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.

We Laugh in the Face of Sleep

On Monday it’s back to the grindstone. But, far from being refreshed from break, I return with a cold trailing close behind me.  But no time for that! Right away I hit the ground running.  Tomorrow my Living Document (LD1) paper is due and I’m only about 75% done.  While the writing portion looks solid, I know that entering all of my graphs and tables will consume hours.  After class, it’s straight home and on to that essay.  I’m up until midnight fine-tuning it, but finally, it’s done, coming in at a whopping 47 pages.

Tuesday I wake up early to get my Living Document bound at the copy center in the basement of Dodge Hall.  Staples will simply not suffice for that puppy.  It’s a whopper and I end up paying $25 for the color print job and binding.  The beginning of class that day is hilarious as my classmates and I all scramble to hand in the paper.  Our teacher stops us and says to wait until the end of the day.  What can only be described as despair spreads across our faces as we all just want this darned thing off our hands.

After class I head to work for a few hours, followed by a learning team meeting to hash out our Information Resources presentation on Cathay Pacific Airlines and their transition to outsourcing their data centers.  I’m pretty impressed with our ability to complete the project that afternoon.  I think we are all so exhausted from the LD1 that we just want to go home!

Even though I’m pooped, I stay up until midnight reviewing our presentation materials and slides and begin working on the hefty accounting case analysis due on Thursday that’s worth 10% of our grade.

Wednesday I get to school early today to turn in my International Field Study application! I’m so excited! In just 10 days I will know which of the four fabulous countries I will be visiting.  Just in case you forgot, my options are:

·         India

·         China

·         Russia

·         Argentina/Brazil

Cross your fingers for me that India gets enough people to sign up so it can actually run.  After dropping off the application I meet my group in the graduate business lounge for a dry run of our Information Resource presentation before heading to Marketing.

After class, despite my delirious state and increasingly severe cold, I dutifully stay on campus until 4:30 pm to work on the accounting case analysis that has us looking at direct cost and overhead variances for a bicycle production company.  That night I stay up later than I have the entire program to finish that same case.  I had severely underestimated just how much time it takes to transfer calculations from hand-written notes to Excel and then to Microsoft Word.  My formatting was butchered in every transition.  I finally call it a night a 3:30 am, eight pages of typed charts and calculations later. 

A mere three hours later it’s Thursday morning and I rush to print out and digitally submit my accounting assignment. 

After going through my morning in a surprisingly awake-in-a-delirious-sort-of-way state I grab a large gingerbread coffee from the Dunkin Donuts on campus and head to work.  After a power-nap, and despite my better judgment, I head out for drinks with some friends tonight.  It has been a crazy and FAST week and I just need a couple of hours to unwind. 

Also, it’s looking good for my India trip! After questioning most of the people in the program I believe I have 12 confirmed India travelers with me so far. Woohoo! I can’t wait to buy a sari and begin planning my pre and post trip travels.  I’m thinking a couple weeks in Northern India and a week in Nepal?

That night I head to the appropriately named bar Drink with some friends.  I think this may be one of the best bars I’ve ever been too.  It’s in the basement of a building on Congress Street in the Seaport District, with exposed brick walls, dangling, bare light bulbs and display boxes of museum-quality categorized insects.  The bar tenders are dressed as if from the early 20th century and there is not a beer bottle or liquor cabinet in sight.  Instead, you simply walk up to the counter, tell them the flavors you like and they whip you up a beverage using tools as precise as eye droppers to get the concoction just right.  They’re like mad drink scientists!  For me: I told her I liked sweet and fruity drinks and was rewarded with a "20th Century" made with creme de cacao and lemon! Yummy!

After that we cross the street to Lucky's Lounge for some delicious grub.  I grab the bar steak and spicy blue cheese fries.  Delicious.  Despite my sleepyness, I’m not quite ready to head home so we make our way back to my neck of the woods for dessert and drinks at Parish Café, a restaurant that's a mere block from my house.

Friday afternoon I meet with my learning team to set up our Information Resources presentation for next Friday.  We have been assigned to come up with an innovative way for a company to use digitized records.  We’re thinking of incorporating it into a personalized shopping experience where customers can log their style preferences, sizes and more into a digital platform so that every time they enter a store, all of their information, past purchases, etc. are just a click away.

Photo courtesy of Mary Alice Hewitt

That night, on the suggestion of a classmate, we make our way to Boston Common to see the newly lighted Christmas tree.  We walk all around the park, observe the ice skaters and enjoy the chilly evening before picking up some dinner at PF Changs.  The City during the holidays is just amazing.  They decorate buildings with wreaths, string trees with lights and play music on the streets. So festive!

This weekend is not the most pleasant one for me. While I do make it out for an hour of shopping to pick up some cold-weather accessories (the first snow is forcasted for next week!) the rest of it is spent in the books.  The coming week will be an intense one.  I have two projects due on Monday, our final Accounting test on Thursday and my Information Resource presentation on Friday. 

This weekend is dedicated to working on my final Marketing capstone case memo and my Economics analysis, both of which are due Monday.  I round out the weekend with another measly 3 hours of sleep on Sunday.

Oh boy.  They better not give us any pre-work over the winter break…

*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.

Turkey Day

Since this week is Thanksgiving break and I will be heading home to California, my blog will be a brief one.  Please, try not to be too upset.

It was far too easy to get caught up in the excitement of the upcoming break this week and I had to continuously remind myself that I still had class on Monday and Tuesday. Ugh!

Monday, I hand in a Marketing analytical exercise and get some guidelines for my Economics assignment due in a couple of weeks.

Tuesday is an intense day for me.  I start out by waking up at 3:00 am to get ready for school and my 4:00-8:00 am shift for the GMATCH virtual MBA fair.  This time I act as a greeter at the booth.  It was a nice change of perspective from my previous virtual fair where I didn’t get to interact with each booth visitor as much.  After work, I send off my Information Resource assignment before heading to class.  I can be wonderfully productive before 8:00 am if I have to.

Luckily, my Human Resources session is cancelled for the day so after Accounting I am free to go.  I stop by my professor’s office for a few last-minute questions on my Living Document paper before rushing home to finish packing and head to the airport.  At this time I would like to express my love for the Boston Logan Airport.  Having grown accustomed to hour-long security lines back home at good old LAX, I leave my Boston apartment 3 hours before my flight departure.  Yeah, it definitely only took me 15 minutes to get through security.  At least I have time to grab a final Dunkin Donuts coffee and start researching my paper before the flight.

On the plane I force myself to begin my 40+ page Living Document essay and am quite proud that I manage about 3 hours of solid work on it.  By the time I get home that night it is 2:00 am California time, making it 5:00am Boston time.   I have been up for 26 hours straight.

The rest of my break is filled with fun food, visiting my family, hanging out with the boyfriend and seeing friends.  I even catch a movie in between my essay-writing sessions.  It was a much needed reprieve from school and, admittedly, makes heading back a bit difficult.  I know the final stretch of my first semester awaits me, and with it a dozen projects and assignments. Here we go!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I leave you with a list of Boston things I am grateful for:

·         $1.75 medium pumpkin spice coffees from Dunkin Donuts (I don’t pay tax if I buy it on campus)

·         Public transportation

·         Underground tunnels at Northeastern

·         Amazing food (I honestly don’t think there is a bad restaurant in the entire city)

·         Chilly fall weather and the cute outfits that go with it

·         Seeing rows of brownstone apartments instead of the Mediterranean style houses in California

·         Efficient lines at Boston Logan Airport

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