Seventh Week of Class
(February 20-26)
Because of the President's Day holiday, my school week starts on Tuesday and what a Tuesday it is! I'm up early to prepare for my phone interview with the Director of Marketing at the company I am interviewing at. We chat for about half an hour. I think/hope it went well and am told to expect a follow-up from Human Resources soon.
After my phone call I review a ton of new information from Henniker Brewing Company, the start-up brewery that my team is developing a marketing plan for as part of our Brand and Advertising class. My teammates all went up to New Hampshire to visit the company while I was in Montreal so now I have to catch up by reading floor plans, marketing materials, etc. You can read an article about the brewery here.
Unfortunately, I don't have too much time for catching up before heading to work until 4:30 pm.
After work it's dinner and off to Entrepreneurial Finance where we discuss the first major deliverable of our business plan. The market and product portion of the paper is due next week. Yikes. No more putting that hefty assignment off...
Luckily, that evening I get a nice little e-mail regarding my Living Document 3. Apparently my Critical Skills Development professor really liked my paper and asked if he could use it as a sample for future classes. I'm thrilled and would normally have jumped at the opportunity, however, I didn't feel comfortable enough with the sanitized document to ensure that all names, companies, etc. were completely anonymous so I had to decline. Still, I assume this means I got a good grade so I'm happy.
Wednesday morning I get an e-mail from my New Product Development asking for a formal SWOT analysis (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threats) for our case on Orange Read & Go, a European e-reader. Not one to pass up the opportunity for a grade buffer I resolve to fit that in somehow, somewhere before tomorrow's class.
In my Innovation & Enterprise Growth class later that day I get a call from a number I recognize as coming from the employer I'm interviewing with. It's all I can do to wait until class lets out and rush out of the room to listen to the message. It is from an HR representative asking if I would be interested in interviewing for a second, different, position in addition to the original one I am interviewing for. I call back but, alas, just miss her as she has left for the day. I'm pretty much jitters and useless for the rest of the day.
But, I have to meet with a teammate from my Brand & Advertising Management class immediately after to get the in-person run-down on how the team's visit to Henniker Brewing Company went over the weekend while I was away.
After I'm all caught up I grab some food and head to my Brand & Advertising Management make-up class being held at 7:30 pm tonight to make up for the Monday holiday. It's quite fun to be in smaller class size (only about half the class attending this make-up session) and discuss ad campaigns and their hidden meanings. I feel like I'm back in undergrad analyzing the visual rhetoric of films for my Cinema Studies major. Fun! Plus, we get to critique an Absolut Vodka ad shot by David LaChapelle, a photographer I love for his vibrant use of color and insanely over-the-top sets.
On Thursday, while at work, I get a call back from the company I'm interviewing with. The HR representative and I manage to schedule another interview with a Marketing Manager for tomorrow morning. Fortunately, they were very generous in allowing me to interview in Boston at a nearby Starbucks so that I didn't have to rent a car and drive to their office.
The rest of the day at work is spent in anticipation of my interview tomorrow. I also try and consult with my academic adviser about registering for Saturday classes. You see, to even be able to take the second position I'm being considered for would mean I have to start work full-time before graduation. This means I have to cram in an extra three credits before summer. In order to do that I'm looking at enrolling in three separate Saturday courses, each worth one credit. While the prospect of waking up for an 8:00 am class on Saturday and sitting in class for four hours is not thrilling, it will be totally worth it if I get the job.
I end up enrolling in Financial Analysis and Modeling with Excel. I'm still debating on what the other two courses will be. I'm looking at Persuasive Communication with B2B Customers and Financial Statement Analysis but have not yet committed to them.My first class is this Saturday! Yikes!
At 5:20 pm I head to my New Product Development class where I hand in my extra credit SWOT Analysis and we discuss whether Orange's Read & Go e-reader is a good product to enter the market with.
Normally I would have Spanish after class but tonight I am delinquent and ditch in favor of a Brand and Advertising Management group meeting at Panera. We spend the next several hours pouring over our Henniker Brewing Company paper until we are eventually kicked out of Panera at store close.
I get home well past 10:00 pm but a sliver of cheer awaits me in the mailbox: my acceptance into Beta Gamma Sigma, a business honor society for those in the top 20% of their MBA class! It was a personal goal of mine to make it into this society since day one of the program and I'm so happy to see that large envelope in the mail.
Friday I'm up early and dressed in my business best for my interview. I meet the Marketing Manager at a Starbucks in the South End. She tells me about the position and asks me some interview questions. The position sounds amazing and they would be looking for me to start as soon as possible! I'm so excited and can't wait to hear the final verdict next week.
After the interview I'm back home to change into 'library clothes' and hit Snell for several hours before my 2:30 pm meeting with my Brand & Advertising Management team. We spend a solid amount of time editing our paper and laying out some PowerPoint slides.
So...yeah, I have class on Saturday morning's now. I am taking three, one-credit Saturday classes (each two sessions long) instead of one of my three credit electives in an effort to finish coursework earlier.The first two weekends are for Financial Analysis and Modeling with Excel. While the class is quite long (8:00 am-1:00 pm) I actually find it very helpful. In fact, I wish I'd taken this course sooner!
After class lets out at 1:00 pm I manage to grab some food from the Currey Student Center and rush back to the grad lounge to meet up with my Innovation & Enterprise Growth team to work on our innovation project on Six Flags amusement parks. We complete our innovation heuristics (a fancy title for a matrix used to grade business ideas). I'm pretty impressed with how fast we get through the two heuristics and welcome leaving campus at 2:30 pm, though the homework awaiting me at home is not welcome at all....
Sunday I get up at 7:00 am specifically for the purpose of doing laundry; if that's not pathetic I don't know what is! I even read a case while waiting for the dry cycle to end. *le sigh*
As soon as I'm done with that it's off to my second home, the library, for several hours of work. I chip away at a Brand and Advertising Management assignment requiring me to analyze three ad campaigns for beer companies, my Entrepreneurial Finance business plan, slides for my presentation on India for Global Management, etc., etc., etc.
At 6:00 pm I meet up with my mentee at Espresso Royal to see how she's been doing since the Career Fair. I'm happy to hear that she has secured a corporate residency at Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare! I'm so stoked for her to have snagged such a great company for her residency and so early in the game.
When I get home that night around 8:30 pm, I somehow manage to sneak in some Academy Awards viewing with the boyfriend over the phone (the joys of a long-distance relationship) though he creams me in our Oscar ballot competition.
*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern University, its staff or affiliates.
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