Sometimes the best way to discover if a school is right for you is to talk to a recent MBA student. The University of Washington’s Foster School of Business delved into their current MBA class and interviewed one of their Class of 2016 students about his Goldman Sachs internship and career change.
Before joining the Foster School as an MBA, Peter Woodward received his undergrad from Boston College and spent his time post-graduation as an avalanche rescue and avalanche mitigation expert in Aspen, Colorado during the winters and a white water rafting guide during the summers. To him, working in risk management and working in teams was a transferable skill, particularly thanks to the time he spent as the Director of Sales and Marketing as a white water rafting guide. However, he recognized that his change was drastic.
“So making the jump from ski patrol to finance was pretty uncommon–it wasn’t something that a lot of recruiters and interviewers had seen before, so the first big challenge was to figure out what in my past is actually applicable,” Peter revealed in his interview. “It was kind of a two-sided coin of figuring out what I didn’t know and figuring out how to explain that to recruiters and to managing directors that you interview with.”
Once Peter figured out how to market his ski patrol and white water rafting skills, it was a matter of figuring out what he wanted to do. “I knew that even though I’d be leaving the outdoor industry, I wanted to do something that I was passionate about and really interested in,” he said. So, he decided to head toward Finance and thus the Goldman Sachs internship. “I think there’s pressure in the MBA program to fake it…to fit into the box of ‘this doesn’t really fit but it’s a really good opportunity.’ So by ending up and choosing to go to Goldman, I felt that there was an overlap between the role and my personal interests and ethical standards and things like that,” he said.
For Peter, getting the internship with Goldman Sachs was an excellent decision. “I’m super fortunate to have things work out the way that they did and that I ended up in the role that I should be in and at the place where I belong,” he said. However, he does have this advice for future MBAs, “I just think it’s easier to talk about things that you are really, truly passionate about compared to the things you force yourself to learn on the airplane there or the month before building up to the interview.” So be honest with yourself early on and gravitate toward the roles you desire and not what everyone tells you that you should want.
It was thanks to Foster’s MBA Career Management that Peter was able to discover his strengths, learn how to market his skills, and gain an internship at Goldman Sachs.