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Author Al Dea shares insights on how to make the MBA experience count [Show summary] Al Dea is a 2015 graduate of UNC Kenan-Flagler’s MBA Class of 2015 and author of the new book, MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience. Listen to the interview! Al Dea discusses his path to the MBA, and shares wisdom for ensuring a meaningful MBA experience [Show notes] Our guest today, Al Dea, earned his bachelors in Marketing and Theology from Boston College in 2010 and then became a Deloitte Analyst and Consultant until starting his MBA at UNC’s Kenan Flagler Business School. He earned his MBA from Kenan Flagler in 2015 and returned to Deloitte for a couple of years. He then worked in product management starting in 2017 and today is a Senior Manager in Product Marketing at a leading high tech company. On the side he started MBASchooled in 2015 and more recently Careerschooled.com. And, he just published his first book, MBA Insider: How to Make the Most of Your MBA Experience. Can you tell us about your background?  Where you grew up? What do you like to do for fun? [2:23] I grew up in upstate New York and went to Boston College where I was a marketing and theology major. I got my MBA and then moved to San Francisco partly because I didn’t want to do winter anymore. I have an older sister in LA but family still in upstate New York, so I travel often to see family and friends. I am a runner which is challenging in San Francisco. I wouldn’t consider myself a writer but always had a journal growing up. I am also a sports fanatic, and follow basketball, football, baseball, you name it. How did you get interested in marketing and product development? [4:35] I knew I wanted to spend some time doing consulting in my career – it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. I also knew there were other things I wanted to try. In business school you do an exercise where you write down all the things you think you are good at, along with examples, and get some feedback on it. From that you get a better sense of things you like doing and actually are good at, where do they fit, and in what types of companies and industries. What I really like is being an evangelist or ambassador for things. I also enjoy the idea of understanding who you are serving, in this case the customer, and to be able to come up with a solution, so product marketing is a really good fit for me. I still use the core skills I learned as a consultant, but I continue learning every day. What did you find most difficult in the MBA application process? Does anything stand out? [7:45] From a tactical level I got waitlisted at every school I applied to, and ironically enough five years ago, when I did the blog post for Accepted, that was one of the things that I wrote about – the experience of getting waitlisted. So that was a challenge. Strategically in the application process, this is such a big decision and takes a lot of effort. There is a tendency to treat every single outcome as binary – you get accepted or rejected, and it puts a lot of pressure on people. You apply, submit some things, and the admissions committee decides if you are in or not. I put a lot of undo pressure on myself. I have to get in or else my life isn’t going to work out. I was 24-25 and to feel like so much was riding on the rest of my career, I put so much pressure to “make it right.” Things have a way of working out, maybe not in the moment but in the grand scheme of things. Talking to prospective students now, I say, "You are not going to appreciate it, but it’s going to be okay. As things happen, we’ll work on them together." hbspt.cta.load(58291, '088cf431-34b3-4030-9c1e-432eee48f613', {});   What was most valuable in your UNC MBA experience? [15:37] For me it was a supportive and collaborative community. Lots of great resources, smart people, you'll find at any top program, but having supportive collaborative people was incredibly valuable.