This week saw the wrap up of Q3 of the first year. The quarter flew by faster than anyone expected and I guess before I know it, summer break will be here too but let’s not go there.
Once we got over the initial bewilderment of new sections and new faces, this quarter proved to be great fun. I learnt a ton, and actually started falling in love with a few subjects that I was absolutely petrified of earlier. Finance this quarter was great fun and I can’t wait for second year when I will hopefully get to take the Valuations elective – I envy the folks that are taking that elective next quarter because the professor is one of the best in Darden. Another subject that I kind of got my head around was DA – something I’d struggled with in Q1. Econ for this quarter was extremely informative and I wish I could have taken the elective next quarter but that’s choc full. All in all, we had a great couple of months and with finals next week, I only hope I will do justice to all that I learnt. We wrapped up classes with the social reps organizing lunch after the last class yesterday. And another great way to wrap up the quarter was the election of LP, my Section D and Section V superstar, as the DSA President and K-Mart as DSA VP and special congratulations to fellow blogger Jackie for NAWMBA President.
This quarter is also the last one where learning teams will meet. Next quarter onwards, because of electives, most learning teams choose not to meet. My own team chose not to meet this quarter, but we kept the support going for the most part through emails and exchanges of information. A couple of team based simulation exercises brought us together a few times this quarter and each time it’s been a ton of fun. Most LTs had LT corridor parties – all the teams in a particular corridor had beer + snacks parties. Tonight my team is meeting for dinner at a new Thai place at Barracks and I am really looking forward to catching up with the gang.
With the end of this quarter I guess it’s also the end of winter in some ways – it’s 6pm and there’s still light out. With the fantastic weather we’ve been having over the last couple of days, I’m feeling strangely relaxed. I’m just hoping it doesn’t lead to complacence because there’s a lot of cramming I need to do over this weekend.
Same time next week I’ll be done with finals and packing up to go to Brazil on my GBE. I’m SO excited!!
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
On being grown up
These past few weeks have required me to make a number of decisions on a whole range of things. There’s some on the personal side, some professional, some just plain “life” things. I hate how I get when I have to make these seemingly big choices; I just internalize and think about it until it consumes me and then suddenly I make up my mind and I’m back up again. And just when I think I could not have thought any more, I find myself revisiting the choices I’ve made only to discover there is room for more thought. I am not sure if I’m just more fickle than others – going by the track record I’m not so much, but I do tend to over analyze. It’s never a good thing I guess.
That’s the thing about being grown up. A lot of my choices and decisions have been one way streets with no room to change my mind later and with no one to look up to for advice. Some have been easy to make out of intuition and hard to back up with logic. Others have checked out fine by all sense and logic but then intuition plays spoil sport… a classic head vs heart war dance. Sometimes it’s not even so much of a choice as an attempt just to find out some options to choose from. And you know how they say life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans? There were some things that were creeping up on me that I had no idea about until I woke up one morning and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sigh. I have made my choices and there’s no going back now. I normally assure myself that I have done right by seeing how easily I move on after I’ve decided. In some cases in these past few weeks, I have moved on almost overnight – out with the old and in with the new. But some things have not been that easy, and there is that dull ache of regret. After a whole of quarter of making complex models to solve go/no-go issues with airlines, oil rigs and movie sequels, I discovered that unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), not all of life’s dilemmas can be represented on a decision tree with clear cut EMVs and probabilities where you just pick the best one and get on with it. If only it were that simple.
That’s the thing about being grown up. A lot of my choices and decisions have been one way streets with no room to change my mind later and with no one to look up to for advice. Some have been easy to make out of intuition and hard to back up with logic. Others have checked out fine by all sense and logic but then intuition plays spoil sport… a classic head vs heart war dance. Sometimes it’s not even so much of a choice as an attempt just to find out some options to choose from. And you know how they say life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans? There were some things that were creeping up on me that I had no idea about until I woke up one morning and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sigh. I have made my choices and there’s no going back now. I normally assure myself that I have done right by seeing how easily I move on after I’ve decided. In some cases in these past few weeks, I have moved on almost overnight – out with the old and in with the new. But some things have not been that easy, and there is that dull ache of regret. After a whole of quarter of making complex models to solve go/no-go issues with airlines, oil rigs and movie sequels, I discovered that unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), not all of life’s dilemmas can be represented on a decision tree with clear cut EMVs and probabilities where you just pick the best one and get on with it. If only it were that simple.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Joining the dots
Warning: Long post ahead.
Somewhere in the Darden website there is a page that talks about the integrated curriculum at the school. I thought it was pretty cool when I came across it the first time and I also remember talking about it in my interview. Once in school, there were many weeks when we would do cases in different subjects on the same firm – a lot of times these were narrow focus subjects (looking at the balance sheet or their marketing strategy) and I always thought it was kind of remarkable how the course directors designed our courses such that they came up that way. But this quarter it’s a little more than just remarkable.
Last week, we covered Brazil in more than one subject. So we learnt about it economics, then in finance, and tracing the country’s economic and financial history over the years for one case helped me understand some of the exchange rate discussions we touched upon in finance. And since I’m going to Brazil during spring break I hope that with all that I have learnt about it so far and the reading I am going to do before I get there, I can bridge the time gaps (between the cases and now) to hopefully understand the country better.
And while we’re on countries, I have to tell you, our macroecon class has taken on an interesting avatar this quarter. Every case we are doing is based on a country and in order to give us a background, often there are a couple of pages on the history. It helps us appreciate and understand the causes of the country’s economic picture at the point in time that the case talks about. A lot of times we are forced to acknowledge that not all solutions to a country’s eoconimic problems lie in monetary or fiscal policy and that the customs, politics and people are an important consideration. Sometimes it is none of those but a fallout of something that plagued a whole different continent, that the country in question is paying for. In a sense, each of these cases has felt like a mini capsule of history lesson from a more economic viewpoint. we have traversed South East Asia, Africa and Latin America so far while next week we’re spending a good deal of time on the flavor du jour, India and China. And in all our discussions, the recurrent undercurrent is the importance of ethics in all the decisions that we will be called upon to make once we re-enter the work force.
Similarly, we focused a lot on the airline industry this quarter – nearly every subject has had a case on the airline industry, by focusing on a single airline company and its dynamics with the other players in the industry. Knowing nothing about the airline industry before this, except from the perspective of a traveller, this case took us deep into the industry and a number of interesting view points and insider ideas came about during our class discussions. And in questioning why our course directors decided to give us such an indepth view into the industry, we found out something really important about researching and case writing – it’s all about finding the right amount of public yet correct data!
Another highlight of last week was the first blogger meeting that I could make it to. Sitting over there, chomping on pizza and sharing insights with a bunch of the coolest people in school (and the blogosphere, I think!), I really felt the power all of us carried with us, in our attempt at bridging information from inside Darden to the world outside. It was easy to see why we were all there – because we believe in the school, in the method and in our community and because we are so passionate about this system.
Changing gears a little bit here, I wanted to tell you something interesting about the case method – how class participation is graded here at Darden. In most first year courses, our participation counts for about 40% of our course grade and I would wonder how the points were allotted. So during one of our strategy classes, as we recapped the discussion we had on the previous day’s case on Google, our professor actually recapped the entire class in under 5 minutes, talking about the key insights that the class brought out including pointing out the students that made these insights. He remembered exactly how the discussion flowed and what we concluded and nicely summed it up with what we were supposed to have taken away from it. I guess the key to the case method system of learning is to be able to do just that in order to arrive at the take away and the lessons learnt from that particular class, to cut through the meandering flow that sometimes takes place in a particularly obtuse case.
In other words, in the case method, you have to step back every once in a while to tie it all back in, to join the dots, sit back and say aha, because what emerges is nothing short of a work of art!
Somewhere in the Darden website there is a page that talks about the integrated curriculum at the school. I thought it was pretty cool when I came across it the first time and I also remember talking about it in my interview. Once in school, there were many weeks when we would do cases in different subjects on the same firm – a lot of times these were narrow focus subjects (looking at the balance sheet or their marketing strategy) and I always thought it was kind of remarkable how the course directors designed our courses such that they came up that way. But this quarter it’s a little more than just remarkable.
Last week, we covered Brazil in more than one subject. So we learnt about it economics, then in finance, and tracing the country’s economic and financial history over the years for one case helped me understand some of the exchange rate discussions we touched upon in finance. And since I’m going to Brazil during spring break I hope that with all that I have learnt about it so far and the reading I am going to do before I get there, I can bridge the time gaps (between the cases and now) to hopefully understand the country better.
And while we’re on countries, I have to tell you, our macroecon class has taken on an interesting avatar this quarter. Every case we are doing is based on a country and in order to give us a background, often there are a couple of pages on the history. It helps us appreciate and understand the causes of the country’s economic picture at the point in time that the case talks about. A lot of times we are forced to acknowledge that not all solutions to a country’s eoconimic problems lie in monetary or fiscal policy and that the customs, politics and people are an important consideration. Sometimes it is none of those but a fallout of something that plagued a whole different continent, that the country in question is paying for. In a sense, each of these cases has felt like a mini capsule of history lesson from a more economic viewpoint. we have traversed South East Asia, Africa and Latin America so far while next week we’re spending a good deal of time on the flavor du jour, India and China. And in all our discussions, the recurrent undercurrent is the importance of ethics in all the decisions that we will be called upon to make once we re-enter the work force.
