeggi (USC Marshall, ‘20) we broke down everything MBA students need to know about the topic of informational interviews, tips for how to do them right, and mistakes to avoid.

Shelly Heinrich is the Associate Dean, MBA Admissions, and Director of Marketing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, as well as a McDonough MBA Alum. During our conversation, Shelly spoke about what makes McDonough unique, and some of the programs that McDonough students can take advantage of as MBA students. She also spoke about what she and her staff look for in MBA applications, what they have seen so far in admissions, and her advice to prospective MBA applicants.

Nasim Mirzai came to Duke University (Fuqua) after spending the beginning of her career in the Art Gallery Industry. During her time at Fuqua, In addition to her coursework, Nasim speaks to lots of prospective MBA students, holds numerous leadership positions, is an MBASchooled Ambassador. During our conversation Nasim spoke about her decision to attend Fuqua, the types of questions she helps prospective MBA students answer, and her advice to prospective and admitted MBA students for how they can select the right MBA Program.

In this episode, we spoke to Coalition 4 Change, a team from USC Marshall who recently won the Inaugural John R. Lewis Racial Justice Case Competition hosted by Emory University. During this conversation, we spoke about the team's desire to get involved in the case competition, the process of coming up with their ideas, and their reflections on participating and winning the case competition. They also spoke about their aspirations and hopes for how they and their fellow MBA students can take more active ownership in promoting racial justice, and how they’re doing just that by planning the USC FORWARD Summit.