Wharton, Ivy League & Me — My Real Experience - video Dailymotion

tylorbell

After graduating from Wharton Business School,  I reflect on my experience: academics, networking, cost vs benefits, and whether it truly paid off.  I also share how I got into an Ivy League style business school, what challenges I faced, and what I would do differently. If you’re considering applying, this video will help you decide.   #BusinessSchool  #IvyLeague  #Education  #MBA  #IsItWorthIt  #CollegeDecision  #StudentLife  #ReturnOnInvestment  #Wharton  #EscueladeNegocios  #IvyLeague  #Educación  #¿ValióLaPena  #ExperienciaUniversitaria  #MBA  #RetornodeInversión  #DecisiónUniversitaria  #Wharton  #ÉcoleDeCommerce  #IvyLeague  #Éducation  #MBA  #Études  #Témoignage  #RetourSurInvestissement  #DécisionUniversitaire  #BusinessSchool  #Bildung  #Studium  #Erfahrungsbericht  #LohntSichDas  #InvestitionInBildung   Stick around to the end to hear the real cost vs. real benefit of attending Wharton.  Follow for real-life insights from elite schools and business life.  What’s your dream school? Comment and tell me why.

Transcript

00:00Wharton Business School. My experience and was it worth it? What is up guys? My name is Taylor Bell

00:05if you're new here and this is a video I've been meaning to make for a minute now. I've gotten many

00:09many questions about my experience at Wharton and whether it was worth it since I started my

00:14YouTube channel and especially since I gained an audience that is very interested in finance.

00:18So I am here to talk about all things Wharton today. Wharton. So let's not waste time and jump

00:24right in. First though, you know the drill. Please gently tap that like button below because it's

00:28free and because it's satisfying to watch it turn a nice crisp shade of blue. All right guys, so I'm

00:32going to break this down into categories. First I'll do kind of a background on Wharton for those

00:36who don't know. Then we'll jump into things that are more based around my personal experience. So

00:40classes I took, classes I found most helpful and which ones are my favorite because that's what

00:44you guys requested. We'll do some general Q&A based off of frequently asked questions. And then finally

00:50I will answer was it worth it? And I would recommend saying until the end for the was it worth it portion

00:55because that is what I think the juiciest part of the video where of course I go over

00:59was it worth going to Wharton slash getting an Ivy League degree. But first chapter one,

01:04some background on Wharton. All right, smooth little transition there. I am indeed in my car now. I'm

01:09trying to switch up my surroundings a little bit more in my videos. So I hope you enjoy car Taylor.

01:14And yes, I treated myself to a little starves this morning and it's delicious. It's been a great day.

01:20Like forced me to get out of the house and you don't care. Let's uh, let's get back to the Wharton

01:23stuff. All right, let's begin with some background on Wharton for those who don't know, or for those

01:27who do know, a little refresher. But I want to say in this video, I will be describing some things

01:31in very simple terms. For instance, I'll go over kind of the difference between an undergrad degree

01:35versus a graduate degree. And I'm sure that a lot of you guys watching this already know that

01:38difference. But for those who clicked on this video to learn something new or who just might not

01:42know. So I'm not trying to be patronizing if I sound like I'm really breaking it down. That's just how

01:46I like to learn new things. So, all right, cool. So background, I went to the Wharton School of

01:50Business, which is the business school that's associated with the University of Pennsylvania,

01:54which is one of the eight Ivy League universities here in the U.S. So if you hear me kind of

01:58interchangeably use Wharton and Penn, I'm referring to University of Pennsylvania. Wharton is part of

02:03Penn, UPenn. In Philadelphia, you'll get it.

02:10So I graduated from the undergrad program at Wharton this past May, May 18th, 2020, to be exact.