Similarly, we focused a lot on the airline industry this quarter – nearly every subject has had a case on the airline industry, by focusing on a single airline company and its dynamics with the other players in the industry. Knowing nothing about the airline industry before this, except from the perspective of a traveller, this case took us deep into the industry and a number of interesting view points and insider ideas came about during our class discussions. And in questioning why our course directors decided to give us such an indepth view into the industry, we found out something really important about researching and case writing – it’s all about finding the right amount of public yet correct data!
Another highlight of last week was the first blogger meeting that I could make it to. Sitting over there, chomping on pizza and sharing insights with a bunch of the coolest people in school (and the blogosphere, I think!), I really felt the power all of us carried with us, in our attempt at bridging information from inside Darden to the world outside. It was easy to see why we were all there – because we believe in the school, in the method and in our community and because we are so passionate about this system.
Changing gears a little bit here, I wanted to tell you something interesting about the case method – how class participation is graded here at Darden. In most first year courses, our participation counts for about 40% of our course grade and I would wonder how the points were allotted. So during one of our strategy classes, as we recapped the discussion we had on the previous day’s case on Google, our professor actually recapped the entire class in under 5 minutes, talking about the key insights that the class brought out including pointing out the students that made these insights. He remembered exactly how the discussion flowed and what we concluded and nicely summed it up with what we were supposed to have taken away from it. I guess the key to the case method system of learning is to be able to do just that in order to arrive at the take away and the lessons learnt from that particular class, to cut through the meandering flow that sometimes takes place in a particularly obtuse case.
In other words, in the case method, you have to step back every once in a while to tie it all back in, to join the dots, sit back and say aha, because what emerges is nothing short of a work of art!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Three-two-one
Sums up the topic of my post. Third quarter, second row (in class), first week.
Q3 classes began last Monday for the class of 2010. I have a whole new section – just a fourth of my class comprises of the familiar faces from Section D, the others being from sections A, B, and C – no section E since our new classroom is the Section E classroom – with the tap dancing blackboard.
It’s been a weird sort of week for me. There are a lot of people in my class I have never seen before and I’m only just getting to putting names to faces. It doesn’t help that I’m no longer in my perch on the last row, at the top of the class – the one I referred to as prime real estate in an earlier post. This time I’m in row 2, right under the teacher’s nose, uncomfortably so, if I may add – I got cold-called in 2 of 3 classes on the first day of the quarter! It’s comforting to have some familiar faces in class, but they’re all so far interspersed that they are almost lost in the sea of unfamiliar ones. In the Darden curriculum, a lot of the classroom experience is a function of the class dynamics and in this first week I’m still trying to put my finger on the pulse of it. This I know for sure – there’s an awful lot of ex/current bankers in my class – they’re the lot I’m somehow always intimated by, don’t ask me why! I miss my section D, but I get to meet a whole bunch of new people and they already seem like fun!
The subjects and the set up this quarter are deceptively laidback. Nearly every Friday is a reading day – more like a callback day for recruiting activities. We have strategy, more finance, decision analysis once again, GEM (but no P-Rod) and communication. So far all the classes have been pretty interesting. We also have a whole new set of professors, so that’s another thing you have to figure out – different professors respond to the class dynamics in different ways. While some are very cold-call-friendly, others are very voluntary-class-participation-friendly. I’m kind of undecided on which one is the lesser of two evils.
So why this week is weird is simply because I’ve been feeling oddly restless in class. And so have a lot of people. There’s two kinds of people in the classroom these days – one kind that have got jobs for the summer. They are the kinds that literally drag their feet to class (shout out to YG for the GS offer and to GC for McK).The other kind are the ones who also drag their feet to class but only because they are still looking for jobs and therefore would rather be hooked up (to the internet) doing something to further their efforts – that precious green light is being promptly switched off before and during every class, cutting us off from the internet. Thankfully classes (and comments) are interesting enough for me to zone in and out of my reverie often enough to actually type out enough notes!
It’s Saturday night and I stopped by Starbucks on the way back from dinner. A night of insomnia follows.
Q3 classes began last Monday for the class of 2010. I have a whole new section – just a fourth of my class comprises of the familiar faces from Section D, the others being from sections A, B, and C – no section E since our new classroom is the Section E classroom – with the tap dancing blackboard.
It’s been a weird sort of week for me. There are a lot of people in my class I have never seen before and I’m only just getting to putting names to faces. It doesn’t help that I’m no longer in my perch on the last row, at the top of the class – the one I referred to as prime real estate in an earlier post. This time I’m in row 2, right under the teacher’s nose, uncomfortably so, if I may add – I got cold-called in 2 of 3 classes on the first day of the quarter! It’s comforting to have some familiar faces in class, but they’re all so far interspersed that they are almost lost in the sea of unfamiliar ones. In the Darden curriculum, a lot of the classroom experience is a function of the class dynamics and in this first week I’m still trying to put my finger on the pulse of it. This I know for sure – there’s an awful lot of ex/current bankers in my class – they’re the lot I’m somehow always intimated by, don’t ask me why! I miss my section D, but I get to meet a whole bunch of new people and they already seem like fun!
The subjects and the set up this quarter are deceptively laidback. Nearly every Friday is a reading day – more like a callback day for recruiting activities. We have strategy, more finance, decision analysis once again, GEM (but no P-Rod) and communication. So far all the classes have been pretty interesting. We also have a whole new set of professors, so that’s another thing you have to figure out – different professors respond to the class dynamics in different ways. While some are very cold-call-friendly, others are very voluntary-class-participation-friendly. I’m kind of undecided on which one is the lesser of two evils.
So why this week is weird is simply because I’ve been feeling oddly restless in class. And so have a lot of people. There’s two kinds of people in the classroom these days – one kind that have got jobs for the summer. They are the kinds that literally drag their feet to class (shout out to YG for the GS offer and to GC for McK).The other kind are the ones who also drag their feet to class but only because they are still looking for jobs and therefore would rather be hooked up (to the internet) doing something to further their efforts – that precious green light is being promptly switched off before and during every class, cutting us off from the internet. Thankfully classes (and comments) are interesting enough for me to zone in and out of my reverie often enough to actually type out enough notes!
It’s Saturday night and I stopped by Starbucks on the way back from dinner. A night of insomnia follows.
Friday, January 16, 2009
The 4Ps of an internship search
Take one super awesome SY, and four hungry and tired FYs. Put them in a hallway in school. Get them talking about consulting firms. Amidst a lot of back slapping, high-fiveing and PJs, here’s what you get!
Second year SN (“What do you want to do?”) and first years AK, AS, RJ and yours truly present:
The 4 Ps of a consulting internship search:
Project / Position – The position or role you want to go for. Corporate strategy vs Supply Chain Strategy. Business Technology Consulting vs S&O consulting. Healthcare consulting vs energy consulting. List is endless.
Place – Everyone wants to go to New York. But there are other offices. Most websites have an interactive map that lights up your location when you click on it. Pretty cute stuff. So yeah, there’s life outside of New York.
People – The “fit” factor (no it doesn’t end with business school applications). The culture. The work-life balance. Over rated in a down economy but we’re going to leave it there for the sake of the 4Ps.
Payment – The salary. You want a good salary and you look at that right from now since you have the long term in mind (translated – if they offer you a full time position). Period. If you need more explanation, maybe you want to look at non-profit work.
Second year SN (“What do you want to do?”) and first years AK, AS, RJ and yours truly present:
The 4 Ps of a consulting internship search:
Project / Position – The position or role you want to go for. Corporate strategy vs Supply Chain Strategy. Business Technology Consulting vs S&O consulting. Healthcare consulting vs energy consulting. List is endless.
Place – Everyone wants to go to New York. But there are other offices. Most websites have an interactive map that lights up your location when you click on it. Pretty cute stuff. So yeah, there’s life outside of New York.
People – The “fit” factor (no it doesn’t end with business school applications). The culture. The work-life balance. Over rated in a down economy but we’re going to leave it there for the sake of the 4Ps.
Payment – The salary. You want a good salary and you look at that right from now since you have the long term in mind (translated – if they offer you a full time position). Period. If you need more explanation, maybe you want to look at non-profit work.
Chin up
You know what’s coming from the title. And by the end of this post you’re probably going to ask me if I want some cheese (LT39 will get this one).
When I was hanging out at the Root residence on Christmas Eve all I could wish for was that I get the gift of an interview call at a consulting firm. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled in, all I wished for was any firm to call me for an interview. 12 days into the New Year, all I’d received were reject letters, and the year was threatening to turn into one massive nightmare. On day 13 I got my first invite, but going by the number of offers firms are making here, I don’t even know if I should be hopeful. I will admit that others in my school will tell you it’s too early to press the panic button. I will also admit that when I came to business school I really thought I’d put my foot in the door to a great career. I thought my days of worry and of feeling like I was headed nowhere were finally over. Someone in Wall Street obviously had other plans.
