My First Week at Work, an Easter Spent in the Library and a New Apartment!

Tulips on Campus

Thirteenth Week of Class
(April 2 - 8)

Monday is a big day for presentations: the final part of my group's Market Entry Project is due to be presented to a panel of judges during our Global Management class. Yikes!

But before I start worrying about that, I spend the morning working on as much homework as possible in anticipation of how little time I will have once I start at my new job tomorrow. While up to my eyeballs in assignments, I receive an e-mail with a draft copy of my ad from the photo shoot I did a couple of weeks ago. I think it looks great, but I make sure to distribute it to both my former and future boss for their approval. The add will be featured in GMAT test prep materials for anyone who takes a course from Princeton Review. It's pretty cool, but I'm also a little abashed about the whole thing.

At 12:30 pm my Market Entry team for Global Management meets me in a reserved room in Snell Library to practice our presentation before class at 1:45 pm. We are all a bit nervous as it's our second to last deliverable for the class and we have to look good in front of international business consultants. Fortunately, I think our presentation goes quite well (despite being the first in the class up to bat). It's also such as relief to have that done with and be able to move on to the next major assignment I have to complete.

I spend the rest of my afternoon engrossed in more work until 7:30 pm when I make my way to Brand & Advertising Management. While there are no deliverables in the class today I still feel the pressure mounting for our huge consulting project for Henniker Brewing Company which is due in just a few weeks.

Tuesday is monumental because it is my first day at Ocean Spray Cranberries as an Assistant Marketing Manager! As you can imagine, I am up WAY earlier than necessary to make sure my outfit is perfect, that I have all of the necessary documents in order, that my lunch and dinner are packed (remember, I have to go straight to class after work) and then I head out to my new car to make the 45 minute drive to Lakeville. Eeek!

Now, I don't want to sound cheesy, but as I maneuver my car down the winding, half-mile drive across ponds and around trees to the beautiful Ocean Spray corporate offices I can't help but feel a bit like I'm in a dream.

My first day is fabulous and I just keep pinching myself at how lucky I got with this job. First: I have my own cube that is about the size of my studio, second: it's lined with Craisins^® products of all varieties, third: the atmosphere of the office is so peaceful, etc. etc. (I could go on).

During my first day I get great introductions to my new boss and department, get to sit in on a meeting about Craisins^® packaging (and get to provide some input!), meet my Ocean Spray buddy, mingle with another recently hired Assistant Marketing Manager and, of course, I definitely make use of the Cranberry Cafe for lunch. Love it!

After work I head straight to campus for Entrepreneurial Finance. Fortunately, class is made a little more fun as I come bearing gifts to my classmates in the form of Craisins^® Trail Mix from work.

One Wednesday, while I don't have 'official' Innovation and Enterprise Growth class, my day is still  busy. You see,  in lieu of a formal lecture, each innovation team was allotted 20 minutes to meet with our professor to discuss the status of our impending projects. While initially nervous for our professor's feedback, my team comes out of the session feeling like we are somewhat ahead of the game. But don't worry, that definitely doesn't mean we're resting. In fact, we have an impromptu group meeting in the stairwell to discuss next steps.

Unfortunately, I can't stay long because I have a meeting with a realtor to start the daunting task of looking for a new apartment. Ugh...

While I am normally the type of person who take pleasure in prowling Craigslist for apartments when I don't need them and finds the idea of a weekend at open houses the epitome of fun, apartment searching is very low on my mind right now. Unfortunately, this is not my first Boston real estate rodeo and I am aware that April is already late for finding a September 1st place so  I have to make time for it. Unfortunately, three apartments I called on were already rented (within 1 day of being posted online) and I got a call at 9:30 am this morning saying not to bother meeting an agent for my 10:00 am appointment because the apartment had been rented that morning. Yikes!

Luckily, I did manage to snag a 2:30 pm appointment with a realtor to check out a place in the South End. The one bedroom, while in a great location on Columbus Ave, is far too dark for my taste with only two small windows in the entire apartment so I politely tell the agent that I'll keep looking. 

After the appointment it's back the grindstone working on a deliverable for New Product Development on the Braun Syncro Shaver, reading for my Saturday class on Persuasive Communication with B2B Customers (I have a presentation to give), and reaching out to any and all mothers I know to interview them for my portion of our Six Flags innovation on child care facilities.

I also plug away with more contacts for apartments...and of course, after finding a possibility and trying to set up an appointment for tomorrow to view it, it is rented within a few hours and my viewing is cancelled.

Thursday I am up early to meet with one of my teammates for Brand & Advertising Management work on our consulting project for the brewery. After a while of that, I force myself to move on to my impending deliverable for Mastering Business Intelligence (my third Saturday class).

The field report is due next Tuesday and, unfortunately, I took on the challenge of covering Northeastern University's IT system.  I am definitely regretting that decision now that I see that school is essentially a dozen companies in one. After struggling for a while, I shoot my professor an e-mail asking for some guidance and am made even more nervous when his response suggests I should have contacted the Chief Information Officer of the school. Ugh! Is it possible to fail a pass/no pass class? 

At 4:00 pm I make my way to the Grad Lounge to meet my team mate for Persuasive Communications with B2B Customers (my second Saturday class) so we can review our plan for our presentation this week. She generously agrees to put our slides into a program called Prezi. I had never heard of the program before today, but after seeing what it can do and how snazzy it made our PowerPoint, I think I'm a convert! So cool!

My team mate and I don't have long to marvel at our Prezi slides before I have to head over to unknown territory at Northeastern: The Law Building. You see, today, our New Product Development class is a joint session with a law class on intellectual property. How cool! I particularly enjoy the session because one of my fellow co-ops from GE who worked in the legal department for the summer just so happens to be in this law class! What a small world. We spend the session mainly discussing one of the worst ideas I have ever heard: a sandwich in a can, duly named "Candwich".

Friday morning I'm up again for day two on the job! Today was even better than the first day because the senior level executives from each department are giving a year- end wrap-up presentation on the state of the company. What a perfect way to get an overview of Ocean Spray. They discuss everything from the success of their social media platforms, to fruit utilization, pool year forecasts and new strategic partnerships internationally.

The rest of my day is spent in meetings to discuss the development of new foods products, an upcoming Craisins^® campaign and more.

Saturday morning I'm up early for my second and final session of Persuasive Communication with B2B Customers. My team mate and I rock the presentation thanks to a funny YouTube video and our Prezi format. 

After class I manage to get work done for a couple of hours before meeting a realtor at 2:00 pm to view an apartment in Fenway. While not in my dream South End location, the apartment is huge, has great light and is close to tons of shops and restaurants. It is a really tempting option for the price and I tell the realtor that I'll let her know by tomorrow if I want to put a deposit on it.

After my apartment hunting ends for the day, I head back to campus to do more homework before a 5:00 pm meeting with my Six Flags innovation team.

Look at that snazzy spreadsheet in the background!

Happy Easter Sunday everyone! And how does an MBA student spend this candy-filled holiday? In the library of course, spending hours hunched over Excel sheets for my Entrepreneurial Finance business plan which is due on Tuesday. Oh, and I also have a final exam tomorrow for Global Management, an assignment for Brand & Advertising Management due tomorrow and pretty much every other thing you could pile on me due this week. I also decided to put a deposit down on the Fenway apartment so I also have to deal with all that paperwork and financing. If you can't find me come tomorrow, I probably curled up in some corner of Snell. Uuuuggggh. At least I have Cadbury eggs to get me through the day.

*The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Northeastern University, Ocean Spray Cranberries, either entity's staff or affiliates.