Students welcomed the school year by formally setting goals for themselves, participating in a letter-to-self exercise on the final evening of Keystone Week. After writing down their objectives, the MBA Class of 2013 put their sealed envelopes into a Keystone shaped vault to be opened at reunions in five years. Until then, the time capsule will be put on display in the business school along with the others from previous classes.
“It is important exercise not only in terms of its symbolism, but it is also a pragmatic exercise because writing down goals is important,” says Full-Time MBA Dean Brian Mitchell. “It is a shift in the mindset of a student. It helps them think not just about what classes to take this semester or even strategy for completing business school, but think about what type of life they want to have and what this is all building towards in terms of the bigger picture.”
Click below to see the whole interview with Full-Time MBA Dean Brian Mitchell.
The students appreciated the activity as many expressed it to be thought provoking and enlightening in terms of their personal awareness and aims.
“I think the most important part about writing that letter was reminding myself to take enough risks, so in five years when I look back I will not regret not taking a chance,” says 2013 MBA student Matt Essex. “It will make me hold myself to a higher standard and set some lofty goals, particularly on the professional side. I think that most people found it easier now entering the second year of the program to write our personal goals, but that would not have been so true a year ago when just entering Goizueta. We were so consumed with professional goals, we hadn’t given ourselves the time to think about personal goals.”
2013 MBA student Chris Fellows echoed those sentiments saying, “This school does a great job of facilitating us to couch our goals with both professional and personal context, so I wrote about both. Wish me luck!”
Good luck to Chris, Matt and the rest of the MBA Class of 2013!