I don’t like this feeling of general all pervading gloom that seems to have set up shop in my head. And I hate playing party-pooper with my friends. But these wonderful people who I have the privilege of calling friends, stand by me, calling me up and telling me it’s going to be ok. They’re the most awesome people and I’m thankful to just know them. You all know who you are and I want you to know I’m grateful for your support, especially the one you’ve given me in the last two weeks. Special thanks for all the hugs, chai meetings and to those who would call me on the phone only to hear my outburst of frustration.
Sometimes you just have to look for treasure in the unlikeliest of places. Sometimes good tidings also come when you least expect them. They tell us the way out is to cast a wide net, as wide as you possibly can. I watch some of my batch mates holed up in learning team rooms doing cases while others walk the halls looking sharper than before in crisp suits and I feel a sense of deep disappointment for not being a part of the race. And then I hear of the offers that are coming in – less than 5% of the total interview invite list, and I wonder which of us would be more depressed – the suit clad banker-wannabe or me.
In other news, I’d gone to Seattle on a job trek last week. Standing in Microsoft’s Redmond campus, the techie in me was full of glee, like a kid in a candy store. I felt strangely comfortable and familiar and awe for the organization, its culture and its products, so much that I could actually see myself working there! And there’s a lot to be said about the Darden alum – they all took time off their schedules to spend an informative couple of hours with us. It was the same case with the other firms we visited – everywhere the Darden alum were there to talk to us about school, work, internship search and even networking! We capped off the evening with a student-alumni mixer which was a great opportunity to talk at length with all the alum we’d met in the course of the day. And while I really liked Seattle, I didn’t like how far away it is and how it took me forever to get back home. Like every trip I’ve been on, I met some interesting people on the flights; including another bschooler from Cornell (we exchanged some gloom).
I’m back in the Ville now and yes I’d like some cheese. And I’d love a belated Christmas gift too. Actually just a gift would be nice…
When I was hanging out at the Root residence on Christmas Eve all I could wish for was that I get the gift of an interview call at a consulting firm. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled in, all I wished for was any firm to call me for an interview. 12 days into the New Year, all I’d received were reject letters, and the year was threatening to turn into one massive nightmare. On day 13 I got my first invite, but going by the number of offers firms are making here, I don’t even know if I should be hopeful. I will admit that others in my school will tell you it’s too early to press the panic button. I will also admit that when I came to business school I really thought I’d put my foot in the door to a great career. I thought my days of worry and of feeling like I was headed nowhere were finally over. Someone in Wall Street obviously had other plans.
I don’t like this feeling of general all pervading gloom that seems to have set up shop in my head. And I hate playing party-pooper with my friends. But these wonderful people who I have the privilege of calling friends, stand by me, calling me up and telling me it’s going to be ok. They’re the most awesome people and I’m thankful to just know them. You all know who you are and I want you to know I’m grateful for your support, especially the one you’ve given me in the last two weeks. Special thanks for all the hugs, chai meetings and to those who would call me on the phone only to hear my outburst of frustration.
Sometimes you just have to look for treasure in the unlikeliest of places. Sometimes good tidings also come when you least expect them. They tell us the way out is to cast a wide net, as wide as you possibly can. I watch some of my batch mates holed up in learning team rooms doing cases while others walk the halls looking sharper than before in crisp suits and I feel a sense of deep disappointment for not being a part of the race. And then I hear of the offers that are coming in – less than 5% of the total interview invite list, and I wonder which of us would be more depressed – the suit clad banker-wannabe or me.
In other news, I’d gone to Seattle on a job trek last week. Standing in Microsoft’s Redmond campus, the techie in me was full of glee, like a kid in a candy store. I felt strangely comfortable and familiar and awe for the organization, its culture and its products, so much that I could actually see myself working there! And there’s a lot to be said about the Darden alum – they all took time off their schedules to spend an informative couple of hours with us. It was the same case with the other firms we visited – everywhere the Darden alum were there to talk to us about school, work, internship search and even networking! We capped off the evening with a student-alumni mixer which was a great opportunity to talk at length with all the alum we’d met in the course of the day. And while I really liked Seattle, I didn’t like how far away it is and how it took me forever to get back home. Like every trip I’ve been on, I met some interesting people on the flights; including another bschooler from Cornell (we exchanged some gloom).
I’m back in the Ville now and yes I’d like some cheese. And I’d love a belated Christmas gift too. Actually just a gift would be nice…
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Watching the ball drop on 2008
I remember the post I wrote same time last year. I remember like it was yesterday that I was sitting in my office in Bangalore as the clock struck midnight on the last night of 2007, writing that post and editing my essays for Darden while making plans to fly out to the US that same week. Looking back now, I could say I was in denial for the most part, but itching to get somewhere better than where I was at that time. Just that week, two out of the 4 business schools I had applied to had communicated their dings and I had no idea what I was going to do or where I was going. The only light was the change of scenery in the work place that I was being offered.
Coming to the US changed me so much! It seemed like I was learning something new at work every day, and then there was Darden. I’ll spare you details, but that was undoubtedly the best thing to happen to me in a long long time. I have to thank a lot of people for their faith in me, but special thanks to PV for his constant egging and nudging, for convincing me to take the plunge and apply. Summer of 2008 passed by in a whoosh, 2+ months of getting pampered at home by the family and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was time to board the flight again, to make that 24 hour journey to the place I’d begun to think of as home.
Darden. Oh what can I possible say about it that I haven’t already said before? Every day has been a new experience. I’m continuing to meet great people from different countries of the world, realizing that geographies are just lines on a flat bit of paper and that in essence we’re all the same, here to chase our dreams, ambitions and so much more. I can see that I have changed so much in the last 6 months of being here.
Without a doubt, the last year was one where I worked harder than I had ever before – first at work and then at school. I knew going in that the year was going to bring in a lot of change, but I had no idea it would be this big. Priorities, thought processes, attitudes – all changed, seemingly for the better, but only time can tell.
The coming year is going to be the big one. This time I know it and not just feel it. For starters, there are two recruitment seasons to get by at school – the internship as well as the full time in the second year. I’m going to travel to a new continent in the first quarter of the year – first person in my family to get a South American stamp on the passport, woo hoo! There’s exams, the end of first year, the start of the second year, welcoming new students, and god knows what other adventures and experiences await me and my class in this eventful year. And this is just school – which I can safely assume will be almost 100% of my world/life for this year – very welcome too! Of course, I will be blogging through it all!
Last New Year’s Eve I told myself I’d watch the ball drop from Times Square in real time - I had thought I would go to NY. This time I did watch the ball drop in real time, not from NYC but right here in NoVa. And the setting was so much better! I was surrounded by people I did not know until I met them few hours ago, yet they made me feel so welcome. New Year’s Eve couldn’t have been better, neither could new year’s day – so far away from home, yet I never felt like I was a stranger. Cheers to good friends, great people, an eventful, life-altering new year and to the rest of the blogosphere.
Note to business school applicants: Some of you may have your dreams come true this year. Some of you may not. For those in the first category, you’re going to remember this year for the rest of your lives. For those in the second, don’t worry because in the grand scheme of things, this setback will mean nothing more than a blip in a pretty blipful life! Irrespective of which bucket you fall under, good luck to all of you.
Coming to the US changed me so much! It seemed like I was learning something new at work every day, and then there was Darden. I’ll spare you details, but that was undoubtedly the best thing to happen to me in a long long time. I have to thank a lot of people for their faith in me, but special thanks to PV for his constant egging and nudging, for convincing me to take the plunge and apply. Summer of 2008 passed by in a whoosh, 2+ months of getting pampered at home by the family and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was time to board the flight again, to make that 24 hour journey to the place I’d begun to think of as home.
Darden. Oh what can I possible say about it that I haven’t already said before? Every day has been a new experience. I’m continuing to meet great people from different countries of the world, realizing that geographies are just lines on a flat bit of paper and that in essence we’re all the same, here to chase our dreams, ambitions and so much more. I can see that I have changed so much in the last 6 months of being here.
Without a doubt, the last year was one where I worked harder than I had ever before – first at work and then at school. I knew going in that the year was going to bring in a lot of change, but I had no idea it would be this big. Priorities, thought processes, attitudes – all changed, seemingly for the better, but only time can tell.
The coming year is going to be the big one. This time I know it and not just feel it. For starters, there are two recruitment seasons to get by at school – the internship as well as the full time in the second year. I’m going to travel to a new continent in the first quarter of the year – first person in my family to get a South American stamp on the passport, woo hoo! There’s exams, the end of first year, the start of the second year, welcoming new students, and god knows what other adventures and experiences await me and my class in this eventful year. And this is just school – which I can safely assume will be almost 100% of my world/life for this year – very welcome too! Of course, I will be blogging through it all!
Last New Year’s Eve I told myself I’d watch the ball drop from Times Square in real time - I had thought I would go to NY. This time I did watch the ball drop in real time, not from NYC but right here in NoVa. And the setting was so much better! I was surrounded by people I did not know until I met them few hours ago, yet they made me feel so welcome. New Year’s Eve couldn’t have been better, neither could new year’s day – so far away from home, yet I never felt like I was a stranger. Cheers to good friends, great people, an eventful, life-altering new year and to the rest of the blogosphere.
