「Jirehはなんであんないい奴なんだろう？」
同じSectionにいるNaotoとセクションメートの話をする時、よく話題にあがるのがセクションメートであるJirehです。
誰にでもフレンドリーで、いつも明るく、まさしくセクションのムードメーカー的な存在です。Naotoが彼に「なんで君はそんないい奴なんだ？」と聞いたぐらいなナイスガイです(笑)ちなみに、Naotoがその質問をした時、彼が信仰している宗教であるキリスト教がそこに大きく関わってる事が分かりました。
日本ではあまり馴染みがない宗教も、アメリカでは多くの人々の生活に根付いたものとなっています。アメリカ人にとって宗教とはどういったものなんだろう？という事を知りたくて、彼を今回のインタビューに選びました。
また、彼は夏に自分でインターンを作った、という珍しい経験をしているので、その点も話を伺ってます。
今回もClass of 2019 のShoがお届けします。
- 1.Profile of the interviewee
- 2.Interview
- How did you manage your time in the busy MBA life?
- What kind of community did you want to build up at Ross?
- What does religion mean to you?
- How will you leverage the community you built up at Ross in your future career?
- What’s the Ross difference?
- Why did you build your own internship?
- What helped you get the full-time offer at a consulting firm?
- What does MBA mean to you?
1.Profile of the interviewee
Name
Jireh
Hometown
Chicago, Illinois
Undergrad
Indiana University, Bachelor of Science, Business; Finance and Economic Consulting
Work experience
Senior Planning Analyst at Target (3yrs), Senior Financial Analyst at Valspar(2yrs),
After Ross
EY
To know more about Jireh, check the video below.
Interview with Jireh, Class of 2019 (Digest Version)
2.Interview
(Note: Jireh(J), Sho(S))
How did you manage your time in the busy MBA life?
S: Are you ready for the questions?
J: Yes, I am.
S: I know that you participated in many events, and also hosted a lot. I'm wondering how you managed your time to do them?
J: Yeah, I think for me, I had a really bad experience in college, where I tried to do too much. I participated in five clubs and started two new clubs that I was a leader for. And then I was of the leadership team for three other clubs. Every single night I would have something to do, and I was not happy at all. Because of that, I was pretty miserable. Coming to Ross, I did not want to have that bad experience again.
I was very careful about saying no to many things. I was very interested initially in the Board Fellowship Program, in community consulting, in energy consulting. Was also interested in the leadership team for the Consulting Club, and for the MBA Christian Fellowship. But all the things I just mentioned were things I said no to. I said no to them because I had to pay close attention to what I really cared about, what I really wanted to get out of the Ross experience, and that is, I really wanted to build community. I really wanted to spend a lot of time building my community. So because I said no to all those things, I think I had a lot more time to say yes to people, a lot more time to plan the events that they were just spontaneous, that we just had an idea for. For example, when I was hanging out with some friends from other sections, we were like, “let's do a wine challenge night” where we would bring together different bottles of wine, and then we pour them into cups without telling people what they are, and then have people guess which one was which. And that was something that if I was too busy, I would not have time to do. But because I had extra time saying no, I was able to do all those things. I think it's really just saying no to a lot of things, and trying to make sure I planned a lot of buffer time between the events.
What kind of community did you want to build up at Ross?
S: Can you elaborate more on what kind of community you wanted to build up?
J: Well, first of all, my religion is very important to me. I really wanted to build up the MBA Christian Fellowship. Next, I also really cared about Section four. I really loved the kind of opportunity we have as a section to get closer, and to become really good friends. So I spent a lot of time building that. And I guess thirdly, I really cared about reaching out beyond the section, kind of reminding people that recruiting is not everything. Recruiting and academics, Ross definitely values, and Ross talks about it a lot. But I wanted to reach out to people and remind them that that's not everything. There's a lot more to life than just recruiting and academics.
To recap, the Christian Fellowship, Section 4, and
What does religion mean to you?
S: I feel you sincerely want to help people out, and I think that comes from the religion, I guess. When I talk with Naoto(Another Japanese MBA in section four) about the people in our section, you often come up in the conversation because you're really friendly and nice. Naoto told me that he recently asked you why are you so friendly and nice. You said that religion is an important part of your life. As you know, most Japanese including me don’t have a religion so it’s not easy to know what religion really means to people.
In your definition, can you tell me what religion means to you? How does it impact you?