02:16So the structure of Wharton, which by the way, if someone wants to tally up how many times I say

02:20Wharton in this video, be my guest. I apologize in advance. But Wharton has both an undergraduate

02:25business program, which is where you earn your bachelor's degree. And this is typically the

02:29college that you go to right out of high school. And it also has a graduate business program,

02:33which is where you earn your master's degree or your MBA, master's in business administration in

02:38this case. And the graduate program is for people who have usually already earned their bachelor's

02:42degree and they've already been working for a couple of years. These people are usually in

02:45their late twenties, mid to late twenties. All right. So this next part, I'm really not saying

02:49to brag. I'm just saying it to give you some more background on Wharton and what it is for

02:53those who don't know, for anyone interested in applying. And I guess to give myself some

02:57credibility as the person making this video. So Wharton undergrad business school is the best

03:01undergrad business school in the country as far as rankings go. Wharton undergrad is usually

03:06regarded as a undergrad business program, kind of in a league of its own. Again, that's based off

03:10rankings. If you care about that kind of thing, I will give a more nuanced view on rankings and if

03:14they really matter at the end of this video. So stay until then. And for the Wharton graduate

03:18school, it is pretty much always ranked in the top three, usually behind Harvard and Stanford

03:23graduate business schools. Although I saw this year, Wharton grad school is also ranked number

03:26one. Some notable alumni you may have heard of, of Wharton school of business include elongated

03:31muskrat, Warren buffet and Sundar pitch deck. All right. Now I'll say their names for real. So that

03:36way the closed captioning can actually pick it up and maybe the algorithm will also, I of course mean

03:40Elon Musk, Warren Buffett and Sundar Pichai. All right. So now let's jump into the, my experience

03:45portion of the video. And I'm going to be answering questions that you guys most frequently asked me

03:49first, what classes did I take? Well, specifically at Penn, I was actually in a dual degree program

03:54called the Huntsman program and international studies in business. This program admits about 45

03:59students per year, usually around half of them from the U S and the other half from countries all around

04:04the world. So if you're in this program, you earn both a bachelor's in science and economics from the

04:08Wharton school of business, as well as a bachelor in arts and international studies from the college

04:12of arts and sciences. I've explained this on my channel before one other time. So if this is second

04:16time hearing it, my apologies. Realistically, most students that are in the Huntsman program go for

04:20pretty much the same jobs that students who are only in Wharton go for AKA mostly jobs in finance,

04:27consulting, tech, things like that. But the Huntsman program is designed to give students a more

04:31global education. So in theory, you should be able to conduct business in other countries as well by the

04:36time you graduate. So why do I tell you this speech? Well, I'm about to show you every single class I

04:40ever took at Penn. And you might notice that one, there are quite a few of them, which is partially

04:44because I was in this dual degree program, which just required more credits. And two, you will notice

04:48some Spanish history, international studies classes, things like that, which is where the international

04:53studies portion of my education comes in. All right, now let's look at the classes. So I went on my

04:58transcript and these are all of the classes I took my four full years at Penn. I'll leave these up on the

05:04screen. You can pause it, refer back to it if you want. I will include them in the description down

05:08below as well. But I'm going to highlight just a few of these classes to answer my next question

05:11that I got quite a bit. And that was which classes were my favorite that I took at Penn? And which

05:16classes did I find the most useful for the real business world? And I'm going to do this quick

05:19because I realized listening to what classes I took might be quite boring for some of you. So

05:23so my favorite classes out of this whole list include leadership and communication in groups,

05:28intro to marketing, intro to management, decision processes, negotiations, management, business strategy,

05:33business statistics too, and my senior capstone thesis. So out of these classes, you can kind

05:39of notice a trend and that is that I typically enjoy the classes that were more based on business

05:43and strategy rather than classes that were pretty solely based around quantitative analysis with

05:48the exception of business statistics too. I very much enjoyed that class. And as for the

05:52most useful classes that I think carry over best into the real business world, I chose these

05:56more so based off the general concepts and kind of themes that I learned in these classes rather

06:01than, you know, if I don't use a specific formula that I learned in one of these classes on a day

06:05to day basis, I'm just basing it off with a broader concepts. I hope that makes sense. And you'll notice

06:09a lot of these are intro or one-on-one classes. So I guess Wharton did their job in that sense.

