Foundry, which is known to be an uncommonly collaborative and supportive, practice leadership school is a seriously competitive environment and you have to be ready for anything. Thus, you should eliminate any false notions in your head of a gentle work-training, graduate engineering school, or M.B.A. type experience -- which is as it should be, for in real practice world, Darwinism rules. You should understand and appreciate the unique opportunity that you have at The Foundry to be challenged on many fronts (and on many practice fields), including working with people from various backgrounds and cultures.
In that regard, you should connect with a diverse group of student-candidates from around the world whose professional experiences range from working in Boston on the automation of General Electric's Factory-of-the-Future, conducting telecommunications and advanced Linux/PHP engineering for premier U.S. real-estate private equity investors to consulting on technology systems in the insurance industry. Fortunately, many of these new friends you will meet will temper the competitiveness of The Foundry. Just as you prepare for an exam on the economics of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations", a new friend of yours who knows you are struggling to master these concepts will encourage you to work on your strategic customers - to secure those practice hours! All of these classmates will become rays of goodwill in a survival-of-the-fittest environment -- even when it isn't in their best interest to help you, since candidates are selected on a sustainability curve.
Christopher M. Cantell
Founder and CEO
The Foundry
