Sunday, August 28, 2011

To Graduate Early or Not to Graduate Early?


WEEK 7 (July 25-31)

Week seven of my corporate residency is a crazy one. The entire F414 engine international sales team is in the final push for our proposal submittal. I definitely spend a few 10+ hour days at work, powering through lunch while being essentially locked up in a conference room with a team I have grown close to. One member of this team is part of the CMLP (Contract Management Leadership Program). She also went to Northeastern and is at Lynn on an eight month rotation.

Throughout these hectic final bidding days I do my best to help with non-technical aspects like formatting, editing, taking notes and organizing action items. I also get to have some one-on-one meetings for the first time. People are actually scheduling time to speak to me alone! I love it!

On the personal front, I find out my boyfriend, who currently lives in California, is going to be working in Montreal for an extended period of time beginning in the end of August! The Canadian city is only about 350 miles away. I immediately set about planning my first trip up there. Oddly enough, flights are more than $450 for the 1-hour journey and to train it, I’d have to first go down to New York and then spend 10 hours on the Amtrak. Renting a car will definitely be the way to go.

This week I also get an email from a Project Manager in Northeastern's Marketing and Communications Department asking to have this blog featured on Northeastern University's new social media dashboard. I feel so honored.

I also reach out to my peer mentee, offering to meet her at her earliest convenience for coffee, drinks, whatever. I'm excited to impart all of my, at times, hard-earned MBA insights.

As the September 13th Career Fair quickly approaches I also make a point to reach out to my career advisor for help on my resume.  I quickly get deja-vu from just a few months ago when I was doing this for my corporate residency search. I just want to make sure I can incorporate my accomplishments from GE into my updated resume as well as possible.

I’ve also reached out to the Full-Time MBA academic advisor to discuss the possibility of signing up for a class in the fall. Many of my classmates have elected to do this.  In fact, if I manage to take one class in the Fall and another one during spring, I can graduate a whole two months early!  This is becoming a very tempting option for me.

After my over-time ridden work week I gladly welcome the weekend with dinner and drinks at Samurai on Newbury Street. I partake in some delicious spicy tuna rolls before heading to Punters for more drinks with some classmates.

This weekend I hit up the Cape again, only this time I’m much closer inland. Two friends and I stop at a town called Sandwich (which I immediately love simply for its name). We sunbath, check out the awesome historic boardwalk and the acrobatics of kids diving off of it into the clear water. We have a picnic and grab some delicious ice cream at an ice cream stand called, appropriately enough, Ice Cream Sandwich. How cute.

WEEK 8 (August 1-7)

You can sense the calm in the office air after last week’s hectic rush to submit our proposal. In fact, my boss is on vacation all this week and my other manager is taking Wednesday through Friday off. I am intent on having enough work to do while they are gone.

The week starts out slowly. I take this down time to complete my presentation for the Career Center Director’s visit to GE on Friday. We are supposed to have 10 minute long status report to present to her and other Northeastern Co-ops. I’m happy to use the official GE Powerpoint Presentation  format complete with the famed monogram. I feel so professional.

I also have more time to participate in some GE co-op activities including a ‘lunch and learn’ with a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. We get free lunch (a common occurrence here) and spend an hour hearing about his career progression, years of work at GE and ask him questions.

By Wednesday I’m aching for something to do. Luckily, I’ve set up some points of contact to help me out, many of which are in other departments. One project I’m working on requires me to use some Excel mastery. I teach myself a few new tricks and overall am quite pleased with the cost comparison I complete using v-lookups.

I also have my first mini project management role! I’ll be in charge of organizing a comparison of engine parts and seeing which are owned by the US government and which are GE owned. This will determine which we need licenses for and which we may try to purchase outright. I’m nervous but happy to finally have some autonomy over my work. It will also allow me to get in some face time with individuals outside of my department.

Dinner at Scoozi
That Thursday, after several weeks of communicating via Facebook, I meet up with a friend of mine that I haven't seen in 15 years! I discovered that she has been living an working in Boston for years. We meet up at Scoozi on Newbury Street for a veggie pizza and hours (and years) of catching up.

On Friday I present my 'Report Out' to a group of Northeastern co-ops and their managers.  Even though the Career Center Director had to cancel, it was a great opportunity to see what the others have been up to and voice my goals for the internship and areas I'd like to improve.  After work, I send in my career track confirmation to Northeastern. A formal declaration of your career track (either Finance, Marketing or Supply Chain) is required during corporate residency.

I also receive a notification of the option for a January corporate residency from our Career Center Director. A January corporate residency would essentially entail signing up for a second 6-month internship rotation. While first choice for these residencies goes to those who were not able to land a corporate residency the first time around, everyone has the the opportunity to get additional work experience if they so desire.

This weekend is pretty slow.  However, I do make a big decision: I sign up for Market Research with the new goal of graduating early! Class will be help every Thursday night from 7:30-9:30pm starting the week after Labor Day and ending right before my last day at GE Aviation in December. I'm a bit nervous because, while class may only be two hours long, I know very well that it's the time outside of class that is the most demanding. I hope I can juggle it all!

1 comment:

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