And you thought Legal Methods was bad enough
It was a warm Monday morning on August 20 as the Rotman full-time MBA class of 2020 gathered in the Rotman building (Desautels Hall, to be exact). Among the approximately 350 individuals were twenty-five JD/MBA students, nervous about the experience to come, excited to meet new friends, and concerned about whether the additional $85,000 would be worth it.
Long story short: Still nervous, still excited, still concerned.
The week started with a welcome breakfast, as do many orientation weeks, where two jumbotron screens showed Dean Tiff Macklem, performing the infamous Kiki dance from Drake’s “In My Feelings”. This, along with the orientation team being called “The 6ix Squad,” was to purportedly hype-up Torontonian culture for a nearly 50% international class. They loved it. The JD/MBAs exchanged cringy glances.
After a morning full of administrative discussions and endless clapping, the program’s collaborative nature began to shine through. The class divided into breakout groups and engaged in an activity called “the reciprocity ring”, where you identify something you want to gain, such as a skill, and the other members in your group identify whether they can provide that skill. The idea is to leverage your social and professional networks, thereby increasing access to resources you did not realize were available to you.
This enlightening experience capped off the day for all but the JD/MBAs, who met with their career coach for an hour. In this session, they were guided through what our year would look like and discussed the daunting yet distant 1L Recruit. It was the first time the posse was in the same room together and it definitely helped to answer some burning questions (i.e., will I get a job? Short answer: I hope).
The next day was initially reminiscent of Legal Methods, since we also had a two-week intensive course during orientation, except our course was called “Leveraging Diverse Teams”. It was intended to help students effectively navigate teamwork. However, it ended up reinforcing the notion that group work is difficult and oftentimes frustrating. Throughout orientation, teams of five had to produce two 1200-word papers. (If you have never written a group paper, and I pray that you haven’t, it is hardly an efficient experience). Despite the struggles, the value in working with individuals from different cultures, careers, and academic backgrounds certainly has real-life applicability.
The first week of orientation also had students working in larger teams of seven to nine individuals on a consulting challenge. Each of the five sections worked with a different organization in Toronto, or the City of Toronto itself, on an area affecting poverty. This challenge tackled tough issues such as homelessness, shelters, and digital literacy. Despite the irony of having students tackle issues related to poverty while wearing expensive suits, it was nevertheless a good cause. This challenge proved difficult in its own right, as students struggled to navigate different ideas within a larger group setting.
Finally, the orientation ended with a boat cruise, DJ’d by none other than a member of the Rotman administration who never lets the JDs forget that he used to be on the recruitment team at the Faculty of Law.
A few days later was a trip to “O-Camp” at Camp Winnebagoe, where students played sports, engaged in team-building activities, and had their alcohol intake monitored by upper years (while I’m thankful for the connections I made as I had relatively sober conversations with my new classmates, I would not have complained about a gin and tonic after that rough two weeks).
Sprinkled throughout the orientation were interesting experiences that would fuel the friendship among the JD/MBAs. This included the irony of an all-carb breakfast during a presentation on health and wellness, attacks on individuals’ presentation styles during a self-development activity, and the “Amazing Rotman Race”, which the JD/MBAs skipped in lieu of their own activities.
Although it was a very tiring and stressful start to a presumably very tiring and stressful degree, the Rotman MBA orientation gave me at least twenty-four new friends, and for that I am grateful.