Note to business school applicants: Some of you may have your dreams come true this year. Some of you may not. For those in the first category, you’re going to remember this year for the rest of your lives. For those in the second, don’t worry because in the grand scheme of things, this setback will mean nothing more than a blip in a pretty blipful life! Irrespective of which bucket you fall under, good luck to all of you.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Hanukah, Christmas and stuff in between
Since Hanukah came first, I’m going to talk about that. The Root residence hosted us C’ville orphans, as we’re now called, one evening to witness the lighting of the first candle of Hanukah. Being totally ignorant of all things Jewish (except the phrase about sounding like Hebrew), this was a fantastically enlightening evening. The Roots and the Katz (another Israeli family from the second year) recited the story of Hanukah and sang the traditional prayer, even translating it for us. Of course, there was delicious finger food and wine. That was also the first time I sampled Oren’s brilliant Turkish coffee and the guy, bless him, had stoked up the fireplace as well. I headed out “early” (in Darden, early is just before midnight) while some folks stayed behind to watch a movie.
Well, the Charlottesville orphans had so much fun on Hanukah that the Roots decided to host us again, this time for a potluck Christmas dinner. I will spare you the menu, but will tell you that it was delicious and had some fantastic Indian chicken and vegetables and Mrs. Root's finger licking stuffed chicken along with a variety of rice. Great conversation, some pictures and a lot of laughs later we decided to watch a movie of course! This one ended late, not too late though, and only after a round of Oren’s Turkish Coffee!
In between all this, there was a lot of Starbucks coffee trips, drives in the night on the foggy Blue Ridge Mountain highway, shopping trips, movies, long conversations over phone and chat and some spring cleaning.
This whole experience got me thinking about how closeted my vacations were in India. Of course I know all about the Christmas dinner and the joy and cheer, but for me it was always just a holiday! But being here, sharing the festive occasions with other people that I didn’t know from Adams even 6 months back was a fantastic experience. It is to experience this stuff that I decided to uproot from the place I called home for twenty six years, to travel half way across the world and come to Darden. With each passing day, I feel like I am learning so much both inside and outside of school.
It’s strange that as I’m building relationships on the one hand, I am severing some. For the first time in this country, I’m going to move out of a shared residence and get my own place. I know it’s no big deal and a bunch of people choose to do it anyway, but somehow this feels different. There is this exhilarating feeling of independence but there is also a niggling fear of getting cut off from all things familiar. I suppose it’s a natural reaction to change.
There is one regret though – I didn’t get to eat chocolate cake. One of my greatest weaknesses is chocolate cake – all chocolate with nothing white in it! And the one place I did find it, they refused to cut me a piece since they were going to be closed for Christmas and therefore wanted to be able to sell the whole cake. So much for a craving!
So what's it going to be for New Year's eve? I figure a good way to cap off this excitingly unexpected adventure of a year is to watch the ball drop at Times Square... Am I adventurous enough to make a trip to the Big Apple next week? Let's see...
Well, the Charlottesville orphans had so much fun on Hanukah that the Roots decided to host us again, this time for a potluck Christmas dinner. I will spare you the menu, but will tell you that it was delicious and had some fantastic Indian chicken and vegetables and Mrs. Root's finger licking stuffed chicken along with a variety of rice. Great conversation, some pictures and a lot of laughs later we decided to watch a movie of course! This one ended late, not too late though, and only after a round of Oren’s Turkish Coffee!
In between all this, there was a lot of Starbucks coffee trips, drives in the night on the foggy Blue Ridge Mountain highway, shopping trips, movies, long conversations over phone and chat and some spring cleaning.
This whole experience got me thinking about how closeted my vacations were in India. Of course I know all about the Christmas dinner and the joy and cheer, but for me it was always just a holiday! But being here, sharing the festive occasions with other people that I didn’t know from Adams even 6 months back was a fantastic experience. It is to experience this stuff that I decided to uproot from the place I called home for twenty six years, to travel half way across the world and come to Darden. With each passing day, I feel like I am learning so much both inside and outside of school.
It’s strange that as I’m building relationships on the one hand, I am severing some. For the first time in this country, I’m going to move out of a shared residence and get my own place. I know it’s no big deal and a bunch of people choose to do it anyway, but somehow this feels different. There is this exhilarating feeling of independence but there is also a niggling fear of getting cut off from all things familiar. I suppose it’s a natural reaction to change.
There is one regret though – I didn’t get to eat chocolate cake. One of my greatest weaknesses is chocolate cake – all chocolate with nothing white in it! And the one place I did find it, they refused to cut me a piece since they were going to be closed for Christmas and therefore wanted to be able to sell the whole cake. So much for a craving!
So what's it going to be for New Year's eve? I figure a good way to cap off this excitingly unexpected adventure of a year is to watch the ball drop at Times Square... Am I adventurous enough to make a trip to the Big Apple next week? Let's see...
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
On why being idle does not agree with me
So I’m sick. It's not because I’m missing home. I’m not missing warm sunny India either. I’m not missing my mom’s cooking – ok ,THAT I am missing terribly! I do not want to eat one more day of my own cooking!
I am sick because I miss having work. I miss having to race against time to make it to my 8AM class in classroom 180 with all the awesome section D ppl! I miss my learning team. And I am sick of the fact that it gets dark at 5pm and I don’t have a watch on and I am all disoriented about what time it is. And I am also a little sick of the fact that a whole bunch of my friends have gone home or on job treks for the hols and so I miss them – I miss going to the coffee place and wasting away over a cup of cappuccino.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have an internship yet and due to the down economy the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is kind of fading out too. I have tons of work to do – like reaching out to companies and case prep for the interviews. I have apartment moving work to do too – yes I’m stupid enough to move apartments in the middle of the school year. And I should be booking tickets and accommodation for my trip to Seattle early next year. But instead of checking these (and whole host of other things) off my list of to-dos, I am choosing to waste away the time doing I-don’t-know-what. I so hope my mother is not reading this right now.
This is the time I was counting down to since the beginning of the second quarter. I had a ton of plans including hitting the gym (day 4 and counting and all I’ve done towards losing a few pounds is play an evening of tennis) and now that the time is finally here I am unable to shake off that feeling of general laziness and get out of the brain-dead mode.
I am going to try to get up at 6AM tomorrow – maybe all I’m missing is the boot camp rigor. It seems like a good time to check how much self-organization I’ve learnt in this one semester of Darden. I am hoping to have mastered it by the time graduation rolls by so I hope I am at least better than I was before I came here.
I’ll sign off now. Back to my… er… back to doing nothing.
I am sick because I miss having work. I miss having to race against time to make it to my 8AM class in classroom 180 with all the awesome section D ppl! I miss my learning team. And I am sick of the fact that it gets dark at 5pm and I don’t have a watch on and I am all disoriented about what time it is. And I am also a little sick of the fact that a whole bunch of my friends have gone home or on job treks for the hols and so I miss them – I miss going to the coffee place and wasting away over a cup of cappuccino.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t have an internship yet and due to the down economy the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is kind of fading out too. I have tons of work to do – like reaching out to companies and case prep for the interviews. I have apartment moving work to do too – yes I’m stupid enough to move apartments in the middle of the school year. And I should be booking tickets and accommodation for my trip to Seattle early next year. But instead of checking these (and whole host of other things) off my list of to-dos, I am choosing to waste away the time doing I-don’t-know-what. I so hope my mother is not reading this right now.
This is the time I was counting down to since the beginning of the second quarter. I had a ton of plans including hitting the gym (day 4 and counting and all I’ve done towards losing a few pounds is play an evening of tennis) and now that the time is finally here I am unable to shake off that feeling of general laziness and get out of the brain-dead mode.
I am going to try to get up at 6AM tomorrow – maybe all I’m missing is the boot camp rigor. It seems like a good time to check how much self-organization I’ve learnt in this one semester of Darden. I am hoping to have mastered it by the time graduation rolls by so I hope I am at least better than I was before I came here.
I’ll sign off now. Back to my… er… back to doing nothing.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Twenty five percent!
That’s how much of an MBA I am as of today! After a week of finals, the class of 2010 is finally through with second quarter, the one touted to be the most grueling. And what an eventful week it has been. When we weren’t saving the Japanese economy, we were figuring out ways to transport lubricants from one continent to another. One day we were selling healthy jams the other day we sold lumber. After playing the all knowing CEO for a week, I can finally relax at home and be plain old me! There’s just one problem though – I don’t know what to do!
I’m not crazy, I swear! I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I should be doing something, I should be obsessively checking my outlook or I should be booting up to head out to the library. But I don’t need to do any of that. My outlook is free – for all evening! I can’t remember the last time I had a free calendar. There are NO cases to do for tomorrow. I don’t have to head out to the library for anything. All I have to do is get dressed to go party! But I still can’t help feeling all empty on the inside. I remember dragging myself out of bed this morning and vowing to crawl back under the sheets in 7 hours’ time and not wake up till its Saturday. My eyes are tired – you try doing 5 hour exams a day! – but my brain is buzzing.
