The Days Are Long, the Year Is Short: My Core Semester Experience

by Vanessa Wang · Published August 29, 2025 · Updated September 17, 2025

Vanessa Wang 26MBA, a student in Goizueta’s One-Year MBA program, reflects on her summer Core semester — from academic challenges to building community — and shares insights from the start of her MBA journey.

Sitting at my boarding gate to Copenhagen, Denmark, I’m simultaneously filled with excitement over this upcoming MBA GEM experience and gratitude for the past summer semester. The last time I was at the Atlanta airport, I had just flown in from my hometown of Hong Kong to start my One-Year Accelerated MBA program at Goizueta Business School; and now, three months later, this city feels like home. There’s a saying that our program Dean Brian Mitchell likes to say to us: “The days are long, but the year is short,” and it really is the best way to describe the summer semester, aka Core.

Coming into the program, I was worried about readjusting to academic life – after all, I had been a member of the workforce for the past eight years. Sitting in a classroom for six hours a day, five days a week, sounded horrifying. But when we dove into our core classes, I was quickly fascinated by all the subjects I was never exposed to as a marketing professional, from accounting to finance, and time became irrelevant. Don’t get me wrong, the days indeed felt long as I was being challenged on different financial evaluation models, but I was learning so much from our distinguished professors that I didn’t mind at all. Going through summer with this mindset, 12 weeks of Core went by at the snap of a finger, and I felt at least 10 degrees smarter by the end of it.

What made Core such an enjoyable experience, besides the academics, was the community it allowed us to build with our cohort, and I was honored to have contributed to that as the elected Co-VP of Student Activities. Call it solidarity or camaraderie, spending 30+ hours a week with 36 classmates in and out of the classroom bonded us on a deep level. In between the impromptu study groups that popped up before finals, weekly basketball and tennis sessions to release our pent-up stress, and happy hours on the Beltline, we started referring to each other as friends and cheering on each other’s wins, and that is the most beautiful thing I have experienced in this program yet.

Moreover, our social activities were enhanced by the fact that we had classmates from other parts of the world – India, China, Korea, Turkey, and Nigeria. We each brought a unique cultural perspective to the table, quite literally, as students from each country hosted themed dinner parties at their homes. We had home-made Korean BBQ and chicken biryani as we played board games and had heated debates about who our favorite professors were (I shall not disclose mine here). As an international student, I lived for these cultural appreciation nights as it brought us closer to understanding where we each came from. I personally cannot wait to host a dumpling wrapping party for Lunar New Year!

Fall semester is going to look very different from Core, and as much as I’m looking forward to a more flexible schedule, I’ll miss sitting in the Delta Leadership classroom with my 36 friends. In the meantime, I’m excited to cap off this incredible summer semester with our trip to Denmark and create even more lasting memories together.

Stay tuned for my Denmark Vlog!