06:13All right. So the most useful ones I think are intro to economics for business, intro to marketing,

06:18intro to operations and information management, corporate finance, intro to management, decision

06:23processes, principles of accounting, negotiations, and business statistics too. So you'll notice that there's a

06:29little bit of overlap with a few of those there. And I would say those are the best classes I took if

06:32you had to really put a grade on it. So I could give you guys a little synopsis of each of these classes,

06:37like a little module. Someone actually requested that, but I don't want to bore you more than I have to.

06:42But I guess in the comments, let me know if in the future you would like to see like a little, not lesson,

06:45that sounds silly, but like a little overview of the most important concepts and kind of things that came out

06:50of these classes. If you want to see it, I can make it. All right. Now a couple more fun questions I got

06:54about living in Philly, dorm life, stuff like that. Did I live in the dorms and were they nice? Someone

06:59asked me. So yes, all freshmen or first years at Penn live in the dorms on campus. And my experience,

07:04I would say, was a little extra special because all the freshmen in the Huntsman program actually

07:08live together on the same floor for your whole first year. So it's a pretty fun setup from the

07:13very beginning. And were the dorms nice? No, not particularly. But you know, I know that a couple

07:17years after I was a freshman, they actually installed air conditioning. So maybe they're nicer now,

07:20but suffering through it was part of the experience. So it was a fun time. Next question was,

07:24what was my favorite part about going to school in Philadelphia? So my favorite part was the

07:28walking, which sounds kind of weird, but so Philly is a big city, but it's not as huge as New York

07:33City feels if you had to compare the two. I think Philly is honestly more homey. It feels more homey

07:38than New York. But anyway, most weekends in college, I would do a lot of walking if I didn't have to

07:42study for something. So I would walk from Penn, which is in West Philadelphia. So I'd walk from Penn to

07:48Center City, Philadelphia. And I had a favorite brunch spot in Center City called Continental Midtown.

07:52And I also had a favorite dog park that was along the Schuylkill River. I would go to the dog park

07:57and play with other people's dogs on my walk back to school. So I found like some favorite spots of

08:01mine. And I really did come to love Philly as a city quite a bit. I am super grateful for the four

08:05years that I had there. And I actually can't wait to go back and visit when the time comes. Some others

08:09asked me about adjustments from living in LA and then living in Philly. So the obvious low hanging fruit

08:14answer there is the weather, but like you just get a big jacket, you get used to the cold weather. The

08:18biggest adjustment for me was definitely being away from my family all the way across the country,

08:22because that's something I had never done before. So I remember sometime my freshman year, I think

08:26in November, I would say, I started to feel this kind of weird feeling where I was like, okay, I've

08:30been here for a few months. It's been fun. Time to go home. Like it hadn't quite sunken in for me that I

08:34was in it for the long haul yet. Thankfully though, I did make some really, really good friends at Penn,

08:38partially because I was in this tight knit program. And I think that if I hadn't had that, it would have

08:43been a lot more difficult adjusting to life so far away from my family. All right. The next question

08:48was, which city do I like more after having gone to college in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, or where

08:53I'm from Los Angeles. So I don't like when people say Los Angelino or California girl in the least

08:59cringey terms. I am a Californian through and through. I always will be in no matter where I'm

09:03living. So California always, it's the best, not for taxes, but for weather and many, many, many other

09:09things. All right. So now before I answer, was it worth it? I should say that the question I got or

09:14kind of theme that I got the most besides, was it worth it? Was what did I do in high school? What

09:18were the kind of things I did leading up to college in order to get into an Ivy league university or to

09:22be prepared to go to a competitive school like this? And I'm going to save those answers for a

09:27different video because I really could expand on just my thoughts about preparing in high school and

09:32how to like best set yourself up for success. So I'll probably make a dedicated video on that. If you

09:36guys are still interested in that, probably title it something like how to get into an Ivy league or

09:40something kind of cringey like that. So keep an eye out. All right, guys. So now for what I consider

09:44the juicy part, was it worth it? This is the number one question that I got. So people asked me this in

09:50various ways. One of them, of course, being, was it worth the cost? The thousand, well, we'll go over

09:54the price tag that it costs because private university in the US is very expensive. And then two, most people

09:59actually asked more so in terms of, was it worth the knowledge that I gained? Was it worth four years of my

10:04life when in theory I could have found a job right out of high school and started working right away?

