It was kind of a rollercoaster. I started out very confident in my own ability and in the capabilities of my study group. Around midterm time I was pretty sure I was not going to pass! In the end everything worked out fine, but that fear of failure made me work really hard (and memorize a lot for the finals).
I love my small group. One of our first exercises in Organizational Analysis was to draft a team contract. Relieved to find that we had similar goals and motivation for being in the program. During the opening residential we felt we were a very strong team and had high expectations going into our first quarter at Merage. Org Analysis takes you outside yourself -- you are studying how people behave within teams and organizations and start looking at how the course concepts apply to your own study group's performance within the course. My group agreed to study my company for the term project. I recommend this to everyone -- use your own company for class projects if you can. There's security in knowing that you can access as much information as you need as late as you need it. Especially if your company is helping pay your tuition, you can show your boss that the program provides real benefits. It also makes the pressure/motivation to perform higher because your reputation with your boss is also on the line!
When I was applying I really wanted to know how big a time commitment the program was. When they say that you shouldn't count on having much spare time at the opening residential, they are right -- we worked pretty late every night and even during meals and breaks we were very focused on the program. At the beginning of the quarter we were meeting regularly before class but by midterm time when we started in on our Org Analysis term project we were putting in about 8 hours a week as a team and I was doing another 8 hours by myself on reading and doing microeconomics problems. The quarter went by very fast, and the time commitment didn't seem onerous (even with day job, husband and two kids).