Tai Parks:	Second-Year on-campus MBA
Education:	Bachelor’s - Health Studies (Georgetown)
	Master’s - Public Health (Temple)

You already had a graduate degree. What made you decide to return for your MBA?
I decided to come back for my MBA because I felt like there was a void. When I graduated from Georgetown, I felt like I wanted an MBA, but it didn’t seem like the right time to go to school. I really felt like I needed career experience. So I worked for a year at Temple as a professor, and then I worked for a small non-profit organization (Living Beyond Breast Cancer). While I was there, I realized there was no way I was going to be able to lead an organization like that unless I had those business skills. So it was at that point, even though I loved my job, that I decided it was probably the best time for me to go back.

Teamwork is an important part of the Smeal MBA experience. Tell us about your first team.
In the first year, we met our team on the second day of orientation. And up until that point, the first day is complete nerves because you’re starting to meet people and are already picking out people you want on your team and maybe some people you might not want on your team.  

So as you’re waiting for the teams to be announced, it’s an intense environment. Everybody’s waiting, your names are finally called, and then you see that you’re on a team with four people you never met before, and it wasn’t any of the people you wanted or didn’t want on your team.

My first team was amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better team. Our personalities gelled very quickly and we’re still all friends today. I find that as I go back into different classes and we have teams that we can now select, I always want to select one of my first team members. The relationships you build in that first team definitely carry on. 

What’s it like to be a part of the Smeal community?
I think the community at Smeal is fantastic. I think the small size has a lot to do with it. It really makes a big difference when you’re in class and you need that special attention or when you can go to a professor after class and he or she knows your name. That’s what the Smeal community is. It has to do with individual attention, knowing your classmates, knowing your professors, and feeling as though you’re really a part of something bigger.