10:07And then a few people asked me if I could have, in theory, learned the same things that I learned

10:11at Wharton online. If I took an online business course or maybe something on Skillshare, could I

10:15have learned the same things without having to go to a private university for four years? All right,

10:19so let's start with the monetary cost. So instead of me going off of like my gut feeling saying yes or

10:24no, whether I thought it was worth it, let's actually look at the data. Let's let's look at some

10:28numbers here. Penn is expensive. And not just Penn, private universities in the United States

10:33charge exorbitant rates. It is so unbelievably expensive. So the full sticker price to attend

10:39Penn every year, according to Penn, including tuition, fees, housing, dining, books and supplies,

10:46et cetera, personal expenses, it is estimated to come out right to around $79,000 per year. I don't have

10:53to tell you guys that that's a lot of money to go to school. Of course, though, that is the sticker

10:57price, the full asking price. That doesn't include financial aid that Penn awards to its students on

11:03a need basis. So just some very quick stats here. Penn stats show that 9 out of 10 first-gen students

11:08are awarded over $50,000 average per year at Penn. Additionally, students that come from families

11:13with household incomes that are less than $75,000 per year pay no tuition or fees at all. And there are

11:19other financial aid stats I could throw at you guys, but that was probably already kind of boring.

11:23But my point is that that $79,000 is a lot, but not everyone at Penn pays that full price. In fact,

11:29most do not. So that is, of course, just one piece of the puzzle. The other obvious piece that we have

11:34to look at is how much I, a Wharton grad or the average Wharton undergraduate business student,

11:39will make once they graduate. So some more stats, shall we? The average first-year out-of-college

11:45compensation for an undergrad at Wharton is $109,811. This includes salary, sign-on bonus,

11:53and the end-of-the-year bonuses that most students get. I actually found another source showing that

11:57it was around $90,300. So the data varies a bit year to year, it seems, but let's say it's right

12:02around that $100,000 mark. Compare this number to the average starting salary for most college

12:08graduates in the U.S., which is right around $50,000. So you can do the math. We, we, on average,

12:13make twice what the average college graduate in the U.S. makes right out of college.

12:17So you have the numbers on the costs and the expected first-year salary of a Wharton undergrad

12:21student. But what about the other factors? For me, what made Wharton so valuable had so much more to

12:27do with the connections I made over my four years, rather than the things that I actually learned in

12:31my classes or what my first-year salary is going to be. So a quick anecdote to kind of illustrate this,

12:35when I first started looking at companies to reach out to for my very first internships,

12:39I went on this thing called QuakerNet, because we're the Quakers. The QuakerNet is Penn's online

12:44directory that shows the phone numbers and emails of just about every person who has ever graduated

12:49from there. Very quickly, I realized how unusual it is to have something that valuable at my

12:54fingertips. As you can imagine, executives upon executives at the top companies in the U.S. and

12:58countries beyond. Founders of some of the coolest startups you know. You guys, Elon Musk is in that

13:03directory. I'm not saying his personal cell phone numbers there, but he's in there. And not to mention

13:07all of the personal connections that I made with some of my professors and all my friends at the

13:11school. I mean, just to be surrounded by the most interesting and intelligent people I've ever met

13:15for four years straight. And then by the time you're looking for your big internship, the biggest and

13:19best finance consulting tech companies are basically lining up to give students interviews. That's not

13:24to say it's not competitive, because you basically have a thousand students going for the same handful

13:27of jobs. But I would say that going to a top school definitely helps give you a foot in the door.

