Summer's Almost Over

Wow - what happened to summer? Am I really in the midst of PowerPoint hell (that reminds me a lot of MAP powerpoint hell)? Wow. Things are still going well, and here's a highlight of the past few weeks.

* Midterm review with boss went well. I asked if there were any areas that are showing up as "red flags", and boss said "if there were, you'd know..."
* We're officially second years. Got an email saying that.
* Recruiting is starting to ramp up - our resumes are due Friday - aah! I should get on that...
* Shopped around recommendations for final presentaion and got good feedback. Started to circulate pieces of the final presentation.

Now I get to practice for the final presentation which is coming up MUCH faster than I want it to. I'm excited to give it, and a little nervous.

conversation with my boss

Sippets of conversations i've had with my boss:

boss: hi fromcali, how is it going?
me: good, i'm just doing this analysis that i said i was going to do earlier
boss: good, well i'm going to need you to do some analysis on this instead. i have some other stuff i need your to help me with. can you help me out?
me, thinking "can i actually say "no": sure, no problem. who should i talk to about the more nitty gritty details?

a couple of days later...
me: here boss, i have the analysis for you.
boss: this is solid.
me: cool, thanks, glad to help.
boss: you keep doing good work, i'll keep giving you more things to do.
me, wondering if my internship wasn't enough work: uhh, thanks.

So I guess things are going well.

Summer is Halfway Done

Wow - time flies when you are having fun! Not only is my summer internship halfway (ok, more like 1/3 of the way) done, the actual SUMMER is about halfway done. MAP was done two months ago (we got a good grade), and i'm a little over two months before school starts.

Work's going really well! i really like this job, and this is so what I should be doing. I can also really see myself here full time, so there is even more pressure on my part to get an offer. Although, at this point, I'm thinking I'll be in good shape - my manager is very pleased with the work I've done thus far. That makes me very happy. I know I've still got quite a ways to go, but it's always nice to make a good first impression. :)

I think I like it so much because I almost don't feel like an "intern". I know I am, but I'm doing real, day-to-day work, so I really just feel like part of the brand team. And I've gotten to do some high-profile stuff. Sometimes I wish we had fewer "intern" events/lunches since it's hard to find time to do the actual work, but I've enjoyed them nonetheless.

One thing I did not expect was this "intern paranoia". This isn't to be confused with "overly competitive". Basically, you get scared that every single thing you do is being evaluated. Like "did I say the right thing in the casual meeting with so-and-so?" or "oh no, I used Tahoma font instead of Arial font, hope that makes me fit in", or "uh oh, I sneezed. Hope they don't take that to mean I'm allergic to the company culture". OK, it's not quite that bad, but since I'm constantly being evaluated (and because our pictures are everywhere with signs saying "the interns are coming"), and there's this whole "job offer" thing hanging over my head, I've tended to freak out at certain things.

We'll see. I've got my midpoint review in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck!

Getting used to work again...

Wow, long time no blog. It's been a month! Insane! Between finishing school, travelling a little bit, visiting friends/family, moving to new place (again), trying to find my way around (again), new job, new lingo, new coworkers, new boss...let's just say I've been busy. Good busy though - Michigan ends EARLY, so I've kind of been bored for about a month with nothing to do.

Things are going well. I'm liking my project, my boss seems cool, I like my fellow interns, and this company is a really good fit for me. It's definitely going to be a challenging job but I can get a lot out of it. My goal: get an offer. No matter if I see myself here full-time, getting the offer is going to make life in the fall much better. I am still nervous about my project b/c it seems kinda huge, but we'll see...I know it'll be good once I figure it out. Hell, if I can figure out the MAP lingo (and MAP is basically a 6-week internship), I can figure out my new company lingo.

Although things are going well - there are some challenges. Mostly getting used to working again. It's hard to get up, have to actually plan an outfit (instead of the jeans/t-shirt that happens to be clean combo at b-school), get to the office, and stay there all day. I'm a little nervous that b-school has decreased my attention span and my capacity to actually be at one place for longer than an hour and a half...Everyone is going through this. Though it will be nice to get paid. :) And to look forward to receiving money that I don't have to pay back eventually!

More to come during the summer as I figure things out.

School's done...now what?

The end of MAP (which meant the end of first year) was very "anti-climactic". We started off the year with balloons, get togethers, etc. We then go through the intensity of learning a new town, making friends, getting used to being a student again, recruiting, etc. After that slows down, we get this major MAP kickoff, complete with student speakers, the dean, balloons, etc. MAP was intense, then all of a sudden the presentations were done, the report was turned in -- and that was it. It just was done. I'm not sure what i would have liked to have (and I'm also not sure what our willingness to sit through a meeting would be), but it seemed like there wasn't any time for the first years to get together (either via sections or as a whole) to reflect on this experience, or just to have one last "horrah" before embarking for the summer. I don't count that last Scorekeepers happy hour - people were just generally tired from either staying up all night to finish the paper or being in a M-Trek/CPR training all day. To be fair, I think part of that was because MAP was due Thursday (the 26th) at 3, and MBA2 graduation was that Friday.

