I meet my mentor at the Starbucks in the Curry Center. While initially a bit nervous we quickly settle into comfortable conversation. We spend the next two hours discussing my career path, residency search (yes, it is still ongoing) and life goals. I couldn’t be happier with the pairing and I think that he and I will do well together during the next year and a half. He tells me he is not sure if he can make the mentor reception next Wednesday, but I plan on attending either way.
That night I get a call from my contact over at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He gives me a run-down on how the Flower Show went last week and some news about membership renewals. While we did get several new membership sign-ups during the show, he also drops a bomb: 1,200 members whose membership expired during the month of February and March did not renew. Ouch! That’s 20% of our membership base. With that said he gives us our next mission: create an exit survey for defected members. He needs us to do some statistical analysis to see how many samples surveys we need to send out to get back enough responses, come up with the survey text and more. I’m excited and quickly send out an email to my team asking for a pow-wow tomorrow afternoon to divvy up work.
Tuesday morning I submit my Finance re-write before heading to Supply Chain. After class I manage to snag a couple members of my Marketing Club team for a meeting on our consulting project. I am proud to say that I delegated efficiently. I get one volunteers to head the statistical part of the project and one the text version, suggesting they contact some of our professors for help. I ask to have the work in by next Monday so I have time to compile the information and get it to Mass Hort by Tuesday.
While in the meeting I get the best e-mail I’ve seen in a while. It goes something like “Katrina, I am pleased to notify you that the MBA Scholarship Selection Committee has awarded you a Stephen Riley Memorial Scholarship". It’s all I can do not to squeal out loud in the middle of the grad lounge.
After the consulting project meeting I run home for a few hours before my second India IFS class that evening. I’m very excited but a bit nervous since we have our first Operations exam tomorrow and I could really use all the time I can get to study. The meeting runs about two hours and includes a guest speaker who lived in India for several months while working as a Fulbright Scholar, some pizza and a syllabus with some specifics about our homework for the course.
At 8:30 pm we’re let out and a friend and I, desperate to get to studying after the two hour class, head to Red Mango for some frozen yogurt and power studying. It serves as an oddly conducive Statistics cramming environment at night.
Wednesday morning is the Operations exam. I end up feeling relatively confident about it as I leave class that day. I really think that study session over pomegranate fro-yo saved me.
Thursday after class we have our make-up casual Strategy lunch (remember last week it was canceled due to St. Patrick’s Day festivities?). We head over to Punter’s, a dingy dive bar down the way. It was nice to get to chat with our professor outside of the classroom setting and I appreciate that he took the time to get to know us.
That afternoon I receive another exciting e-mail: I have a phone interview scheduled with Transparent Language for next Tuesday. This is great! I head home to start researching the company.
Despite the fact that we have Friday’s free of class, I somehow always manage to make it to campus anyway. I meet my interdisciplinary project group at 9:00 am in the grad lounge. Our teachers have generously offered to review any work we have thus far if we submit it by today.We scramble to compile Minitab results, competitor research and the like into a coherent e-mail for them.
At 11:30 am I bid my groupmates goodbye and head to the Alumni Center for the Open House for admitted students lunch. I sit at a table with my Finance professor, the new acting Dean of the College of Business and a couple of recent admits. I had a blast chatting with them and I hope they got a good taste of what Northeastern has to offer.
After lunch I head to the grad lounge to set up the Marketing Club table for the club fair. I will admit the “fair” was a little slow since only 3-4 admitted students stopped by, but I hope that we gave them a good idea of what being in a club entails and the activities we organize. Plus, there was free food, so no complaints.
Saturday and Sunday are dull as I nurse a cold (I know, again!). I do manage to start my Living Document 2 and my studies for the Statistics exam on Thursday, but the rest of the weekend is spent sleeping and watching ‘Wall Street’ – that’s kind of like doing Finance homework, right?
*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern, its affiliates or staff.
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