There are a bunch of parties happening tonight. If you’re one of the really popular ones and have the beer guzzling capacity of a keg, you can go party hopping! I know a few people who probably have been at the corner all afternoon (and it’s not even 7pm yet)! If you went down to Barracks road now, you’d probably find a few Section Social Reps stocking up on the kegs!
What am I going to do? Well after I put away my cases for Q3 – yep, they did it again, they put the case packets for next quarter in our mailboxes, for us to find as we turned in our exams today – I will probably clean up my room and find out where I want to go for the night! One small note of appreciation for the school though. In a bid to be more environmentally conscious based on feedback from us students, the school decided to run a pilot project by giving us one subject in electronic form as opposed to paper. In other words, come Q3, we will have our finance cases on our computers and not as sheets in our binders. When the survey got sent out, I had expected the student response to be in favor of this move and I had also expected the school to do something about it. I had not expected the school to react so fast; they deserve a pat on the back!
I am signing out now; not because I am out of things to say – if you know me at all, you'd know that I’m NEVER out of things to say! But I’m going to be by myself now, to reflect on the semester that’s gone by. It feels like just yesterday that I got that call from Darden informing me of my admission. What do you know, I’m already one semester down, calling this place my home, and not getting enough of my awesome classmates! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!
I’m not crazy, I swear! I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I should be doing something, I should be obsessively checking my outlook or I should be booting up to head out to the library. But I don’t need to do any of that. My outlook is free – for all evening! I can’t remember the last time I had a free calendar. There are NO cases to do for tomorrow. I don’t have to head out to the library for anything. All I have to do is get dressed to go party! But I still can’t help feeling all empty on the inside. I remember dragging myself out of bed this morning and vowing to crawl back under the sheets in 7 hours’ time and not wake up till its Saturday. My eyes are tired – you try doing 5 hour exams a day! – but my brain is buzzing.
There are a bunch of parties happening tonight. If you’re one of the really popular ones and have the beer guzzling capacity of a keg, you can go party hopping! I know a few people who probably have been at the corner all afternoon (and it’s not even 7pm yet)! If you went down to Barracks road now, you’d probably find a few Section Social Reps stocking up on the kegs!
What am I going to do? Well after I put away my cases for Q3 – yep, they did it again, they put the case packets for next quarter in our mailboxes, for us to find as we turned in our exams today – I will probably clean up my room and find out where I want to go for the night! One small note of appreciation for the school though. In a bid to be more environmentally conscious based on feedback from us students, the school decided to run a pilot project by giving us one subject in electronic form as opposed to paper. In other words, come Q3, we will have our finance cases on our computers and not as sheets in our binders. When the survey got sent out, I had expected the student response to be in favor of this move and I had also expected the school to do something about it. I had not expected the school to react so fast; they deserve a pat on the back!
I am signing out now; not because I am out of things to say – if you know me at all, you'd know that I’m NEVER out of things to say! But I’m going to be by myself now, to reflect on the semester that’s gone by. It feels like just yesterday that I got that call from Darden informing me of my admission. What do you know, I’m already one semester down, calling this place my home, and not getting enough of my awesome classmates! Time sure does fly when you’re having fun!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The darkest week of Black November...
… is the first week of December. The week that officially begins tomorrow (but unofficially began this morning) is brutal to say the least. A zillion cover letters to write for deadlines that begin tomorrow and culminate in double digit number of resume drops for Friday and some recruiting event or the other for every day of this week. Oh and in case it’s not obvious, we still have to get through 3 cases a day!
In my previous post I’d written about having to churn out cover letters over this break. It’s with more than a touch of regret that I admit that I have not even done half the cover letters I had planned to get done. I’d also planned a spot of studying to get up to speed on some coursework that flew way above my head during classes (no prizes for guessing which classes those were), but of course between waking up well after normal waking hours and going to get coffee from Starbucks, I did not get any of that done. I suppose my to-do list is unchecked partly because of being glued to the television for 2 days in a row with the Mumbai drama.
Finally, a bunch of my classmates are back or on the way back to the Ville. This break was a welcome one and I guess I’m not the only one who’s counting down to the start of winter break. Meanwhile a handful of people who wrote too many cover letters have started cracking bad jokes on Facebook – a sure sign that they’ve worked too hard (finger pointed at AS here).
Facebook reminds me: you know, I never thought I’d be eligible to apply for a job at Facebook! Hell, being able to do a web conference with Google makes coming all the way to Darden totally worth it (it really is every past/present/future techie's dream come true!). Isn’t it cool how many new doors business school opens up for you?
In my previous post I’d written about having to churn out cover letters over this break. It’s with more than a touch of regret that I admit that I have not even done half the cover letters I had planned to get done. I’d also planned a spot of studying to get up to speed on some coursework that flew way above my head during classes (no prizes for guessing which classes those were), but of course between waking up well after normal waking hours and going to get coffee from Starbucks, I did not get any of that done. I suppose my to-do list is unchecked partly because of being glued to the television for 2 days in a row with the Mumbai drama.
Finally, a bunch of my classmates are back or on the way back to the Ville. This break was a welcome one and I guess I’m not the only one who’s counting down to the start of winter break. Meanwhile a handful of people who wrote too many cover letters have started cracking bad jokes on Facebook – a sure sign that they’ve worked too hard (finger pointed at AS here).
Facebook reminds me: you know, I never thought I’d be eligible to apply for a job at Facebook! Hell, being able to do a web conference with Google makes coming all the way to Darden totally worth it (it really is every past/present/future techie's dream come true!). Isn’t it cool how many new doors business school opens up for you?
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Complete Thanksgiving Meal
Darden hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for all of us international students earlier this week. It was my first ever thanksgiving in the US and I was understandably excited. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t about the food (and I’ll tell you why in a bit). The things I associated with Thanksgiving were all the movies where the family gets together and some embarrassment or feud ensues and of course the thanksgiving episodes from Friends! I wanted to create my own Thanksgiving memory – secretly I was hoping for drama, but hey, the real Thanksgiving is tomorrow so all is not lost yet!
The food now… aah what can I say! I’ve gone vegetarian since I got to the US this time – the last time I was here I was feasting on chicken and I think I overdosed on the stuff. Plus this time I had to listen to a really long lecture from the parents before I got left India about the virtues of vegetarianism – all of which I agree with, mind you – and I met some really vegetarian people too (there is vegetarian and then there is really vegetarian, trust me, I’m not making this up) to serve as inspiration. So I figured I might as well try going green, after all green is the new black (though the currency markets might think differently). Phew I’ve said all of that so now I can say this: I ate the turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner. Relief!
I wanted to experience the real deal, all of the authentic Thanksgiving food. So there was turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie… it was at Abbott and needless to say, it was lip smacking delicious. Add to that the fun company of Denise Karaoli from the Office of International students and a bunch of internationals from my class and you had all the ingredients for a fantastic evening where I almost forgot about the 3 cases I had due for the next day. Oren and I agreed that skipping learning team that night was not going to hold too heavy on the conscience, so we did!
I suppose on Thanksgiving you feel thankful for being where and who you are, for your family and for all the good in your life. My family is far away in India and I don’t need Thanksgiving to feel grateful for having them in my life. Not a day goes by when I don’t miss my folks. But this Thanksgiving, I was especially thankful to my new extended family – all the people I have met at Darden. I am thankful for just being here. If someone had told me back in February when I’d visited the Ville to interview, that I would come back here for school, I would not have believed them. I fell in love with the school but also realized that there were other more accomplished people who deserved to go here. I am thankful that I am here today, calling this place home and sharing it with so many talented and wonderful people. My classmates never cease to awe me and there are some classes where I am sitting, amazed at the sheer quality of the professor before me. There are second year students that are way up there on my list of people I respect, who I wish I had time to get to know better. So while a whole bunch of my classmates are enjoying the holiday season with their families and a lot of them are laboring over the zillion cover letters we need to churn out by the end of the vacation, I am sitting here at my desk in my apartment just marveling at how far away I am from the world I lived in just a few months ago.
Thank you, Darden, for letting me be a part of your universe.
The food now… aah what can I say! I’ve gone vegetarian since I got to the US this time – the last time I was here I was feasting on chicken and I think I overdosed on the stuff. Plus this time I had to listen to a really long lecture from the parents before I got left India about the virtues of vegetarianism – all of which I agree with, mind you – and I met some really vegetarian people too (there is vegetarian and then there is really vegetarian, trust me, I’m not making this up) to serve as inspiration. So I figured I might as well try going green, after all green is the new black (though the currency markets might think differently). Phew I’ve said all of that so now I can say this: I ate the turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner. Relief!
I wanted to experience the real deal, all of the authentic Thanksgiving food. So there was turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie… it was at Abbott and needless to say, it was lip smacking delicious. Add to that the fun company of Denise Karaoli from the Office of International students and a bunch of internationals from my class and you had all the ingredients for a fantastic evening where I almost forgot about the 3 cases I had due for the next day. Oren and I agreed that skipping learning team that night was not going to hold too heavy on the conscience, so we did!
