In late September, we broke new ground by hosting a mixer to bring together Wharton MBA students. “What’s new about this?” I’m sure you are asking. MBA students are all about networking all the time. This event was held at Wharton | San Francisco and brought together our students from the MBA for Executives program with MBA students from the inaugural Semester in San Francisco (SSF) cohort. Their coursework and faculty are the same, but they take classes at completely different times and therefore typically their paths never crossed … until now.
Beginning in early September, a group of 56 students from the full-time MBA program in Philadelphia came to San Francisco in a pilot program for the fall semester that offers a full slate of classes. Most of these students are entrepreneurially minded: Some are building their own businesses, others spent their summers working at startups in the Valley, and several are actively engaged in Wharton Entrepreneurship’s co-curricular programming.
In the spirit of creating one entrepreneurial community across all classes, Wharton Entrepreneurship hosted a mixer to bring together the Venture Initiative Program community and broader community of Wharton | San Francisco and SSF students.
The night kicked off with a smaller group from the Venture Initiation Program, allowing each VIP team to network, formally speak about their ventures, discuss recent milestones, and ask for help from the advisors and select friends.
Once that concluded, the doors were opened to all MBA for Executive and SSF students. The evening was a smashing success with 200 attendees. It is the entrepreneurial bond that brought them together and surely will keep them together.
Editor’s note: This post first appeared on Wharton’s Entrepreneurship Blog on Oct. 18, 2012.
