A Logo for the Graduate Marketing Club

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! Yes, it is a cheesy holiday, but if it means that classmates bring in candy then I’m all for it. Besides the joys of a sugar-infused holiday, Monday is uneventful.

After Supply Chain Management on Tuesday I meet with my Finance study group to prepare our case for tomorrow. Sometime during our 3-hour study session I excuse myself to make a phone call to BuyWithMe. BuyWithMe is an online group coupon company that I am exploring as a possible means of promoting the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In trying to boost membership, we thought that offering a one-time discount could bring in some fresh customers. Unfortunately, as the conversation progresses with the BuyWithMe representative, it becomes clear that this venue will not be a viable option for Mass Hort. After a required 50% discount to the consumers, we would also have to pay a 50% commission to BuyWithMe. For a $50 individual membership, that leaves us $12.50- not even enough to cover the cost of the flower show ticket ($20) included in the membership. This steep commission is also in line with what I’ve heard from my teammates who have been researching Groupon and Living Social. We’ll just have to get more creative.

That night I spend cramming Operations material into my head for our quiz tomorrow. I review Poisson formulas and analyze the probability that a customer will have to wait in line if there are x number of tellers working at a rate of 15 customers per hour…

Wednesday morning we have our first Operations quiz.  Not knowing what to expect I spent last night boning up on all of the equations and re-reading our entire book. Alas, the quiz is multiple choice and mostly refers to vocabulary words and general concepts. Wow, I really over studied for this, yet understudied the parts we are being quizzed on. We’ll see how this goes…

Thursday I get my Statistics project back with a grade of 88.  My teammates and I were deducted points for silly mistakes and I’m quite frustrated with myself. You’d think after last semester’s Accounting fiasco (remember, the citations?) I would learn.

Casting Votes
Photo Courtesy of Gian Carlo de Leon

After Statistics and Strategy I head right to the Frost lounge in Ell Hall for the first ever Graduate Marketing Club logo competition.  I’m a bit nervous that we won’t have a good turnout, but thankfully, more than 20 members stop by to help us vote for our favorites.  After we all take our fill of Upper Crust pizza, we sit around a big board room style table for a presentation by each of our four contestants. I am so pleased with the effort everyone took! Some even superimposed their logos onto pictures of mugs and t-shirts for visual aids.

After a close vote we select our winner and recipient of a flip cam, along with the runner up and new owner of a $25 Dunkin Donuts gift card. Our next step will be to circulate a poll to see which type of branded item our club would like to see the new logo printed on. So exciting!

The Winning Design

While I had planned to meet some friends for drinks after the competition, I’m beginning to feel a bit ill so I head home for a nap before my 6:00pm India IFS meeting.

By the time I roll into the classroom for the meeting I’m not feeling very well at all. Ugh! This cannot be happening with next week being our craziest of the semester. We have both a Finance exam and a Statistics exam (yes, our two hardest courses) PLUS a Strategy project. Not to mention the fact that Nick is coming into town for spring break next Saturday and heavens knows I have to clean. 

Anyway, the meeting goes well and it gets me really excited for our international adventure. We discuss the cultural sites we will visit along with some potential business tours, such as one at Infosys. I’ve also applied to be the teacher’s assistant for the trip. It pays $500, which would cover the program cost (not including flight and tuition) which would definitely be a plus considering my extensive pre and post trip travel plans. Apparently a few more students have applied so we’ll see what happens.

Friday morning I just feel awful, but I manage to drag myself to Career Management and a Finance review session because I desperately need the latter in light of next week’s exam.

I dress in business casual attire and make my way to Dodge for our executive mentor panel. As part of our MBA program, each student is matched with an executive mentor during the spring semester of their first year. We will meet with our mentor for at least 1 hour a month from the spring semester through our graduation. How cool is that? I can’t wait to see who I’m paired with. In the panel we have executives from Hasbro, Transition Consulting Group and JH Investments along with their student mentees.

After we are paired with a mentor we will get to have our first in-person meeting during a Mentor Networking reception on March 30.

While in Career Management we also have the opportunity to sign up to be a peer mentor. I participated in this program as a mentee this year and really appreciated what it offered so I gladly sign up.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be my first year mentee? Don't get too scared.

Also, we get to see the current status of co-op placements and let me just say I am shocked. It has been less than two weeks since the Career Fair and we have more than 60% of the class placed! The Career Center staff shows us a comparison graph for past years. At this time during the past four years, no class had even passed a 15% placement rate. In fact, during the past four years, the 60% mark hadn’t been reached until April at the earliest. Go us! I’m so proud of my classmates.

After Career Management I trudge to my Finance review session, feeling worse as the day goes along.  The review session was fine, but I think I would have gotten more out of it if I had time to study first. At least the TA goes over some problems from last year’s midterm, but then, sneakily drops a bomb on us: nearly everyone failed the midterm last year- including himself! What?! I have no hope!

When I get home around 2:00pm I dutifully send out an e-mail to the Massachusetts Horticultural Society on all our findings regarding online group coupons and follow up with a phone call.

Then I fall asleep. The rest of the afternoon and evening is spent in a fever-induced delirium. Yes, that’s right, I have the flu.

Since the remainder of my three day weekend is spent in and around my bed, with GrubHub delivering soup to my door, I will not bore you with those details. All I can say is this better be over and done with by Tuesday or I’m in serious trouble. I have exams to study for, the FAFSA to renew, taxes to file, work, Marketing Club responsibilities and all manner of errands.

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