When you select an MBA program, you are not just choosing your learning environment, but are also committing to becoming part of a community. Each Thursday, we offer a window into life “beyond the MBA classroom” at a top business school.
A November 2010 Chicago Booth Student Perspectives Blog post called “Fun Times at Booth” notes, “At least twice a week there are two major events that all students are always invited to”—and one of these is Thursday Night Drinking Club, or TNDC. This event is organized by six second-year students (“chairs”) who are hand chosen by the previous year’s chairs and who select a new location each week where students and their partners/families can gather in downtown Chicago. A member of the Dean’s Student Admissions Committee told mbaMission that TNDC is “just one part of the vibrant city-based social environment of Booth.” Noting that attendance regularly numbers 200–400, a first-year student with whom we spoke remarked that “Booth frequently takes over the venue.” In a June 2009 student blog entry, a first year wrote of TNDC, “It is usually an open event, where friends and family are invited. People come, relax and chat. You need not drink. You can just turn up. … You can meet other first years, second years, older years, part-time program students, weekend program students and non-students.”
For in-depth descriptions of social and community activities at Chicago Booth and 14 other top MBA programs, check out the mbaMission Insider’s Guides.