»October 29, 2009: Seriously, is b-school the real world?
One of the things that really bugged me last year (as a first year MBA) was when people said, "Once you get in the real world, you will have to..." As a student with five years of experience in "the real world" I found that more than mildly patronizing. It was like they were saying, I had never worked a job or gone on an interview or made a professional presentation or (and ... ... (MORE)
»September 28, 2009: Second Year MBA: Speakers, Access and Buses
Right now I m on a bus to Orrville, Ohio then on to Louisville, Kentucky. Why? Well, I ll get to that. We ve had some really excellent speakers and experiences in the first month of 2nd year MBA at William and Mary. Last week we hosted Adam Werbach of Saatchi and Saatchi S who kicked off his Do One Thing (DOT) initiative for universities with us. His message was really powerful from both an ind... ... (MORE)
)»September 11, 2009: Internships, Internships
Over the last few weeks I ve been asked by a lot of first year MBAs about internship searches and career fairs, so I thought I d gather some advice from my classmates and post some helpful tips here. Please send me others if you have them and I ll post them as well. Disclaimer: I am by no means a career services expert, and they may disagree with some of this advice, but I did go through the se... ... (MORE)
»August 29, 2009: Second Year MBA
I know it has been too long since I last posted. My summer internship ended and I made my way back up to William and Mary. Classes started this week, and I couldn t help but feel nostalgic for last year. I remember exactly the excitement and anxiety of starting the MBA program and meeting a world of new people. It was very different coming back as a second year. I was excited, indeed, but you k... ... (MORE)
»July 28, 2009: MBA Internship Final Presentation
For those of you following along, I had my final presentation for my MBA summer internship with Darden Restaurants, this last Friday. I m pretty sure I practiced that presentation 20+ times, and I think it paid off for my self confidence and comfort with the material. It was hard to pack 10 weeks of work into 20mins of power point slides, but with some creative animation and robust talking poin... ... (MORE)
»July 22, 2009: One day till the final presentation
So this Friday is my "What I did over my summer vacation" presentation, otherwise known as the summary of my major summer project at Darden Restaurants. Nine weeks of research and meetings wrapped up into 20mins. It is a little challenging to outline a problem, its impact on the business and recommend a strategy and framework to move forward and improve all in 20mins, while trying to ... ... (MORE)
»July 7, 2009: Reminiscing...the summer before B-School
I remember very vividly where I was this time last year, before business school started. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Here are some lessons learned for getting prepared to start business school that I ve either experienced or picked up from others. 1) Quit your job (unless you re sponsored)! It doesn t matter how important you are, you need a break before school starts and not ... ... (MORE)
»July 1, 2009: Halfway Through the 1st Year Summer
Well here it is...the halfway point in my MBA life. My summer internship is going great. My project is both challenging and interesting. I really wish I could go back in time and see what I would produce if given the same assignment without having experienced the first year of B-School. I d like to think it would be similar, but maybe not. I wonder if I would have the same desire to dig into th... ... (MORE)
»June 14, 2009: Musings about the internship, school and ethics
I ll start with ethics...my only beef is that I was reading this article in BW about how Harvard s Code of Ethic has gone viral. Does anyone else think it is wrong for the world to subscribe to a code of ethics from the very same school that has produced the most unethical managers? If this viral ethics code had come from Emory or UVA or frankly any other school, I would have been really impres... ... (MORE)
»June 2, 2009: Weighing in on Business Ethics Debate
I just started reading this debate on Businessweek and others about business ethics and whether MBAs are to blame for the financial crisis. My first reaction was defensive:"Hey there! THere are some MBAs that don t go into finance but way to hold up the stereotype, Businessweek!" But then I took a deep breath and thought about the recent discussions at my school around "accountab... ... (MORE)
