{"id":3438,"date":"2020-07-16T10:21:07","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T09:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/mba\/?p=3438"},"modified":"2020-07-17T09:01:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T08:01:21","slug":"lessons-learnt-in-quarantine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/mba\/lessons-learnt-in-quarantine\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learnt in Quarantine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few months, a group of IESE MBA Class of 2021 students led a research study named \u201cProject COVID Mirror\u201d that sought to understand the impacts of COVID on the IESE Class of 2021, as well as their reflections around how they coped with the quarantine, what they learned and what they hope for the future. The research team consists of <\/b>Chris Coraggio<\/a>, <\/b>Antonio Niemeyer<\/a>, <\/b>Marilyn Heymann<\/a> and Silvia\u00a0Wu<\/a>. They had 133 survey respondents, and \u00a0conducted follow-up interviews with 32 of those respondents between April 15-28th (in the middle of the quarantine). This blog post is a summary of one of the articles in this series, co-authored by Chris Coraggio & Silvia Wu.<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

The day that Spain announced \u2018Phase 0\u2019 of the lockdown, we IESE MBA students were jumping up and down, as we finally had freedom to go *outside*! For us, the post-quarantine period has injected happiness and a deep appreciation for the everyday little things. Even with the quarantine behind us (crossing fingers!), we learned incredibly valuable lessons, which were sprinkled in the surveys and interviews. One memorable reflection was, \u201cSomething that I am learning a lot and surprises me is the amount of time and money I was expending on things that I do not value\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

We hope the lessons learned like this one by the IESE MBA Class of \u201821 are useful ones, and that it inspires reflection in our readers.\u00a0 Many thanks to our colleagues for sharing your candid reflections!<\/p>\n

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Looking back to a Class of 2021 photo taken in September 2019 – can’t wait to see everyone on campus soon!<\/p><\/div>\n

Lesson 1: Dealing with your FOMO!<\/strong><\/p>\n

FOMO (fear of miss out) is just a fact of MBA life, particularly in the first year.\u00a0 FOMO in the MBA stems from a bunch of places all in one \u2013 the fact that the MBA experience is a short, one-time experience; our nature of comparing ourselves against our colleagues; and our insecurity of whether we\u2019re on the right path \u2013 in other words \u2013 \u201cAm I missing out on something that I might want to do?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s perfectly natural at a time when we are still asking ourselves what career and life we want for the rest of our lives.\u00a0 No pressure!<\/p>\n

Suddenly and instantaneously, the lockdown put us in a vacuum, quieting the MBA noise and rush of the buzzing campus life.\u00a0 In our homes, we had no choice of where to go and few options for what to do \u2013 but we knew our colleagues were in the same boat. In some ways, that was a good thing \u2013 we lost the fear of what we might be missing.\u00a0 In our survey, many of our classmates mentioned that not having FOMO was a real positive part of the quarantine: \u201cI have reduced social anxiety [due to] near-total absence of FOMO.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the vacuum of full-lockdown, we also had more brain space to think about one of life\u2019s most important questions: \u201cwhat matters to me?\u201d.\u00a0 One interviewee said, \u201cThis period at least helped me think about what I am doing, what are my plans, what do I want from this experience, from my life in general.\u201d\u00a0 Another classmate said:\u00a0 \u201cPositively it’s slowed things down so much – journaling, considering so many different things – what I eat, how I drink, who I spend my time with, resetting.\u201d Let\u2019s break that down further. We think the sources of FOMO are (1) comparing ourselves to our peers and (2) being uncertain about whether we are making the right choices with their time.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the case, a few techniques to work against this would be:<\/p>\n