School's been done for about a week and a half...it's very strange. Kind of sad, actually. Internship doesn't start for another couple of weeks and I haven't moved to my new place yet. People in the "real world" have jobs so during the day I've been trying to keep myself occupied by doing stuff for my extracurriculars. While it's been great to get a good night's sleep and catch up on TV shows (not to mention the Dallas/Golden State basketball series - I BELIEVE!), I'm kind of looking forward to starting my internship. I'm not good at having nothing major to do for any long period of time. I'll get used to it. I'm just a bit bored. (And poor - I'm really looking forward to a paycheck!)

Although I'm really excited for my internship to start, I'm also a bit nervous. These are normal jitters with starting anything new, but i've got a new set of questions. What if I don't like marketing? What if I get lost (in my third state in less than a year)? What if I don't do well? What if I don't like that city? What if my old work clothes don't fit me? (Yeah, things may be a bit "snug" - beer and pizza have sorta caught up to me this winter.) I'll be fine once it starts but I'm in a mood -- the combination of being away from friends, being bored, and being nervous have made me a bit sad.

On a more pleasant note, things are working together for the summer. I've got transportation taken care of, housing, utilities, etc. I'm still waiting to hear about my specific project (as are a lot of other people), but I'm getting more excited

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.

Anticipation…

We’re now in week 3 of classes. And unlike Fall A and Fall B, people seem to care less and less about class during this term. I think that’s why they made the core front-loaded, so we only have two required classes during Winter A. We’re taking managerial accounting and operations – both very useful classes, the professors are pretty good and really animated. One even loves to cold call. The problem is that the subject matter itself isn’t all that interesting. That makes it hard to get motivated to study, especially if you’ve got other things on your mind. I’m not going to post specifics about my internship situation except to say that you never can tell how well you actually do in an interview.

If you broke down the most commonly asked questions during Winter A, here’s how they went:

Week 1 – January 7 - 13:
How was your break? Did you get someplace warm? That sucks about the Rosebowl/Can you believe Florida won? How many resumes/cover letters did you drop? What else besides core are you taking? How did you rank your MAP projects? You know nobody ever gets their first choice – you should rank your real first choice second.

Week 2 – January 14 – 20:
How’s interview prep? Where did you get close listed? Can you believe interviews start already? Why are managerial accounting and ops so boring? How did that interview go? Why is MBA formal (aka prom) so expensive? Why do our only core classes have group case analyses due at the same time? I need a leadership/teamwork/good commercial example.

Week 3 – January 21 - Today:
How is the job search going? (which really means “do you have an offer yet?”) Cool, you got an offer? Where? Was that your first choice? Are you still interviewing? I’m tired of being asked to “tell me about a time when…” How many of these “pre-interview” dinners can I handle? Can you believe this is our last term as a section?

I mean, of course there’s other things people talk about, but this is the bulk of conversations I feel like I’m having – particularly with friends who I haven’t really seen in a while. As you can imagine, there is quite a bit of nervousness – some have offers, some got rejections, some have additional rounds.

So there’s lots of anticipation going on, mostly b/c MBAs don’t like this feeling of being “up in the air”. Everyone would like to know where they will spend the summer – what job, what industry, what function, what location.

Another source of anticipation – MAP. We’re supposed to find out tomorrow. I hope I get my top choice and work with cool people. I’m one of the idiots who ranked my #1 choice #1. I also chose to choose projects based on my desire to actually do the project instead of location. I imagine after tomorrow, more conversations will shift to “what MAP did you get? Are you excited? Have you been there before? Who else are you working with?

Winter A Has Started!

Happy 2007! I hope all is going well! I can’t believe that in 2006, I submitted applications to business school, got in, visited all the schools, made a $120K decision, quit my crappy job, packed up, moved across the country, and started a whole new life. And I also can’t believe just how much Ann Arbor feels like “home” – even more than my hometown. (Though that may be just because my stuff is in Ann Arbor.) Though I did enjoy the sun, and spending time with friends/family, I did miss my hanging out with my b-school friends.

OK, obligatory post BCS bowl game comment. Umm, I don’t know what the hell happened with the Big-10. USC outplayed us, out-coached us, and just flat out looked better. Kinda made me feel bad for all of that crap I talked about USC. And Florida? I was more shocked by that one than anything else. Oh well. Now football season is over. What does this town do after football season?

After hiding all of my Michigan gear, I got back on the plane and flew back out to AA to start Winter A. To my surprise, when I flew back it was POURING rain. Huh? It’s January! It’s since gotten much colder and snowed, but apparently it’s still much milder than “normal”.

Winter A started on Monday, and brought a surprise snowfall (it rained the night before) and only two core classes: Managerial Accounting and Operations. This is done on purpose so that people can manage their time with interviews as they see fit. Most people seem to have the core classes only on Monday/Wednesday. But others (myself included) are taking at least a 3rd and in some cases a 4th class – either an elective that may help them for the internship, or one of either World Economy, law requirement, writing, or Excel. I’m not sure how I feel about either of those two classes yet. Operations makes the most sense to me because of my previous jobs, but I’m not entirely excited about it.

It’s also interview season here. Many resume drops had deadlines over the break, and the first closed lists came out. It’s strange since nobody wants to ask who got close-listed where, but at the same time, people are very curious. There’s one very popular CPG in particular that people are wondering about. It’s not nearly as tense as I expected it to be around here. There are interview prep groups, and people are very helpful.

MAP project signups also start today. SO many choices: domestic or international, nonprofit or for-profit, and I’m not 100% sure how MAP projects get assigned. There are a few that people are most excited about. We’ll see.