It occurred to me the other day that I have not done a detailed description of a day for you guys, so here we go. This is the story of a relatively average Tuesday, yesterday...
0720 Alarm, snooze
0724 Alarm, snooze
0728 Alarm, up, start coffee, check email with one eye open
0738 Shower, Shave, Dress
0755 Coffee, Cereal
0805 Finish checking email, review day schedule, pack bag
0815 Out the door
0820 Pickup Wall Street Journal, walk to bus stop
0825 Hop on 21 Bus
0835 Arrive Hunstman Hall
0840 Buy more coffee
0845 Read paper, chat with early risers outside class, drink coffee
0900-1030 Competitive Strategy Class
1030 Check email
1030-1150 Decision Models and Uncertainty Class
1150-1205 Run to food truck and grab lunch
1205-1250 Learning Team Meeting, assignment for project portion due at midnight
1250-1320 Check email, work on homework
1330-1450 Finance Class with Professor Allen
1500-1630 Negotiations Class, I am part of management team for 3rd stage of multi-round labor/management negotiation, 90 minutes of negotiation with classmates
1630-1650 Stand in line at Reprographics, buy bulkpacks, check email
1650-1730 Work on Accounting HW, get help from Finance buddy, look at Halloween pictures on Facebook
1730-1820 Dinner at Saladworks, while reading Strategy case for team assignment due at midnight
1830-2100 Whartones Acapella singing rehearsal
2100-2120 Walk to bar, couple of beers with guys in singing group
2145 Get home, unpack bag, sort paperwork from day
2200 Check email
2210-2300 Finish Accounting HW
2300-0030 Write portion of case analysis for Learning Team Project, email to project leader
0030-0045 Check and process email, update schedule for next day
0050 Lights out
Just a normal weekday here in business school...
Hope all is well in your life.
Cheers
Alex
October 31, 2007
October 15, 2007
All along the watchtower...
Hey all,
I am getting out of my slump of late by throwing myself into school work :)
I continue to love Finance, and today I finally understood the greatest concept ever invented: arbitrage
It is amazing and whoever invented arbitrage should get a Nobel Prize. It is like you start with nothing, you make money, and by trying to make money you are actually working as a force to correct the market and price everything at the right level. No wonder investment bankers are rich: if you have the skill and instinct to be good at arbitrage in the real world - you deserve every penny you get.
This week also begins Q1 exams, with Marketing first, on Friday. People are already getting overwrought about that one. Go figure.
Something that you may not know about me, I define the periods of my life with music. Each major step or phase has a song that is the 'theme' or reminds me of the things I did or the people I met.
This summer in Russia, the theme song was 'Teenagers' by My Chemical Romance.
I have found the song for Wharton First Year Q1. 'All Along the Watchtower' was originally written by Bob Dylan, but definitively covered by Jimi Hendrix on 'The Jimi Hendrix Experience'. The the more you think about the lyrics, the more deep layers of meaning you reveal, but I urge you all to listen to the song and find out for yourself:
I am getting out of my slump of late by throwing myself into school work :)
I continue to love Finance, and today I finally understood the greatest concept ever invented: arbitrage
It is amazing and whoever invented arbitrage should get a Nobel Prize. It is like you start with nothing, you make money, and by trying to make money you are actually working as a force to correct the market and price everything at the right level. No wonder investment bankers are rich: if you have the skill and instinct to be good at arbitrage in the real world - you deserve every penny you get.
This week also begins Q1 exams, with Marketing first, on Friday. People are already getting overwrought about that one. Go figure.
Something that you may not know about me, I define the periods of my life with music. Each major step or phase has a song that is the 'theme' or reminds me of the things I did or the people I met.
This summer in Russia, the theme song was 'Teenagers' by My Chemical Romance.
I have found the song for Wharton First Year Q1. 'All Along the Watchtower' was originally written by Bob Dylan, but definitively covered by Jimi Hendrix on 'The Jimi Hendrix Experience'. The the more you think about the lyrics, the more deep layers of meaning you reveal, but I urge you all to listen to the song and find out for yourself:
"There must be some kind of way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."
"No reason to get excited," the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late."
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
August 31, 2007
Learning Team Retreat
Well, Pre-term is coming to an end and it has been a success for me. I passed the math exam, waived out of one class by exam (MGEC), and had an incredible amount of fun. The more I hear about MGEC, the more I am happy that I passed the exam, and it proves to me that the SAIS curriculum, though focused on different aspects of economics, did equip me to quickly learn the handful of other topics that Wharton cares about for that class.
