By Sanja Muskaan Kapoor, MFA2027
One familiar face
Before 17 August, I knew exactly one person at London Business School. So, on Orientation Day, I did what everyone else seemed to be doing: I introduced myself again and again, trying to remember names, programmes and where people had come from. I forgot some of the names almost immediately. What I remember much more clearly is the feeling on the way home. Nobody had spent the day performing. People asked questions because they genuinely wanted to know the answers. Conversations that began with “Where are you from?” somehow moved into why we had chosen LBS, what we were nervous about and what we hoped this year might become. I had walked in feeling like a guest at someone else’s event. By the end of the day, I already felt that this was my class.
That feeling became real at our Away Day in Reading. We spent the day working through team challenges, often with no obvious solution and not much time to find one. It turns out you learn a lot about people when the first plan fails. Some laugh, some immediately propose a second plan, some take charge, and some quietly notice the thing everyone else has missed. By the time we travelled back to London, the polite distance of the first few days had mostly disappeared. People I had only exchanged names with were becoming the people I would look for when I walked into class or sat down for lunch.
It was also when my study group began to feel less like a group assigned on paper and more like a team. We come from Greece, France, Brazil and beyond, and we rarely start from the same place. One person sees the structure of a problem immediately, another questions the assumption behind it, and someone else asks the question that changes the direction completely. At first, those differences made discussions longer. Now, they are exactly what I value most. Somewhere between disagreeing, explaining and trying again, we usually arrive at something better than any of us would have produced alone. I am learning from the course, of course, but I am also learning how differently intelligent people can approach the exact same problem. They were some of the first new faces at LBS that stopped feeling new.
Finding my place
Once I felt at home in my stream, I started looking beyond it. I joined Run Club, which I have only just started, and Women in Business, which has already given me one of my favourite afternoons so far. It was a picnic. No panel, no formal networking and no carefully rehearsed introductions. Just women from different programmes sitting together and talking about what they want from this year, what they are ambitious about and, just as importantly, what they are still unsure about. The conversation moved beyond small talk surprisingly quickly, and I left knowing that my community at LBS would not only be the people I happened to sit next to in class. There were people across the School I could learn from, ask for advice and, hopefully, support in return.
That feeling of belonging also made me want to contribute rather than simply participate. As Academic Representative, I am the person my stream comes to when something about a course is unclear, frustrating or could simply work better, and I then have to turn those individual comments into feedback that is fair, useful and actually actionable. It has made me realise that representing people is much less about speaking for them than it is about listening properly first.
As a Student Ambassador, I get to speak with applicants who are standing almost exactly where I was a year ago. They often ask questions I remember asking myself: Is LBS really as intense as everyone says? Will I fit in? What are the people actually like? I try to answer those questions honestly. More than anything, I try to give them a little of what Orientation Day gave me: the sense that there is space for them here.
The pace, and the people who share it
And yes, LBS really is as intense as people say. Lectures, group work, applications, company events and deadlines somehow manage to arrive in the same week, and none of them waits politely for you to feel settled first. What surprised me was not the pace. I expected that. What surprised me was how much easier that pace became once I realised I was not navigating it alone.
We sit together to work through applications. We compare notes after company events. Someone who is a step ahead in an interview process explains what to expect, and someone who attended an event tells the rest of us what they learned. Sometimes we are applying for the same types of roles, which makes that openness even more striking. Before arriving, I had prepared myself for competition. Instead, I found people willing to share what they know without constantly calculating what it might cost them. That has probably been one of my biggest surprises so far.
And then there is Sundowners. Every second Thursday, students from across the School come together for food, drinks and the conversations that there never seems to be enough time for during the week. You run into someone you met briefly during Orientation and finally finish the conversation. You meet people from programmes you would otherwise rarely cross paths with. Sometimes you talk about recruiting. Sometimes you talk about anything but recruiting. I used to think networking had to feel intentional to be useful. Some of the most valuable conversations I have had at LBS so far happened when I was not trying to network at all.
No longer a guest
On 17 August, I knew one person. A month later, I have a study group that makes my work better, women across the School I know I can turn to, a standing plan every other Thursday and two roles that make me responsible for something beyond my own experience. None of those things happened all at once. They came from introductions I almost forgot, conversations I did not expect to have and repeatedly choosing to show up, even when everything still felt unfamiliar.
My first month at LBS has been faster, fuller and more intense than I imagined. But somewhere between Orientation Day, Reading, study-group debates, applications, picnics and Sundowners, I stopped feeling like I had arrived at someone else’s event. I started feeling like I belonged here.
If you are thinking about LBS and wondering whether you would find your place here, feel free to write to me on LinkedIn. I arrived knowing one person. I would be very happy to be the one person you know.