by Neysa Pranger, Director of Public Affairs, RPA
As is traditional when starting school, this January when I began the MBA program at the Stern School of Business at New York University, I attended the requisite orientation weekend where my new classmates and I were forced to learn about each other's backgrounds, habits and hobbies. The goal was in part to familiarize ourselves with folks so we could form study teams. Although everyone seemed very smart and nice, my first impressions were just how different they were from me.
I had expected this to an extent; I knew most of my MBA-seeking classmates came from the financial services, consulting, technology and marketing sectors with degree backgrounds in business and economics. I, in contrast, came with a history of working with non-profits, a degree in the sciences and absolutely no experience with business. But I wasn't prepared for how we differed on smaller things, like where we lived.
Out of the sixty-five members of my core group (think law school "sections"), I was the only person working for a non-profit. Additionally, I was only one of three (of that sixty-five) living in Brooklyn. How could this be? NYU is a downtown campus. My apartment is a mere four subway stops away. Brooklyn is New York City's largest borough. It should be somewhat cheaper to live here on a student's budget than in other places. Most of my new classmates hailed from New Jersey and Manhattan. A few were scattered in the other boroughs.
Now that I a full semester behind me, other differences strike me, such as how relatively little I know about many business matters - things like accounting, economics, corporate structure - compared to my classmates. Each day I climb a mountain of learning, whereas my classmates, to switch metaphors, are chomping at the bit to move on to the harder stuff. I keep asking myself, "What have I gotten myself into?" I find some minor solace with the fact that the school must have let me in for some reason, if not my business acumen. Marketing class, here I come.
What I've gotten myself into is a challenge. I decided to get my MBA because, after nearly a decade of working in transportation, and seeing many projects halted and many agencies drowned because of financing troubles, I wanted to better understand the dynamics on that side of the equation. Ultimately I want to learn more about public-private partnerships and private infrastructure funds to be in the position to help find new ways to fund big projects like roads, bridges, tunnels and subways.
While it's been tough getting back in to school and balancing work at the same time, and even tougher catching up on the learning curve, it has been refreshing to be around a group of individuals I find myself otherwise remarkably insulated from on a day-to-day basis. As my fondness for my classmates continues to grow, I suspect we will always differ in many ways, including what is motivating us to get through the program, but we're all there to learn more about how to manage the dominant force of capitalism in our society. Maybe we're not so different, after all.
@RegionalPlan