I was a little worried about my Cohort until this week, they seemed to be reluctant to bond or spend time with each other, but that problem was solved. We had an incredible bowling session on Monday night after the closing BBQ and then headed off to our Learning Team Retreat.
A nice 3.5 hour bus ride put us in the Catskill Mountains where we met our leadership fellows (the second year mentors for our cohort) and our learning teams (LTs). As a LT we will spend more time with each other in the next 9 months than all of our loved ones. We have two women, four men, two Americans, one Albanian, one Phillippino, one Spaniard, one Indian. It is an incredible bunch of people with VERY different ways of looking at the world.
The joy of this whole process is seeing how the group develops when there is pressure, stress, no rules, no clear hierarchy, no established guidelines, and everyone is insanely busy. We are still in our honeymoon phase, but I am optimistic.
The rest of the LT retreat was a series of activities and challenges to let us see the group dynamics and learn about our different personalities. We also learned about the tradition of "debriefing" every single event to see what we felt and learned from the situation. I found the whole thing incredibly useful, thanks to the work and sacrifice of our Leadership Fellows. I will definitely be applying to work as one next year, but the selection process is pretty intense.
Huntsman was quiet this month, but now all the undergrads are getting to town and the second years are back. We have "case day" on Tuesday, and then the fun really begins.
So, I am off to see the Navy-Temple football game tonight, and then a few days of relaxation before the storm.
Which reminds me, that is what we named our learning team "The Perfect Storm"
Pretty cool huh?
I was a little worried about my Cohort until this week, they seemed to be reluctant to bond or spend time with each other, but that problem was solved. We had an incredible bowling session on Monday night after the closing BBQ and then headed off to our Learning Team Retreat.
A nice 3.5 hour bus ride put us in the Catskill Mountains where we met our leadership fellows (the second year mentors for our cohort) and our learning teams (LTs). As a LT we will spend more time with each other in the next 9 months than all of our loved ones. We have two women, four men, two Americans, one Albanian, one Phillippino, one Spaniard, one Indian. It is an incredible bunch of people with VERY different ways of looking at the world.
The joy of this whole process is seeing how the group develops when there is pressure, stress, no rules, no clear hierarchy, no established guidelines, and everyone is insanely busy. We are still in our honeymoon phase, but I am optimistic.
The rest of the LT retreat was a series of activities and challenges to let us see the group dynamics and learn about our different personalities. We also learned about the tradition of "debriefing" every single event to see what we felt and learned from the situation. I found the whole thing incredibly useful, thanks to the work and sacrifice of our Leadership Fellows. I will definitely be applying to work as one next year, but the selection process is pretty intense.
Huntsman was quiet this month, but now all the undergrads are getting to town and the second years are back. We have "case day" on Tuesday, and then the fun really begins.
So, I am off to see the Navy-Temple football game tonight, and then a few days of relaxation before the storm.
Which reminds me, that is what we named our learning team "The Perfect Storm"
Pretty cool huh?
August 25, 2007
The Craziness continues...
I am having so much fun it is unjust. What an amazing group of people, and they had so much energy they are tiring me out. I finished the math exam, and I am pretty sure I passed. I am now focusing on passing the MGEC waiver exam so I can get out of that class this semester.
The Class of 2009 and Cohort G are still getting to know each other, figuring out where people stand and what kind of person we want to be for the next few years. There were some initial signs of cliquiness, but they are waning as everyone breaks through the initial exhaustion of telling your story seventeen times a day.
Every new person I meet has an amazing story, incredible experience, and is so smart it makes me feel like a lightweight.
Talk about self-starting. We just got here 2 weeks ago and we are already forming a 250-person, 8 person teams, Flip Cup Tournament. If you do not know what Flip Cup is, just do a google search for it. In true B-school style, we are having team names, costumes, rules committees, brackets, and lots of other official stuff.
This two years is going to rock...
The Class of 2009 and Cohort G are still getting to know each other, figuring out where people stand and what kind of person we want to be for the next few years. There were some initial signs of cliquiness, but they are waning as everyone breaks through the initial exhaustion of telling your story seventeen times a day.
Every new person I meet has an amazing story, incredible experience, and is so smart it makes me feel like a lightweight.
Talk about self-starting. We just got here 2 weeks ago and we are already forming a 250-person, 8 person teams, Flip Cup Tournament. If you do not know what Flip Cup is, just do a google search for it. In true B-school style, we are having team names, costumes, rules committees, brackets, and lots of other official stuff.
This two years is going to rock...
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