During the past year, I’ve worked as an Admissions Fellow, and had an awesome experience interviewing prospective students for not only the Daytime MBA program, but also for another Fuqua program – the Master of Management Studies (MMS).

What is MMS?

Daytime MBA students typically have about 5 years of work experience before coming to Fuqua, while MMS students are usually matriculating directly from their undergraduate studies. MMS is a full-time, 10-month program that teaches students key business principles and applications, which add to their existing knowledge and complement undergraduate degrees ranging anywhere from liberal arts to the sciences. The MMS program makes students more competitive in the job market and even gives them the tools to succeed in entrepreneurial pursuits.

Impressive Applicants

I’ve was able to easily interview MMS applicants from home via Skype, so I was really willing and eager to fit these opportunities into my schedule. I conducted a bunch of interviews over my long winter break, and was even able to fit them into my busy spring schedule. There was a huge rush of MMS applications, and at one point, I completed 10 interviews in a week!

It was interesting for me as an interviewer to switch gears from the Daytime MBA, and ask MMS prospective students behavioral questions that were answered with examples from undergraduate coursework and experiences from summer internships. The interviewees rarely ceased to amaze me with their incredible backgrounds and leadership experiences in non-profits, start-up ventures, athletics, Greek life, and more. Their feats are all the more impressive as they have typically been achieved at such a young age. You can learn more about the MMS program and students on the MMS Student Blog.

Connect Across Programs

Because students in both the Daytime and MMS programs have a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and connections, I encourage incoming students to build their network as soon as they enter Fuqua. It’s a great gift for both Daytime and MMS students to leverage relationships across Fuqua. The incoming Daytime MBA Class of 2014 will be coming straight from the working world, and will no doubt be able to share some of their experiences and professional contacts with MMS students. Also, second-year Daytime students should remember that as they come back in the fall from their summer internships, they are an even greater career resource to the MMS students in terms of current job market knowledge and functional expertise.

It’s also important to remember that the relationship does go both ways. MMS students have recent, former classmates going into companies and focus areas of interest to Daytime MBA students. Often, because of their varied and recent undergraduate pursuits, MMS students are able to provide a fresh academic perspective to the Daytime students who have typically been out of the classroom for a longer period of time.

For me, it’s been a great experience interviewing and getting to know prospective students for both the Daytime MBA and MMS. I’ve enjoyed finding out what brought both groups of students here, how they believe they fit in with “Team Fuqua” and the Duke culture, and where they want to go in their careers.

Welcome to Team Fuqua!

I’ve met so many great incoming students, and am very excited to congratulate all the admitted students for both the Daytime MBA program and the MMS program. Welcome to the Fuqua Family! And good luck to MMS applicants who are still waiting for their final admissions decision, which will be released on June 15.