WHARTON DIARY: A mid-winter break was spent in Antarctica with 40-plus MBA and graduate students

THE THIRD semester of my Wharton MBA ended with me being probably the busiest I have been so far. As always seems to be the case, this was self- inflicted. A number of my courses in the finance department were scheduled to have final exams the week before the winter break began.

The usual approach is for classes to finish a week before this exam period and for students to use that week of reading time to study for the upcoming exams.

However, many of the professors teaching my finance courses decided that the late dates for finals did not suit them, so they scheduled an additional mid- term exam in the final week of class and skipped the final exam.

Unfortunately, other courses that were based and graded primarily on project work and assignments all had significant final deliverables in the last week of class as well, so I had a fun end to the semester as I tried to balance everything.

Once the dust settled, I was free from any school commitments well before Christmas. While many of my classmates took off immediately for exotic trips like the Wharton India Global Immersion Program, spending a few weeks in India meeting government and business leaders, I had some family time, with a trip to New York being about as far as we ventured from home.

The day after Christmas I flew out to take part in a Wharton trip to Antarctica. Along with three of my classmates, I was acting as a facilitator for a group of more than 40 first- and second- year MBA students and other graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania’s other schools.

We had an incredible week-long stay on King George Island, camping in magnificent scenery with amazing wildlife.

The focus of the trip was on giving the participants a chance for experiential leadership learning, with the conditions and the physical demands giving ample scope for some interesting team dynamics to develop. Participants also got lots of direct, sometimes blunt, feedback on their follower and leadership styles.

It is hard to capture in words just how amazing this experience was. As a peer facilitator, I felt privileged to be spending time with these talented people, getting to know about their backgrounds, goals and values. Preparing for the trip had taken a lot of time, so it was gratifying to see how people took the various challenges with which they were presented and treated them as a real opportunity for reflection and growth.

After years of interest in team formation and organisational development, and having sat through a number of courses and workshops over the last year and a half at Wharton on leading and managing people, it was inspiring to see how participants started the week as individuals and developed into dynamic and resilient teams.

I was able to get some great feedback on the trip about my communication and leadership, so I feel I learned at least as much as the participants. I also developed relationships with people whom I had not yet met during my time at Wharton, who will be friends for life based on shared experiences.

At the end of the week I was pretty tired, as not only was every day physically active but, as a peer facilitator, I also had a heavy daily emotional/intellectual workout as the teams debriefed and analysed their performances.

I started back into school the day after getting back to Philadelphia, so it looks like it will be a case of out of the frying pan back into the fire.

Gareth Keane, from Moycullen, Co Galway, is in the MBA class of 2010 at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.