Recently, the Princeton review released its 2011 edition of the Best Business Schools guidebook. This year, Smeal was ranked in the top 10 of “Most Family Friendly” programs.  As a student that entered the program with a family, I can certainly attest to the validity of that ranking.  As some of you know, I arrived in State College with my wife and two year old daughter.  During our second week of orientation, I was blessed with the birth of my son.

To say that Smeal is family friendly is not to say that it is easy to go through the program and have a family.  On the contrary, for me, it has been extremely difficult trying to balance the time I must dedicate to my studies with the time I need to spend with my family.  However, in my experience, it is the close-knit nature of the Smeal community that makes it family friendly.  The fact is that we really do see each other as a big family within the MBA program.  This was one of the major draws for me to Smeal and it was reinforced as soon as my son was born.  I cannot tell you the number of people, most of which I had only known for a week, who offered to help with everything from stopping by the grocery store for us to offering to cook dinner for us.  These may seem like insignificant things, but it is the little things that are so hard to do when you are busy with school work and taking care of a young family.  All of these people, from students to faculty, made our experience much easier and epitomized the values that we all share as part of the Smeal community.  We Are…Family, We Are…PENN STATE!

-Jorge Quezada, MBA Class of 2012