Women MBAs

Last night, I attended a kick-off dinner for the National Association of Women MBAs (formerly known as Graduate Women in Business). Recently, a group of women from my b-school took the initiative to start up a local chapter. When I happen to find out about the event on my b-school website, I figured I'd check it out.

Unfortunately, I was late due to the typical traffic in LA. Google Maps estimated right under 30 minutes for me to get to Santa Monica. There should be an option to calculate in a fudge factor due to LA traffic- oh let's say, 30x2=60 minutes would be more accurate. I didn't have any time to mingle before getting seated for dinner. I was surprised and overwhelmed with the considerable number of women there, especially since I didn't know many of them.

The female to male ratio was decent in my b-school classes, but I didn't keep in touch with many of them. When I forwarded the info by email, I realized that I didn't know that many women with MBAs. Anyhow, the women at the event were quite friendly. This will be a good way to network and meet other people. At our table, most of us had graduated last summer. We all admitted, "I don't know what to do with my time now." One girl exclaimed, "I'm learning how to cook now!" Another lady mentioned that she had started doing yoga, which I also had done in January. I'm still trying to figure out how to be constructive with my newfound time.

Supposedly, this was an auspicious day. I didn't realize until last night that the first meeting was purposely timed right near Mother's Day. In addition, our b-school just launched a program for a MBA by day, which is targeted at stay-at-home moms. This makes sense- women who have time on their hands while their kid(s) is/are busy at school. A very, very interesting concept in my mind, I must say. That same morning, NPR had a broadcast talking about Women MBAs as well. I heard some business magazine also had released an article on the same topic.

Anyhow, I ended up forking over the 40 bucks for the annual membership, so hopefully this group will be worthwhile. We shall see...