13:32Now, with all of that said, which might have sounded like me aggressively patting myself on the back,

13:36do I think you need to go to Wharton? Do I think you need to go to an Ivy League university

13:40to be successful? Absolutely not. I mean, you already know the answer. What if I got up here

13:45and said, yes, that's what I think. But for example, let's look at our finance guy and YouTube

13:49God, Graham Stephan. He talks all the time about how much he hated high school, how he got horrible

13:54grades and just couldn't stand being there every single day. It didn't stop him from hustling right

13:58out of high school until he got recognized for his hard work and got promoted and started

14:01eventually making hundreds of thousands every single year, let alone what he's doing now as a full-time

14:06YouTuber. And that's taking Graham Stephan as an example, someone who didn't go to college. What about

14:10someone who went to college, but maybe didn't go to an Ivy League university or what rankings would

14:14consider a top university? Same thing. While I admit that going to a prestigious university and what

14:19I mean by prestigious, again, is really based off rankings and acceptance rates. While I admit that

14:23going to those schools does give you a hell of a foot in the door, it is not necessary. I guess my

14:27point is it really more so comes down to hard work, elbow grease, jumping at the opportunities that

14:31you have in front of you. And of course, some luck much more so than what school you go to.

14:35So I never answered whether I thought Wharton was worth it or not. I think you guys can tell by the

14:40way I talk about it that I think for me Wharton was a billion percent worth it. Not only did I have

14:46an excellent full-time job lined up eight months before I even graduated, it was also just honestly

14:50the best four years of my life. I really, really, really enjoyed Penn. But just because I think it

14:55made sense for me for a variety of factors doesn't mean it makes sense for everyone. I know people at Penn

15:00who really didn't like it or at least who got really fed up by the pre-professionalism that Penn

15:04definitely emanates from pretty much day one that you're on campus. And I definitely do admit that

15:08there is quite a bit of pressure to feel like you have to get a certain type of job if you go to

15:12Wharton, specifically within finance, consulting, or tech, as I keep mentioning. And if you are looking

15:17for a more liberal arts-esque education, I would say that Wharton is not the place to go. And while a

15:22degree from Wharton or really any degree in any STEM field is a very marketable degree, if you hate it or

15:27really just have no interest in those fields, then I would say it's not worth it because you've got to love

15:31what you're doing. To some extent, you have to be interested in what you're doing for it to be

15:34sustainable. Plus, it might just make a lot more sense for someone to take a course online or to

15:39learn a trade instead of spending hundreds of thousands to go to an overpriced private university.

15:43I would obviously say that it really varies person to person. And to answer this question, pretty much

15:47all the things that I learned in my classes, you could probably find some online business courses that

15:51teach principally very similar things. It might be hard to find it in as nicely of a package format as I

15:57got. And of course, it was taught to me by great professors, which definitely helps. It also helps

16:01to have it on my resume that I learned those things at Wharton. But as far as the actual material that

16:05I learned, like I said, if you look hard enough on the internet, you could probably find just about

16:09anything you want. So no matter where you go to college, if you go at all, I would say that my

16:13biggest piece of advice, if you care, is to put yourself out there and make those genuine

16:17connections. Those connections with other people, especially, like I said, the genuine connections. I mean,

16:21I'm not advocating to go out and be annoying and ask your senator to lunch. Although it really is those

16:25genuine connections that are the most valuable things, in my opinion. All right, guys. Well,

16:29I hope that didn't get too preachy. It sounded a little preachy in my head, but I really tried to

16:33show both sides of things and how something that might make sense for one person really just might

16:37not make sense for another person and that that is totally okay. So I'll probably be making some more

16:40Wharton slash IV slash college videos in the future. So let me know in the comments down below what you

16:45would like to see in those videos. Or if you guys have any remaining questions that I didn't get to in

16:49this video, y'all know I answer just about all my comments. So go ahead and leave me one,

16:53ask a question, whatever. I will be responding. All right, guys. I'll see you soon. Thanks so much

16:56for watching. If you made it this far, peace. I hate when people say Los Angelinos. Do I have a

17:02hole there? Yeah, I do. How does that even happen? I mean, I know I've worn this shirt a lot, but like

17:07how could that possibly get there? Did my voice crack? Am I a prefubescent 14-year-old boy?

17:12Interesting and intelligent purple. Ah, purple. Interesting and intelligent purple.

17:17In West Philadelphia, boy.

Wharton, Ivy League & Me — My Real Experience

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