University of Virginia: William Boucek
Bill was commissioned on graduation from Villanova University in 1996 with a bachelor of science in civil engineering and has been a Navy Supply Corps officer since 1997. Early in his career, he was responsible for all logistics aboard the USS Columbia, a fast-attack nuclear submarine. He later spent two years as an instructor at the Navy Supply Corps School, where he taught both newly commissioned and mid-grade officers, and served as aide to the director of the Defense Logistics Agency—the largest combat support agency within the Department of Defense.
Prior to starting graduate business school at UVA in 2007, Bill was the principal assistant–logistics aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington and was responsible for oversight of that ship’s logistical operations. He looks forward to resuming his Navy career after graduation.
Bill says that he is continually impressed by his classmates’ intelligence, intensity, and experiences, and that the many friendships he has made at business school will last well beyond graduation.
Why did you choose to get an MBA, and has school offered any surprises?
Being in the Supply Corps, I think that an MBA is a clear next step in the career progression, and I’d be lying if I said I had reflected on any other type of graduate degree program. But once I got there, graduate business school was very eye opening. I’m learning so many techniques that corporations use. There are so many applications that I can take back to the military and that offer different ways of looking at...of tackling...the Navy’s leadership and business challenges. The Navy is drawing down the workforce, but the work is not decreasing.
So, for instance, my Operations class is very focused on lean management, on reducing waste from systems and processes—on how you can not only get more done with fewer resources but also remain extremely flexible and nimble as an organization. All those things are absolutely applicable to the Navy.
What do you wish you had known before applying to graduate b-school?
That most schools find our military leadership experience very valuable, and that an interview is not a time for modesty. Looking back, I wish I’d been more comfortable “selling” my military accomplishments. This exact topic came up recently in a conversation I had with a fellow military student and someone on my school’s admissions staff—and we were in agreement about a lot of points.
The responsibilities we deal with regularly in the military—even early on—are impressive to folks, but we’re used to promoting our team. We’re not used to taking the limelight ourselves, so selling our military achievements doesn’t feel natural.
The feedback I’ve gotten from interviewers and the business community, though, is that they really enjoy hearing stories about what we’ve done in the military.
What are the best aspects of the military experience to promote in an interview?
Of course, leadership is the most obvious. But it’s also very important to stress technical skills—running plants, building databases, developing metrics—and any business experience gained in the military—such as owning budgets, developing vision, and executing prepared strategies.
It’s important that we detail the environment, the challenges, and our role in accomplishing a mission. That way an interviewer who may not have served in the military can gain a true appreciation of how our military accomplishments prepare us for success in school.
How did the GMAT® compare with exams you have taken as part of your military training, and how did you prepare?
In many ways, the GMAT was less intense since it is much more structured and defined than many of my military exams—most of those have been oral qualification boards. Still, I did need a good amount of time and study to regain my familiarity with the material on the GMAT because the exam covered many math concepts—exponentials geometry, trigonometry—and verbal concepts, too, that I hadn’t been working with regularly.
I used every review book that I could get my hands on and as many practice exams as possible to increase my comfort and preparation levels. Because of operational limitations I only had three weeks to prepare, but I was able to study about eight hours a day for two of those weeks.
How do the demands of school and the military compare?
The first year at my school has often been referred to as boot camp—I will not debate this point, since there’s a very heavy workload piled on top of many non-scholastic events and you often have 14-hour days. But at the end of each day you go home and sleep in your own bed, and you usually have a day or two off on the weekends. So while school is demanding, the workload and the intensity don’t begin to compare with a deployment schedule. Since I’ve experienced a more demanding environment in the military, I find that my military background serves me very well at school.
