Not everyone knows that Columbia Business School offers a January term program. What is it? Essentially you join Columbia in January – so 1 semester after the September intake – and you start your first semester in January. Then during the summer you do your second semester – you do not do an internship.  After the summer both the September intake and the January intake come back to school and complete their second year – at this point you are all doing electives and so the January term and September term are in the same classes.

So why would someone consider the January term?

1. If you are not a career changer then you really do not need to do an internship and it makes a lot of sense to consider this program. Some students are being sponsored by their companies and hence know that upon graduation they will be rejoining their company. Other may want to stay in the same industry, but want to do an MBA to accelerate their careers.

2. If you are an entrepreneur or plan to become an entrepreneur it’S a great option for you. Rather than using your time to look for an internship you can use your time to network, build contacts, create your business plan and get feedback on your business plan. 

3. It’s a smaller intake and the pressure of not having to look for an internship can be huge – assuming of course you use that additional time you get effectively. When I joined the Columbia’s January term, I noticed that the September term had about a month before they got into ‘internship’ mode – they had to start putting their resumes together, attending information sessions most evenings etc etc. The January term students could use that time to build strong friendships, work on business plans, figure out how to leverage all the resources the school had to offer etc.

Let’s Bust some Myths about the J-term

1. I’ve heard some people say ‘isn’t it easier to get into the J-term?’. If you look at the admissions statistics you can see that the September term and January term are equally competitive to get into. That’s not surprising since they are not completely separate programs – academically you are all in the same classes in the second year.

2. Shouldn’t I do an internship no matter what I want to do afterwards?

Not necessarily – if you do not need to do an internship it’s much better to use your time more effectively. The type and quantity of resources you have while you are at Business School is phenomenal – it’s much better to figure out how to leverage those than to do an internship you don’t really need. As an international student I wanted to show some US work experience on my resume, so I did a consulting project for Estee Lauder.  I did this project along with my first semester and I found that it was an valuable as a summer internship.

3. ‘I should not consider the January term if I am a career changer’.

 There were plenty of career changers in my class – they had spent time assessing their potential for making a career change and knew that it may be slightly harder to do so without an internship. They were successful in making a career change because they had a plan of how to do it and worked hard to make sure it happened.

So if you are thinking about applying to the January term, start exploring it now – the admissions process usually starts sometime in April. The January term also operates on a rolling admissions policy.