Executive Education: Basic Training


In addition to microchip design, I’m interested in perhaps one day influencing key issues related to education, corporate governance, and public policy.

What schools did you apply to, and why did you eventually choose U.C. San Diego?
State, the University of San Diego, and U.C. Irvine, I applied only to the Rady School at U.C. San Diego. After attending a couple of Rady’s on-campus information sessions in 2005 and 2007 and reading the archived transcripts of recent online chat sessions, I found the school particularly appealing for three reasons: its emphasis on technology-based entrepreneurship; the opportunity for collaboration with other schools on the U.C. San Diego campus; and its proximity to San Diego’s Sorrento Valley, also known as Telecom Valley.

If you could do it over, would you handle your preparation and application process differently?
If I had to do it over again, I would have begun to study and practice for the GMAT weeks earlier, using more online resources and a test prep center such as Kaplan or Princeton Review.

Name: Tuesday Tibbs
School and term: First-year student, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon
University
Undergraduate major: Business Administration, Hampton University
Work experience: Two summer internships at accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers, human resources and auditing; Summer internship at Genworth Financial, internal auditing
Focus: Corporate finance, accounting, and organizational behavior. Tibbs set her sights on an M.B.A. as early as her freshman year of college. “I knew that I eventually wanted to be a leader,” she says, “so when I started my undergrad degree at Hampton University, I started with my eye on the prize.”

Did you worry that you would not be accepted without any work experience?
Yes, I did. A lot of schools wanted at least three years’ work experience. I felt it was because they wanted someone who had business knowledge and leadership potential, so my strategy was to show that I had those things through my involvement in extracurricular activities and internship experiences.


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