First Year of B-School is Done!

With all of the MAP craziness, I haven't had time to check my fromcali e-mail or ClearAdmit to see the results. I'm very happy that I was in the top 3! (I guess that makes me the "Wharton" of student bloggers.) Thanks for all of your support and votes, and I'm glad I was helpful. Also - I'm now trying to decide between the economist and business week. I'm leaning towards the economist but am still unsure. Congrats to the rest of the top ranked bloggers!

Here's a summary of events from my last post (and over the last week) which explains why I almost forgot about BoB until I had time to check my gmail.

* Spend a lot of time finalizing the faculty presentation.
* MAP Faculty Presentation.
* Spend time making edits based on faculty comments and "feedback" they gave us after our presentation. Wonder why I never heard these questions or concerns despite our having shown them earlier drafts of this and explaining what we've been doing before. Also, spend time incorporating their feedback and and trying to tailor it for the sponsor - read: spend less time describing the company and the project and get to the recommendations.
* Deliver MAP Sponsor Presentation.
* (While doing powerpoint edits) - try to come up with a 30 page paper and what seems to be endless appendices. Realize it's hard to make a group 30 page paper not look like several individual 5 of 6 page papers slapped together. It's REALLY REALLY hard to make it read as one cohesive unit.
* Get ready to print and turn in after realizing you can't just email it to the professor (ugh).
* Realize that the paper (which at this point with appendices and figures is WELL over 50 pages) isn't allowed to be printed on a regular printer. Dig up email with printing specifications (high quality paper, etc) and spend time going to get professional printing and binding done by our 3pm deadline today.
* Turn in project.

Now off to celebrate! Yay! I'm half of a MBA now! Time FLEW! I swear just yesterday i was getting here for RLP.

4 more days :(

Until first year is over...I just can't believe it's gone by SO QUICKLY! I'm almost halfway done. It's a very strange feeling.

I have very mixed feelings about being halfway done with my MBA. On one hand, I'm really excited for this year to be over b/c I'm sick of writing this stupid paper and constantly revising the powerpoint deck for our final presentation later in the week. On the other, I'm sad to be away from my friends for the summer. Between interviewing and MAP, i feel like I've barely seen my friends this term. :(

it's MAP crunch time!

Speechless

My thoughts and prayers are with the Virginia Tech community. I wish I could do something that would actually help those who were directly affected by this tragedy.

I learned about the shootings Monday when walking through the b-school lobby. There's a big screen TV that is often turned to a various sports channel or CNN. I glanced at the TV for a quick second and saw it was CNN. Since I was running late for a MAP meeting, I didn't actually look at the TV or see any of the story. Several hours later, when my MAP meeting was over, I walked back down and saw a massive crowd gathered around the TV with stunned looks on their faces.

I didn't know what to think when I heard about the shootings on Monday. I'm still in shock and horribly saddened by this. The thought that someone can calculate this, record himself (which were obviously in different locations and at different times) and take pictures, kill two people, then mail pictures to NBC before killing another 30 (obviously seeking some sort of fame) just makes me sick. I'm not too thrilled about the release of the shots of gunfire, the posting of the tapes, the release of the pictures either. I understand the need to provide information, but I think there needs to be some sensitivity from the media. I am not directly impacted by this tragedy, but even I didn't like going to cnn's website last night and seeing that very graphic picture of the shooter pointing the gun at the camera, so the gun is almost bigger than the face. That image is seared in my mind.

This type of thing definitely puts everything into perspective. Since starting Ross, I've been really bad at keeping in touch on a personal level, and when I have talked to people, it's been mostly me updating them on my "new and exciting" life. The year or so before starting Ross was filled with my conversations about b-school and how much I hated my job. Lately, I've been getting back in touch with people I haven't talked to in years. It shouldn't have taken a tragedy like this to make me realize this but it did serve as a huge wake up call to me.

All those victims were doing was going to class and pursuing an education. God Bless them, and may they rest in peace.

MAP is almost done

I can't believe that the year is almost over. We have 11 days until the end of MAP which is ultimately the end of school. I can't believe it!

GBR was this past weekend, and despite a small weather scare the few days leading up to it (read: snow), the admits had decent weather. The sun even came out and the sky was actually blue one day! Wow. I had a lot of fun at GBR - and not just because I got free food most of the weekend. It was great to meet the incoming class, they seemed really cool, and I'm hoping they decide to come! It was very strange to be seen as "knowledgable"...I still sort of feel like I just got here.

I also enjoyed actually getting to see the rest of my classmates. Most of us have been all over the country and/or world, and have really spent most of our time with our MAP teams - so it was awesome! A lot of us are back, and we spent some of the GBR "down time" (read: when admits were in events) to hang out, recap about MAP, and just catch up. It was great!

GBR was also a bit of a MAP break. People pretty much didn't do any MAP work all weekend. Now I have to finish this presentation and paper. Wish me luck!

11 days - yikes! I still don't have a summer place to live.

BoB: Vote for Me!

Forrest kept telling me that I need to come up with a speech to get people to vote for me. I don't have one other than:

Vote for me! I could use the new iPod. My current one is OLD (read: black and white). Please, I'll be your best friend...Wait, that's whining.

On a more serious note, I am excited to be nominated. This started as a way to keep in touch with family and friends back home, part because they got sick of hearing about my move to Michigan stresses and part because I got tired of sending the same emails over and over again. It became increasingly convinient since the time zone difference can get tricky. I'm just hopeful that my friends/family get a sense of what's going on with me, and that I can convey a little bit of my Ross experience.

Vote fromcali - I can write cooler posts if I'm listening to a cool song on my new iPod.

(Forrest, does this work as a "speech"?)

It's an Honor to be Nominated :)

Wow - I've been nominated for the Best of Blogging Awards. I am glad I have been of some use to people during the past year.

I wonder if this is what celebrities feel like when they learn they've been nominated.

MAP is Halfway Done

OK, it's been a couple of weeks...MAP has really taken over my life. I remember some second years saying that MAP is a really great experience, but they're glad to be done with it. I now realize what they meant.

We're a little more than halfway done, which is good on one hand but not-so-good on the other because we have a lot to do between now and 4/26 (which is when our report is due). If you were in one of the "lucky" teams to have a midpoint presentation to the sponsor, that means that either this week or last week were spent doing a lot of analysis, powerpoint, excel, etc. That also means those teams are going to have less to do in the next couple of weeks. My team is moving along but we've still got some MAJOR items that we need to tackle that we've kind of been putting off.

At this point, i'm seeing a shift in the dynamics of my team as well as the other teams. Basically, the natural leaders of each team (and the natural pain-in-the-neck people) are starting to emerge. This is partially since teams are done with "research" about the industry and getting ready to figure out what needs to be analyzed, and if you're lucky, what recommendations can come out of that analysis. In other words, the "meat" of the project is actually happening now. I'm still really glad I'm learning how to do this stuff. It's basically the same type of stuff most summer interns will do - except in a 7 week instead of 10 week timeframe.

In other news, I'm trying to find a place to live over the summer. That's a royal pain but I've got a few leads on places. Thank goodness a lot of people's internship packages had some sort of housing allowance. The vast majority of MBA's around here don't stay for the summer. People are going everywhere, but the big clusters seem to be in New York/New Jersey, Chicago, San Francisco, some L.A., some southeast, Minneapolis, Texas, and other smaller cities that CPG's love to call home.

Next weekend is GBR. It'll be awesome! If you're an admit and undecided, it'll be great to check out what you could potentially be turning down. If you're 100% coming here, it'll be great to meet your future classmates. Oh, and look for a place to live.