The Stanford Business Reporter

Issue date: 6/5/06 Section: Parting Shots

MBA2 Tom Livelli

As we near graduation and reflect on our experiences, my sense of triumph is tempered by an unavoidable feeling of ruefulness and frustration. No GSB experience is perfectly "typical." Nevertheless, there does seem to be an archetype that most of us unwittingly accept. Ski trips to Tahoe, tequila binges in Cabo, being generally over-involved and yet wondrously under-stressed. Occasionally a faint word whispers caution about our tiring schedules…

I've discovered that my pursuit of a "balanced life" here has required me to surrender the archetypal GSB experience for other competing obligations. I accept this as my own deliberate trade-off, but not without some misgivings.

Admittedly, during these two years I've wrestled with my self-perception. Particularly challenging was arriving as a bachelor and, almost immediately after our inaugural pre-term, tying the knot. I quickly felt the tension between maximizing my GSB experience (coursework, extracurriculars, the Schwab party scene) and nurturing my relationship with my newly-wed wife. Those who haven't seen me outside of class since our first quarter can guess where I fell on that scale.

Still, the GSB tirelessly tested my priorities and strained our relationship. While we do have fond memories of Stanford, we will remember this time not as the proverbial "best years of our lives," but rather as a trial we survived. As the saying goes, "what didn't kill us made us stronger."

Some of the hurdles and hardships we faced are not endemic to the GSB; however, I am convinced that being here exacerbated them. While I believe that the administration could better fulfill its promises to integrate spouses and family into the GSB, tackling such institutional inertia is too much for spring quarter of the second year.

Instead, my hope rests with the more enterprising and eligible student majority. In the spirit of delivering honest feedback, I often perceive you (collectively) to overlook and underestimate SOs (some joke that their status should be adjusted to "insignificant others"). Imagine: student and SO go to swinging party, SO feels brushed aside, student has difficulty cajoling SO to attend next big event, student begins to feel distanced from classmates, GSB-versus-home dichotomy takes root. I would more readily concede that my wife and I are merely maladjusted if this story were uniquely ours, but I assure you it's not.

I hadn't ruminated on this until the GSB Show, when I imprecisely felt at once nostalgic and alone. Upon reflection, I've realized that in laying the foundation for a loving family, I supplanted the paradigmatic GSB experience. Given the same choice again, my outcome would be no different. However, if my whole experience could be retried, I would hope to find a better balance.

To facilitate this for the married students who will take our place, you should know that a moment of your attention or a thoughtful query directed at an SO is worth more than the effort it requires. In fact, it should be elemental to our training as considerate leaders that we don't remain disconnected from the people around us-and that we recognize that citizenry to extend beyond our immediate classmates and colleagues.

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