Road Trip!

by: Tarak Shah

It wasn’t officially Spring Break at Rutgers, but Brian Pan and I went on a road trip to Boston for a medical devices conference last weekend. While the trip gave me an opportunity to learn more about this industry, the key highlight for me was valuable bonding time with a good friend and MBA classmate.

We took off Sat night from Newark and spent the night at my uncle and aunt’s place near Hartford, CT. Being that my aunt likes to cook extremely spicy Indian food, often times more than I can handle, I wasn’t sure how Brian would respond. But he seemed like he really enjoyed the food. Brian also seemed to enjoy talking to my family and I know they felt the same. After all, there’s a reason why Brian is Rutgers Business School’s most eligible bachelor J.

Brian and I then headed to Boston Sunday afternoon and had dinner with an old friend and his girlfriend. Boston currently has their Restaurant Week so we got to enjoy some pretty amazing food (with big servings!) at a very reasonable price. Later that night we arrived at the hotel and decided that we really needed to do some work for our classes being that it was also midterms week!

Monday we were at the conference all day. Brian and I attended most of the talks and networked with a few industry experts. Most of the discussions centered around the state of new product regulation as a result of healthcare reform. The funny thing was that in between some of the events we were in the lobby sitting in front of our laptops getting more work done. The true life of an MBA, right? Later that night we got to catch up with other old friends in the area.

While these events made the trip a lot of fun, I especially enjoyed the car ride as it gave me an opportunity to learn more about Brian. We haven’t had many opportunities to hang out since the start of school, so it was really great getting to know him better. It reminded me that the MBA experience is not just about pursuing career goals, but it’s also about building long term friendships with classmates. I look forward to more opportunities to bond with Brian and my other classmates.