I suppose on Thanksgiving you feel thankful for being where and who you are, for your family and for all the good in your life. My family is far away in India and I don’t need Thanksgiving to feel grateful for having them in my life. Not a day goes by when I don’t miss my folks. But this Thanksgiving, I was especially thankful to my new extended family – all the people I have met at Darden. I am thankful for just being here. If someone had told me back in February when I’d visited the Ville to interview, that I would come back here for school, I would not have believed them. I fell in love with the school but also realized that there were other more accomplished people who deserved to go here. I am thankful that I am here today, calling this place home and sharing it with so many talented and wonderful people. My classmates never cease to awe me and there are some classes where I am sitting, amazed at the sheer quality of the professor before me. There are second year students that are way up there on my list of people I respect, who I wish I had time to get to know better. So while a whole bunch of my classmates are enjoying the holiday season with their families and a lot of them are laboring over the zillion cover letters we need to churn out by the end of the vacation, I am sitting here at my desk in my apartment just marveling at how far away I am from the world I lived in just a few months ago.
Thank you, Darden, for letting me be a part of your universe.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Q2 - Diwali in a suit
We’re into week 2 of the second quarter. I’m not sure if it’s just me but I do think this quarter is far more interesting than the last one yet a little harder too. For starters, I think corporate finance is going way over my head ( or is that because I’ve got it in my head that if it’s got the dreaded finance word in it, then it must be hard) while operations and marketing though more interesting than last quarter, are definitely beginning to pinch a bit. But hands down the most interesting subject we’ve got this quarter is GEM (Global Economies and Markets) and Peter Rodriguez is our professor for that. This subject is very relevant to the current crisis and helps us (ok, helps me, since most of my classmates seem pretty tuned in already) understand the financial crisis better by analyzing the fundamentals that built up to it in the first place. After each class I find myself marveling the amount of insight that my classmates bring to the table in such matters and I can actually feel the difference in my understanding from when I'm going in to when I’m done with the class. The new seating arrangement has me once more in the last row – prime bit of real estate in the class room, mind you – and although a lot of people feel excluded when they sit there, I personally enjoy sitting on my “perch” and taking in all the proceedings below, occasionally participating in the fray myself.
On the recruiting front, it looks like we’re just finishing up with the briefings. Two consulting companies this week and I think we’re done with the bulk of them. With the situation being what it is, the school has been encouraging us to explore off grounds job searches, even organizing a seminar on how to navigate the process with special attention to international students. Outside, the weather’s been cooling down and it’s gotten downright cold in the nights when I walk back to Ivy. Darden and the rest of the ville is looking really pretty with the trees peppered with leaves of multicolored hues and I love stepping on the fallen leaves to hear the crunchy sound they make under my shoes.
Finally, today is Diwali in my part of the world. When I called home last night I could barely hear my sister over the firecrackers in the background. If I had to sum up Diwali in one word for you, it would be this: firecrackers. If I were to sum up Diwali my way in a word for you it would be this: sweets. On this day, it’s custom that we wear new clothes and the sister sent me a new Indian outfit to wear for today. I, however, am sitting here in the library (I know I said I wouldn’t be back here for sometime but I can’t help it, it feels like home!) in a grey suit (grey like the weather outside), munching salty baked Lays because I missed lunch. Happy Diwali to me.
On the recruiting front, it looks like we’re just finishing up with the briefings. Two consulting companies this week and I think we’re done with the bulk of them. With the situation being what it is, the school has been encouraging us to explore off grounds job searches, even organizing a seminar on how to navigate the process with special attention to international students. Outside, the weather’s been cooling down and it’s gotten downright cold in the nights when I walk back to Ivy. Darden and the rest of the ville is looking really pretty with the trees peppered with leaves of multicolored hues and I love stepping on the fallen leaves to hear the crunchy sound they make under my shoes.
Finally, today is Diwali in my part of the world. When I called home last night I could barely hear my sister over the firecrackers in the background. If I had to sum up Diwali in one word for you, it would be this: firecrackers. If I were to sum up Diwali my way in a word for you it would be this: sweets. On this day, it’s custom that we wear new clothes and the sister sent me a new Indian outfit to wear for today. I, however, am sitting here in the library (I know I said I wouldn’t be back here for sometime but I can’t help it, it feels like home!) in a grey suit (grey like the weather outside), munching salty baked Lays because I missed lunch. Happy Diwali to me.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Before we start over
Q1 is over, finished and done with! But in the words of the Surfer Guy (J"B"S, Section D), “the repercussions are not.” I agree with that, but for today, just today, allow me to revel in this sense of freedom that I last felt on my final day at work!
Today we wrapped our exams for the quarter, leaving behind 6 days of myriad experiences as we tackled case after case, crunched a million numbers, and ate more granola bars than I can count on my two hands! As I pushed open the doors of the library after the exam, I was happy just at the thought of not having to camp out there for the next couple of months and constantly speak in hushed tones. I chose not to bid for one of the learning team rooms for the exam, choosing instead to hole up in the library, where I am more comfortable and insulated from a lot of the madness.
Funnily enough, I’m a little disappointed that the exams are over (I hear a range of disapproving noises) because while they were on, I had something to do all the time. Not that I won’t have something to do now, but no exams means having to tackle a whole lot of other work from the “real life” – errands, laundry, resume polish, company briefings prep, all the phone calls I’ve been promising people back home but haven’t gotten round to doing… you get the idea…
So in true Darden case method style, I figured I should make a little note of the key takeaways from this quarter and the exams, to be tucked away till Monday, when Q2 begins.
1. Exams are supposed to be the easiest time at Darden. Why, then, was I so hassled? Back to the drawing board as I figure out where my study-style was messed up.
2. My learning team rocks, but I might have depended on them too much. A lot of exams had me struggling to get something I thought I’d done at LT. I remembered trying to figure it out on my own before LT, and then getting help from the folks there. But turns out I didn’t really learn the concepts as well as I could/should have.
3. Time management. Q2 is much harder than Q1. There is a whole lot more going on then and if that’s not enough, I have signed up for a bunch of stuff that’s going to take up a lot of my time. I have to find a way to balance all of it.
4. Self takes priority. I noticed that when in crunch situation, I tend to forget myself. I stop eating or sleeping properly, and pretty much lose touch with the outside world. Very in-the-box behavior. Must fix it.
5. Decisions under duress – strict No-No. Ok so I know this. And I know it well because my dad hammers this into my head all the time. But I make the mistake again. And again. Strict no-no. Note to self: Apply LO concepts to life.
6. If you hear the voice of your DA professor in your head while you’re taking the DA exam, realize that you could be more stressed about the exam that you should be. Or that the knowledge that the case was written by your own DA professor has the ability to throw you off balance. Or you could be genuinely messing up the exam big time.
7. Keep nail polish handy. I tend to chew my nails a lot during exams. I’d forgotten that habit of mine. Right after I am done with this post, I am going to sit with the file and try to salvage what’s left of my nails. For the next exam, I'll make sure my nails are painted well in advance.
The good thing about the exams is that I have now learnt to flag and categorize my emails pretty well – I do have quite a few to act upon, but they’re all there where I can see them, so that’s good! The best thing, though, is that Q1 is over and I survived! Sometimes it really is hard to believe that I’m here, doing what I always wanted to do and being able to tell the world about it.
In true Darden spirit, the school that never lets you stay idle long enough has started the cycle all over again by leaving our Q2 case packets in our mailboxes. Off we go on another whirlwind ride! But for today, I’m just going to relax at the Section D party and maybe head over to the Moustache competition afterwards.
“And for the sake of time, let’s move on!”
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
The Facilitator
Today was our last DA (Decision Analysis) class of the quarter. It was also our last class with our DA professor. Although a bunch of us will be taking the DA electives later this year and in the next, my professor’s announcement made me pause to think back to the quarter that sped by.
Over the summer, during days of trying to figure out Accounting from the Pre-Enrolment modules, I often wondered how I would learn the concepts through the case method. In the case method curriculum, the professor acts more like a facilitator than a lecturer. Take for instance my accounting class. My professor would hand out transparencies to randomly selected students in the class to enter each line item of a balance sheet with the corresponding t-account. These would then be put up on the projector and the student would defend his balance sheet entry while the rest of the class was free to debate and discuss his assumptions and logic and even his handwriting if they wanted!
Our DA class was another innovative exercise in teaching you to convince clients of the soundness of your arguments without resorting to the use of complex numbers and terminologies. Our professor would make us role-play the case – convince Mr. X to go with your decision to either invest or get out of a particular venture or convince Mr. G to sell a certain number of t-shirts at a game. Our class would play analyst, supplying the “chosen one” with the numbers and ideas to support his/her hypothesis. In all these instances, our professors would play devil’s advocate, challenging our stands, forcing us to rethink our answers, planting a seed of doubt so that collectively you challenge the very spreadsheet before you that took you the better part of the previous evening to develop.
The professor chooses to play facilitator, but that does not mean we do not get to leverage his immense experience and knowledge in the area. Our marketing professor is one such example. His classes are peppered with instances and examples from his own professional and personal life concerning companies and brands that we are all familiar with, all delivered in his trademark New Yorker’s humor.
