Day in the Life: MBA Student

March 15th, 2021

Name: Nasim Mirzai
MBA Program: Duke, The Fuqua School of Business
Specialization / Focus: Marketing
Age: 28

Summary of your job:

I’m a full-time second-year MBA student at Duke and will be graduating soon in May. We are on a quarter system, and I am taking three classes this quarter which meet two times a week. Once you complete the required core coursework in your first year, you can take any electives you want (from courses on various topics like Cryptocurrencies, Real Estate Entrepreneurship, and Biotech and Pharma Strategy).

What is your morning routine:

Since I’m on west coast time, I check my phone for emails first thing in the morning to make sure there’s nothing urgent in my inbox. The second thing I do is head straight to my coffee maker. On an ideal morning, I love to start the day slowly. I’ll scan news headlines, read blog posts, and just take my time. This happens 75% of the time – the other 25%, I’m waking up and directly heading straight to my desk to work on an urgent deadline. I make sure I manage my time so my weekends are totally for unwinding.

What are you doing at 9AM?

Depending on the day, I’m still enjoying my morning or hopping on a Zoom call for my first class of the day.

What are you doing at 11AM?

I may have a second class or I’m checking my job alerts, sending out cold emails, setting up times for informational chats at my dream companies – basically, working towards my full-time recruiting goals. Some second-year MBA’s decide to return to their summer internship employers, others decide to re-recruit. If you re-recruit in tech, you typically either land a job very early in your second-year or closer to graduation.

What do you do for lunch?

L.A. has so much good food – I’ll either pick up something in the neighborhood, or I’ll cook at home. I’ve been branching out with my cooking much more lately and trying to find time to try out new dishes every week. Depending on how busy I am, lunch could be a simple sandwich or if I’m feeling fancier, some homemade pasta, omelet, or soup.

What are you doing at 2PM?

I’m usually in meetings throughout the afternoon for team projects or doing classwork. Projects can look like writing a paper on the brand value of Duke’s women’s basketball team, a live case in which our group assumed the role of a digital marketing agency and actually pitched our services to a leading B2B firm, or creating a strategy deck for new product development for a real-life company (in my case, I was assigned Burt’s Bees). In terms of classwork, it’s a lot of diverse case readings (from reading about Porsche to Virgin Galactic to Disney). A business case study is written from the perspective of a real executive at a leading company and describes a real-life challenge. It can read like a narrative and includes appendices with data. As a student, you’re supposed to put yourself in the shoes of the executive and decide what you would do and be prepared to discuss this in class.

What are you doing at 5PM?

Hopefully I’m done working for the day unless I have a big project deadline coming up. In the early evenings, I’ll usually hop on a Zoom call for a professional club event or social event at Duke. Recently, my section classmate organized a virtual “Meet and Draw” with Cadbury, a llama in Sydney, which was so cute. In terms of professional events, there are so many going on at Duke. We just had our Dean interview the CEO of Zoom and we have a lot of amazing guest speakers throughout the year. I’m a member of the Duke Association of Women in Business (AWIB), and I’m looking forward to their upcoming “5 Year Outlook” panel with female Fuqua alumni since I’m graduating soon. I learn just as much from club events than I do in the classroom, and the community at Fuqua is really supportive.

Do you usually work late?

I try not to, but yes, I find myself working late closer to project deadlines and around midterms and finals. Some days I’ll treat my school day like a 9-5 job, and I’ll just work non-stop, taking meetings and completing work, so that I can just unplug at 5pm. I’d rather keep my weekends free, so I try to fill up my weekdays. However, I am definitely far less busier these days than I was when I was a first-year student.

What is one thing you wish you knew about pursuing an MBA?

I had the impression that I would have time to explore career options when I entered the MBA. However, recruiting for summer internships starts pretty immediately in the Fall. Employers will start having presentations and networking opportunities – it’s almost overwhelming how many opportunities there are – and it’s difficult to try and go to every event or navigate all of this without a direction in mind. I’d encourage anyone to deeply consider which industries and functions they want to pursue before the MBA, perhaps do some research or talk to people in these fields so you have a clearer recruiting plan before starting school.

What is your favorite thing about being in B school?

It’s a break from the real world for 2 years! You can choose how you wish to prioritize your time – for me, it was important to focus on career recruiting and getting to know my classmates. I knew I was making a big career switch – from working in the arts to working in tech – and I was fortunate to intern at Amazon last summer. I know I definitely would not have had this opportunity before business school, and I also think I would have had different recruiting outcomes if I had not attended Duke. I felt fully supported – from my classmates to the career management center to my professors. I am currently recruiting for full-time product marketing roles in tech, but I am glad I can relax soon on Spring break. I am so excited to see my best friends from Duke in Yosemite and Napa in a few weeks!

A piece of advice for people starting B school this year?

It’s great to reflect on what you want to take away from your experience and how you want to use this time to try new things and challenge yourself. In terms of career, it’s good to narrow down on industry, function, and location. People usually have 1-2 non-negotiables for these. For personal development, try to befriend classmates from different backgrounds from yours to learn from their perspective, seek out things you have never tried before (for me, it was moderating a panel with a Fortune 500 executive which was terrifying but great), and take on a leadership role or work on that idea or side-project you’ve always been meaning to do.