J: Yeah, that's a good question. I think religion means a lot of things to different people, and I definitely want to be sensitive to that. I have been a Christian for a while, I believe in Christianity and Christianity is about how we can't do everything by ourselves. I think most of us like to think that we are very strong, very smart, and very capable. This might be true in many ways. But I think Christianity says that, first and foremost, humans are not strong enough on our own. We can try very hard to be good people, but at the end of the day, we make many mistakes. In
The second thing about Christianity, it says that God created everything. There's a God out there who's the beginning of everything. God created us, the earth, the solar system, and the galaxies. Because humans are sinful and are not able to help themselves, he wants to help us. He does that through Jesus. Jesus is basically God that came on earth and offered everyone the opportunity to be transformed,
Anyone who believes in Jesus or anyone who is saved by Jesus has forgiveness from God. All the things that we've done wrong put us in a really bad position versus God, and all of us realize that we really want to do good things, but oftentimes in our heart, there are many bad things. We can't save ourselves because of that, so only Jesus can do that.
And so when I was a kid, and that brings me to the third, and I guess final part of Christianity, which is when we believe in Jesus, which I did when I was 17 years old. When we believe in Jesus, he changes the way that we think and our hearts. Before I was Christian, I was very prideful, very selfish. I had a terrible relationship with my sisters and my parents. And then once I believed in Jesus, God really changed my heart. He gave me more love towards other people, and gave me more empathy, and also I think he gave me a new idea of what love is. Love is caring for others without expecting to be loved back. Humans are weak, and humans are sinful. There's a God who is perfect, but also really loves us and wants to help us and through Jesus, we can have a new life. I really believe that as a Christian, I can help others in a way that, and I can love other people the way that God loves me.
How will you leverage the community you built up at Ross in your future career?
S: Next question is about related to
J: I think I'll try and built a community in any job that I go to in the future. EY, I think I really want to, within consulting I think sometimes people can be very focused on either
What’s the Ross difference?
S: Going back to the previous topic, you said that Ross community is really different from other communities. Can you elaborate on what's the Ross difference?
J: When I went to interview at other MBA programs, I just felt like the first or second question that they ask would always be, they would basically evaluate you based on how much power they think you have. At Ross, I feel like they evaluate you based on and accept you for who you are. It doesn't matter what position you had before Ross, how smart you are, how tall you are, or how strong you are. All that matters is that you are a part of the Ross community. And because of that, they're willing to help you and accept you into a community. I think that really is one of the Ross difference.
Why did you build your own internship?
S: Okay, great. Next question is related to your recruiting. I know during the summer, you built your own internship. Was that your initial plan
J: I was not very clear what my initial plan was. Since I worked within the finance department at Target, I knew I wanted something different for the summer but wasn’t sure what it would be at first. I knew I was kinda interested in consulting. So I did consulting interviews but I wasn't successful at that.
And then I don't think I was like other people, I was not interested in technology, I was not interested in marketing, or operations and general management. Because I felt like, since I worked at Target corporate, within the finance department, I felt like I wanted something different for the summer. I guess I was inspired by the Center of Social Impact and the summer stories that I heard from the MBA 2s who graduated. Those gave me the motivation to go and look for projects of my own. I just reached out to my network, and I also reached out through this website called Angellist.com, that had different startups who are looking for people to help them. So that was really helpful.
Another thing that was the biggest driver of my social impact summer internship was, I learned a lot through the MAP project, about how to structure consulting
What helped you get the full-time offer at a consulting firm?
S: You said that you didn’t succeed in getting a consulting internship but you succeeded in getting a full-time offer for consulting. What do you think helped you get a full-time offer in consulting? How did you change compared to when you were recruiting for internships?
J: I think what really changed was a lot of my friends who were going to the same company were very supportive of me, and I spent a lot of time asking them for advice. It was a lot of work, too. I guess another thing that changed me was when I went to Columbia for one week with my classmates. For the first time in a very long time, I actually had one week to focus on preparing for recruiting. When I was in Ann Arbor, I was very distracted because there were so many things going on that I could barely find time to prepare for my interview. Overall, I guess that one of the biggest differences is that I really spent a lot of time preparing for that interview, did a lot of research, and I was actually very excited about it.
What does MBA mean to you?
S: Got it. This will be my last question. It's a bit ambiguous so answer as you like. I want to make sure this is on. I'm recently asking all the people. My last question is what is the definition of MBA2? In other words, what does MBA mean to you?
J: What does MBA mean to me... I think it’s really about developing new leadership skills and thinking at a higher level. It is like taking a step back and ... It's working on a very unique set of skills that allows you to be in leadership positions were to tackle problems that usually people would be stumped by. Learning how to learn, learning how to approach problems in creative ways and to bring other people along with you. Those are skills that I think are very hard to learn in the classroom, but the MBA program is a very dynamic environment where it is possible to gain those skill sets. I won't say that to everyone, because they're so hard to gain, I don't think everyone finishes. Everyone who has their MBA, I would say maybe 20% or more of them don't actually learn those skills. But the people who do are open to learning at an MBA program, they develop these very soft skills and critical thinking, but also leadership and collaborative skills that will prepare them for executive positions in the future.
S: Okay, great. Okay. Thank you very much.
J: Yeah, you're welcome.