The case method itself is unique, but when you factor in the fantastic faculty that teach at Darden, every once in a while you get that feeling of awe for just being here and part of this society, making you sit just that little bit straighter in your seat. Perhaps it’s no surprise then, that the Darden faculty have been ranked at the top of Princeton Review’s business school rankings.
Here’s one sample of the caliber of the faculty at Darden. Take a look at the video footage of the panel discussion of our professors organized a couple weekends ago, discussing the current state of the financial markets and the causes leading up to it. Abbott Auditorium was packed with students sprawling out on the aisles to watch the hour long discussion.
On that note, let me excuse myself as I prepare for the last class of Q1 tomorrow. Time...how it flies!
Over the summer, during days of trying to figure out Accounting from the Pre-Enrolment modules, I often wondered how I would learn the concepts through the case method. In the case method curriculum, the professor acts more like a facilitator than a lecturer. Take for instance my accounting class. My professor would hand out transparencies to randomly selected students in the class to enter each line item of a balance sheet with the corresponding t-account. These would then be put up on the projector and the student would defend his balance sheet entry while the rest of the class was free to debate and discuss his assumptions and logic and even his handwriting if they wanted!
Our DA class was another innovative exercise in teaching you to convince clients of the soundness of your arguments without resorting to the use of complex numbers and terminologies. Our professor would make us role-play the case – convince Mr. X to go with your decision to either invest or get out of a particular venture or convince Mr. G to sell a certain number of t-shirts at a game. Our class would play analyst, supplying the “chosen one” with the numbers and ideas to support his/her hypothesis. In all these instances, our professors would play devil’s advocate, challenging our stands, forcing us to rethink our answers, planting a seed of doubt so that collectively you challenge the very spreadsheet before you that took you the better part of the previous evening to develop.
The professor chooses to play facilitator, but that does not mean we do not get to leverage his immense experience and knowledge in the area. Our marketing professor is one such example. His classes are peppered with instances and examples from his own professional and personal life concerning companies and brands that we are all familiar with, all delivered in his trademark New Yorker’s humor.
The case method itself is unique, but when you factor in the fantastic faculty that teach at Darden, every once in a while you get that feeling of awe for just being here and part of this society, making you sit just that little bit straighter in your seat. Perhaps it’s no surprise then, that the Darden faculty have been ranked at the top of Princeton Review’s business school rankings.
Here’s one sample of the caliber of the faculty at Darden. Take a look at the video footage of the panel discussion of our professors organized a couple weekends ago, discussing the current state of the financial markets and the causes leading up to it. Abbott Auditorium was packed with students sprawling out on the aisles to watch the hour long discussion.
On that note, let me excuse myself as I prepare for the last class of Q1 tomorrow. Time...how it flies!
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Beer Game
Just when you are beginning to tire of bragging to your friends about how hands-on the D curriculum is, you get hit by another of their brilliant teaching methods. Here’s why it’s brilliant. It makes you, the student, feel nice about having one, possibly two, less cases to prepare for the next day and it makes you learn something – in true D style – the hard way. The Beer Game is just the latest of many. I won’t go into the ones that came before the Beer game – my D classmates have done a great job of describing their experiences with those on their blogs – but I will go into the one we had today.
Titled the Beer Game and played very appropriately on a Thursday when a lot of FYs won’t be at TNDC (2 cases for tomorrow!), this was a simulation game played as part of the marketing curriculum. The motive behind the simulation was to learn, among other things, the Bullwhip effect and other typical supply chain problems. Four beer manufacturing companies fight to keep their production process lean and their inventory holding/stock out costs mean. Add some twists and complications to all of that and you have the perfect ale for a good two hours’ worth class time! Playing with my uber-cool section D buddies more than made up for having to stay indoors on a Thursday night and miss all the fun at the Buddhist Biker!
Something I’ve noticed about all the simulation games is that they’re very much like our cases. They give you the basic premise and instructions and throw you headlong into the game. The first round is basically a sadistic-professor-taking-pleasure-in-your confusion round where you screw up big time by making all the mistakes in the book and then some more. Then comes round 2, where you are allowed to strategize a little bit and you enter the game once more, feeling like the king of the operation. But in true sadistic-professor style, round 2 comes with its own little quirks and twists. You are left fumbling for a bit, but you pick up pace soon enough to recover and make some money. Round 3 is where life is good, all rules are relaxed and you are pretty much handed victory on a silver platter – and you still screw up, albeit a lot lesser than round 1. Then you debrief with the whole class. The winner walks away with a prize, in today’s case a tall D glass.
So when exactly did the learning curve go a notch higher in this entire sequence, you ask? That is the best part of it all. You realize you have learnt something new only when you are working on the next day’s cases and you find yourself applying what you learnt on the simulation. And that, my friend, is your aha moment! Mission accomplished. Cheers!
Addendum - 9/26/2008:
I guess I spoke too soon about the simulation games. Here's something I didn't think I would be doing in business school - playing with teddy bears in an Operations class! We were trying to simulate the efficiency (or the lack of it) in the operations of a hospital. In order to allow us to see more clearly and in real time, the challenges faced by a multi-discipline hospital, our professor brought in some teddies as patients and had some of us be the doctors.
Moral of the game: Operations need not always be about factories and machines, but can be cute too and learning is a lot more fun (and memorable) when it's hands-on.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Girls' Night Out
If you know anything about the D life at all, then you will know that Thursdays are our Fridays. Hence the TNDC – Thursday Night Drinking Club, is a big big part of the D culture and with good reason too! Every Thursday night, all of the D FYs and SYs (ok not all, but at least most of them), get together at one of the many pubs in C’ville to let our hair down, meet other people and generally indulge in a little madness, hoping to get featured on the next TNDC mailer.
This Thursday was a little different from the others. A classmate had invited all the women over to her place at the Downtown Mall for some wine, good company and an Alanis Morissette concert. After spending a good amount of time “drinking good wine and enjoying great company” and watching Alanis perform from JB’s rooftop, a bunch of us ladies headed out for dinner before TNDC. After what can be termed as the best 1 hour of the whole week- spent at dinner with the girls- we split, with half the crowd heading to bed and the other half hitting the Boleyn for TNDC.
It was madness in there! The place was swarming with the D crowd and there was loud music and no space to even walk up to the bar! I spotted the good doctor, a fellow Section D'er, who had decided to hit the nightspot for his maiden TNDC, and a bunch of others from class. A drink later I was ready to call it a night, my voice hoarse from having to speak over the music of the live band but in happy anticipation of having 3 whole days to catch up on sleep and food.
Having started out my Thursday in a pretty lousy frame of mind, I was quite uplifted by the time it ended. Cheers to the ladies who made it the best Thursday evening in a long time! You know who you are, and you rock!
PS. I watched Alanis perform Ironic live! Woohoo!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Confession.
Ever had a moment when you are suddenly shaken and woken up from a seeming slumber? When you feel like you can see more clearly? A time when you felt your life was spinning out of control and you needed a wakeup call? No? You must be doing everything right then. Good for you!
Well my answer to all those questions is a big resounding yes. I knew I was not doing things right at school. I was going into class with my cases on just done mode – I would stay up late or get up early in the morning to rush through the ones I did not have time for the previous evening – and would go into class and wonder how others had time for such in depth analysis on ALL the 3 cases of the day – all in one afternoon! Things came to a head when one Wednesday, 2 weeks ago, I just did not wake up in time for my first class of the day.
I had been up late the previous night trying to read up my LO case. I wanted to wake up early the next morning to review the DA case for the day (I had been planning to ask my DA professor to call on me that class - my class participation sucks). I wanted to be ultra prepared so that I did not end up looking foolish in front of my class. I guess my system protested the following morning and I don’t remember doing this, but I must have turned off all the 3 alarms I had kept on and gone back to sleep. Next time I woke up, it was 8:45AM, and I had just missed my first class of the day. I walked into class 5 minutes before first coffee. Of course I met with the professor at his office a day later to explain. And he was so understanding about it, that it made me feel guiltier! I felt worse as concerned classmates asked me if I had missed class because I was ill…
What I am getting at here is that it’s the hallmark of the Darden curriculum. It throws so much information at you and so fast that you get blinded with all that is going on. You find yourself scrambling to be at all places and finish all your work. You find yourself becoming myopic, with the only conversations you have with classmates being the cases of the day. Then pre-recruitment activities begin – tightening up your resume, getting you career objectives ready, meeting with SY coaches – and you are wishing you could be at two places at once. You push yourself so hard and then one fine day, your system revolts, like mine did. In my 4 years of undergrad and 2 and half years of work, never have I missed an appointment because I couldn’t get up in the morning. I was a little shaken, but a friend put things in perspective for me – he made me realize I was pushing myself too hard.
When I go corporate 2 years from now, I know that the one thing I will learn way better than even Crystal Ball or breakeven calculations will be time management. Darden’s rigorous curriculum and its forgiving teachers and students allow you to make those mistakes here (rather than in the workplace) without judging you. Though it does not excuse indiscipline, I think this once, I was safe.
