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Birds of a feather flock together

At the wildly-successful MBA Charity Auctions last semester students bid on big-ticket items like professional sports tickets and shopping trips to New York.

But one lucky student bid on and won a group hug from the Caribbean Pelicans. It went for $50 and the winner scored an embrace with MBA ’12 students Bilikiss Adebiyi, Jamie Fordyce, Chi-Chu Tschang, K, Kuohsin Chen, and Anand Dass. Group hugs are what the Pelicans, a close-knit group, are known for.

The Pelicans are just one of several teams in the Caribbean Cohort, or “ocean.” At the start of the MIT Sloan MBA program, all students are divided into oceans and then divided further into multiple teams, to support their success in the first-semester MBA Core. The Core teams, assigned by the MIT Sloan administration, are designed to be as diverse as possible. The students spend nearly three-and-a-half intense months together, but then typically disband and go their separate ways after the Core ends.

The six Caribbean Pelicans from the class of 2012 formed such an unusually tight-knit group that they still meet up socially and for school work. Dass said the bond among his group formed quickly, when they met at the start of the program and discussed mutual goals.

“Early on, we spent a lot of time discussing our expectations both professionally and personally. We alternated responsibilities in assigning homework and we just set the structure up front,” he said.

Dass said because of these boundaries, the group members understood and respected that the bonds weren’t just based on friendship – otherwise no work would have been accomplished. “If we based it on just friendship, the quality of our work would have dropped.”

Once the teamwork responsibilities were established, the group took an informal retreat to Fordyce’s summer home in Rhode Island.

“We cooked lobster, played guitar, and made a fire,” Fordyce remembered. K instigated the group hug as a way of boosting morale when the Core got rough, and six lifetime friendships were forged.

In working on MBA projects, the Pelicans have supported one another’s ambitions and professional aspirations. When Dass entered the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition 4th Annual Elevator Pitch Contest last year [he was the winner], his fellow Pelicans encouraged him to practice during his Communication for Managers (15.280) class. Tschang inquired whether he should really pursue a career in finance, and the other Pelicans honestly urged him to consider other career options. After much consideration, he ultimately accepted a job offer at J.P. Morgan.

“We all really help each other out in terms of advice. It’s very nice to know you can count on your teammates,” said Chen.

Last semester, several of them took the Early Stage Capital elective class (15.391), and they formally re-formed the Pelicans Core team because the class was so intense. Adebiyi was grateful for the renewed study group.
“I had a lot of things going on at the time,” she said. “I just trust these guys, and they picked up the slack for me and didn’t make me feel bad about it. It was really very nice.”

As their MBA program winds down, the Pelicans don’t socialize together as much as they would like, but they still find time for lunches and occasional weekend getaways. Last May, K, Tschang, Chen, and Adebiyi all traveled to Puerto Rico on vacation. K and Fordyce met up in Panama over IAP recently, and some of the other Pelicans’ travels have overlapped during international tours and treks, as well.

They are now considering a group trip to Europe, possibly after Commencement, Dass said.

“We’ll definitely be in touch, although I don’t know how often we’ll get to see each other,” K said.

“I don’t want to think about it,” Dass lamented. By Amy MacMillan