India or Bust!

After my three hour night I’m up early on Monday morning.  I head to the library to fine tune my Marketing case memo and Economics analysis before printing them.  The rest of the day I’m exhausted, counting down until class is over and I can head home for a nap (which I actually hate that I’m doing more of).  However, just as I’m getting ready to head home, I suck it up and join a group at the library to work on my accounting case.  Little did I know it would take me more than five hours to complete, even with all of us working together.  We try and confer with our classmates scattered around the library’s second floor, but it looks like everyone is having trouble.

By 6:30 pm we’re done and cross the street to Conor Larkin's Grill & Tap for some grub and a drink.  I am happy to say that I am sound asleep by 10:30 pm that night.

Tuesday I am a zombie! I think my several three-hour sleep stints are catching up to me.  A classmate even approaches to ask if I’m O.K.  Yes, I say, just the collateral damage of an MBA program.  After class I meet up with the Marketing Club to finalize our consulting group projects. I’m anxious to get the ball rolling on this. We have eight people on the Massachusetts Horticultural Society team.  I’m also in charge of the Club’s holiday party so I make an appointment to meet with our student activities advisor and confirm all of my event requests.  After the meeting I head home to start studying for the Accounting test on Thursday. I just keep telling myself that I’ll be home in two weeks…

On Wednesday, Information Resources is cancelled.  Thank goodness because my group still has a lot of work to do on our final presentation for the class on Friday; a presentation that will be made to the entire class (not just our Section).  After Marketing we head to the library for a few hours and meet with our Information Resources professor to get confirmation on our idea and that we are not totally heading in the wrong direction with it.  The assignment is to come up with a new way to digitize records. We’re thinking of digitizing the personal shopping experience.  The presentation is only five minutes long which, trust me, is worse than if we had 15 minutes, and a one page paper covering a slew of topics.  If there’s one thing business school is teaching me it is this: how to write concisely. 

By 2:00pm we call it quits to go home and study for our final Accounting test tomorrow.  I’m totally freaking out because I don’t feel as though I’ve followed along in class as well as the first half of the semester.  I guess we’ll see if I’m right tomorrow.  I force myself to sleep by 1:00 am.

I’m actually feeling pretty confident about the Accounting quiz by the time I leave class on Thursday, but I’ll let you know in a week how that goes…

Afterwards I meet with one of my learning teammates to work on our Information Resources paper.  We’re designing a mock newspaper with the title article being the launch of our new product: C.A.R.E (Customer and Relationship Enhancer), a digital platform that records all your shopping preferences and purchases to suggest outfits, styles and sizes that you, the shopper, might like.  I’m having a blast doing it and wish all papers were this fun.  It reminds me of the good old days designing newspapers during my journalism classes at the University of Washington.



Information Resources Presentation
Photo courtesy of Prashant Sable

Friday morning I’m up early to print our presentation slides and paper and e-mail everything out to our professor.  When we get into the presentation hall, with all 71 one of us, I notice that we have a panel of three judges from outside of our program that will evaluate our performance.  One is even from MIT.  Oh boy, this’ll be fun.

Surprisingly, my team places in the top 4 of 14 in our entire class! Plus, my professor LOVED our mock newspaper so I’m hoping this translates into a good grade.

To add to the good news, the official rosters for the International Field Studies were announced today and, drum roll please….I’ll be in India in exactly 5 months!!! Eeeek! I’m so excited! Now all that’s left to do is some trip planning.  Interestingly enough, we ended up getting at least 13 students to join the group.

That night is the MBA Connections holiday party at Market in the Financial District. I make my way over to a friend’s house to get ready before heading to the restaurant Church for some delicious cocktails and drinks.  The drink menu is so fun! They have a drink named after each of the seven deadly sins and a menu called “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”! I get a tequila-based beverage with agave nectar and strawberries called “Conquest”. Yum!



MBA Connections Holiday Party
Photo courtesy of Jennifer Mosely


We arrive at Market to a bunch of our classmates dressed up in cocktail dresses and button up shirts.  I spend the next several hours dancing and chatting with friends.  I even see my first Boston snowfall through the window! It’s only a flurry but I run outside in my chiffon dress in excitement.  I’m still waiting for the first time the snow sticks.

Saturday is perhaps my most indulgently lazy day the entire year.  I literally spend it sleeping, watching movies and relaxing.  I know I could be working on a lot of things, but I just don’t have it in me.

Sunday I spend on errands and working on our High Performance Organization paper (worth 15% of our grade in both Marketing and Human Resources).  Our High Performance Organization is DreamWorks Animation SKG and we have to analyze it in relation to the fact that Governments will have an increasing influence on how markets operate.  I also rent my first Zipcar! It’s a success and I manage to maneuver Target to pick up decorations for our Marketing Club holiday party on Wednesday.

Next week is our last week of class this semester. I can’t believe it; I’m a quarter of the way through my graduate program.

*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern University, it's staff or affiliates.