Briefings begin and how!
With a bang, that’s how! Last week, briefings began at Darden for us privileged FYs. While the banking guys are definitely having an “interesting” time – BofA visited D on Black Monday – consulting opened with Deloitte yesterday. This marks the season of lunch briefings, cocktail parties, networking dinners and lunches. It also means I’ll be wearing those darned high heels of mine a lot more. Sucks!
As an international, the whole concept of networking is very new to me. I’m not entirely sure how it is done and how much small talk is too much small talk. The one thing I don’t think I will ever master is how to ask for a business card. Luckily for me the two companies I have attended briefings for, made it very easy to contact them post-briefing. Nevertheless, I would be really curious to learn how it’s done. Another important lesson I learnt over the week was to be organized – not in my head, but in my bag! Seriously. At one of the briefings I had to give my card and it took me forever to dig it up from inside my bag. The Monica in me revolted at the mess in there! It would not be the first time either. I’ve pulled out my kaajal pencil when I have been looking for a pen, more times than I care to remember.
Having said that, I will admit that the SYs and CDC have been doing a great job with trying to get us FYs to shed the gaucheness at these networking events. One of the more innovative things they came up with was a speed networking session open to the International Business Society (IBS) and the National Asso. Of Women MBAs (NAWMBA) members yesterday at the PepsiCo Forum. Think of speed dating but for a job, and you get speed networking. It was a great experience and by the end of it I could see my comfort level increasing at delivering my pitch without the umms and aahs.
On a different note, I finally managed to check off one thing on will-do-at-Darden list – write for the Cold Call Chronicle, our very own student run newsletter. It’s not a big article and definitely poorer in comparison to the quality of the other articles on the newsletter, but it makes me feel like I’m contributing to the Darden society and it’s a good feeling.
Spinning off a completely unrelated stream of thought, I had to go to UVA hospital yesterday to visit a classmate who’s been there all week. I looked around to see if it really looked like the hospitals they show on Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy. It did really look like that, and had Doogie Howser look-alike residents walking around too! Get well soon, AO; Section D misses you big time.
As an international, the whole concept of networking is very new to me. I’m not entirely sure how it is done and how much small talk is too much small talk. The one thing I don’t think I will ever master is how to ask for a business card. Luckily for me the two companies I have attended briefings for, made it very easy to contact them post-briefing. Nevertheless, I would be really curious to learn how it’s done. Another important lesson I learnt over the week was to be organized – not in my head, but in my bag! Seriously. At one of the briefings I had to give my card and it took me forever to dig it up from inside my bag. The Monica in me revolted at the mess in there! It would not be the first time either. I’ve pulled out my kaajal pencil when I have been looking for a pen, more times than I care to remember.
Having said that, I will admit that the SYs and CDC have been doing a great job with trying to get us FYs to shed the gaucheness at these networking events. One of the more innovative things they came up with was a speed networking session open to the International Business Society (IBS) and the National Asso. Of Women MBAs (NAWMBA) members yesterday at the PepsiCo Forum. Think of speed dating but for a job, and you get speed networking. It was a great experience and by the end of it I could see my comfort level increasing at delivering my pitch without the umms and aahs.
On a different note, I finally managed to check off one thing on will-do-at-Darden list – write for the Cold Call Chronicle, our very own student run newsletter. It’s not a big article and definitely poorer in comparison to the quality of the other articles on the newsletter, but it makes me feel like I’m contributing to the Darden society and it’s a good feeling.
Spinning off a completely unrelated stream of thought, I had to go to UVA hospital yesterday to visit a classmate who’s been there all week. I looked around to see if it really looked like the hospitals they show on Scrubs and Grey’s Anatomy. It did really look like that, and had Doogie Howser look-alike residents walking around too! Get well soon, AO; Section D misses you big time.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Classes, LT and more
It’s been over a week since classes began and along with classes, we’re also getting set with our learning teams. I should begin with the learning teams for this post, since that is one of the most unique things about this place. The learning teams’ concept is just another expression of Darden’s collaborative culture. They basically organize all their students into groups of 5 or 6 such that each group is almost representative of Darden student background distribution – by nationality, gender, educational and work background. So my LT has 5 fantastic people from backgrounds such as Citibank and the US Marines. There’s a Turk, a desi and a Bangladeshi, apart from three Americans. And all these people bring with them various viewpoints and experiences that make for a very engaging 3 hours spent at our LT meetings every evening. Yes 3 hours. That’s how seriously we’re expected to take our cases.
Last week, D organized some LT team building exercises here on grounds (they don’t call it campus and I wonder why). Named the Voyage of Discovery, it was based on the Lewis and Clarke expedition in Virginia and consisted of a number of events and each event you won in earned you a feather or two. You also had your own flag and motto. Think of the Crystal Maze TV show in modern time and designed around a business school campus. Obviously we took away some learnings from this thing – you don’t think it was just done with the idea of letting you have fun, roaming around the grounds on a sunny day and carrying a scruffy looking flag with feathers on them, did you? Our day of fun was capped with a dinner with our LTs and one second year at one of the many hip eat outs at C’ville followed with what else, but a trip to the nearest pub - this time it was McGrady’s and not the D fav of Biltmore (think $2 pitchers of beer)… fine place that one!
The weekend had some activities organized by the SY students here. The various events up for grabs were community service, tubing on the James River, wine tasting, trip to Monticello, hiking and a few more. Obviously ALL events were overbooked! Saturday evening was another picnic at Flagler courtyard, this time for the FYs and SYs to meet.
So if you thought D-life was all about fun and picnics and booze, then THINK AGAIN. It’s about cases and cases and more cases and still some more cases that will drive you nuts as you try to figure them out and make you go “god damn it, how come I missed that one” when the professor (or some brilliantly smart student) solves it in class the next morning. But the best thing about it is that the classes are so much more rewarding and you actually come away from them knowing a whole bunch more than you did to begin with and you have no idea how! The professors here are absolutely up there and some of them employ very unique methods of cold calling! Perhaps more on that in a separate post – I still have two more professors to “discover”.
Career fair signups are warming up now and I’m kind of getting the feeling that they’re going to stress me out quite a bit. Of course, the whole concept of networking is so alien to us internationals and that in itself is a little bewildering. Darden seems really focused at helping us through this process and in the coming days I hope to be working more closely with the Career Development team to help me with my internship hunt.
Before I sign out, I have to tell you about how every minute feels precious at this place. You could be doing so much and all you’re thinking about is when you’ll go to bed… The day sometimes seems longer than it is, yet it just flies by as you tackle your daily workload which, by the way, is seeing a constant upward trend and refuses to come down. I remember reading about Black November on the blog of a Darden (now) SY. I’m guessing that we’re building up to that one. Here’s where I sign out to go tackle my Decision Analysis case for tomorrow.
Last week, D organized some LT team building exercises here on grounds (they don’t call it campus and I wonder why). Named the Voyage of Discovery, it was based on the Lewis and Clarke expedition in Virginia and consisted of a number of events and each event you won in earned you a feather or two. You also had your own flag and motto. Think of the Crystal Maze TV show in modern time and designed around a business school campus. Obviously we took away some learnings from this thing – you don’t think it was just done with the idea of letting you have fun, roaming around the grounds on a sunny day and carrying a scruffy looking flag with feathers on them, did you? Our day of fun was capped with a dinner with our LTs and one second year at one of the many hip eat outs at C’ville followed with what else, but a trip to the nearest pub - this time it was McGrady’s and not the D fav of Biltmore (think $2 pitchers of beer)… fine place that one!
The weekend had some activities organized by the SY students here. The various events up for grabs were community service, tubing on the James River, wine tasting, trip to Monticello, hiking and a few more. Obviously ALL events were overbooked! Saturday evening was another picnic at Flagler courtyard, this time for the FYs and SYs to meet.
So if you thought D-life was all about fun and picnics and booze, then THINK AGAIN. It’s about cases and cases and more cases and still some more cases that will drive you nuts as you try to figure them out and make you go “god damn it, how come I missed that one” when the professor (or some brilliantly smart student) solves it in class the next morning. But the best thing about it is that the classes are so much more rewarding and you actually come away from them knowing a whole bunch more than you did to begin with and you have no idea how! The professors here are absolutely up there and some of them employ very unique methods of cold calling! Perhaps more on that in a separate post – I still have two more professors to “discover”.
Career fair signups are warming up now and I’m kind of getting the feeling that they’re going to stress me out quite a bit. Of course, the whole concept of networking is so alien to us internationals and that in itself is a little bewildering. Darden seems really focused at helping us through this process and in the coming days I hope to be working more closely with the Career Development team to help me with my internship hunt.
Before I sign out, I have to tell you about how every minute feels precious at this place. You could be doing so much and all you’re thinking about is when you’ll go to bed… The day sometimes seems longer than it is, yet it just flies by as you tackle your daily workload which, by the way, is seeing a constant upward trend and refuses to come down. I remember reading about Black November on the blog of a Darden (now) SY. I’m guessing that we’re building up to that one. Here’s where I sign out to go tackle my Decision Analysis case for tomorrow.
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