Done with Day One

So I kicked off the first day of school with a bad start:

• Burnt Charlton’s breakfast
• Had the dog run after some deer (which resulted in me running after her for 5 minutes)
• Had printer issues at school so i end up missing my finance slides for class

But then the day turned around. Not like choirs singing or anything but it went pretty well after that. Today I had finance, econ and operations. I got cold called in econ and survived and I felt adequately prepared for everything. Had my resume writing workshop after class and got a pretty awesome review on it (just needed a few grammar tweaks) Then it was time to come home, get some more studying done (lots of reading for my management case discussion on weds), grabbed a quick dinner here at the house before heading back to IU to see Guy Kawasaki speak. It was such a cool talk, I ended up with pages and pages of notes…hopefully I will be able to apply some of his lessons.

But since my Myers Briggs says I like lists here is what I accomplished today:

• Turned in team charter
• Revised resume
• Turned in academy application
• Wrote my SAC application
• Turned in my SAC application
• Read Mondavi case for MGMT and did an okay outline of the case
• Read module for weds econ class including text
• Watched two portions of the finance video lecture series

The sad thing is, even with all that I got done today I have loads more I didn’t even get a chance to start. Gotta keep treading!

Frantic

So today was the last day before the official start of class, not that the last few weeks haven’t been a lot of work. It may sound like all hot air balloon rides and food festivals but we have had some hard core reading and that case comp was brutal. Just like Jumpstart, we are going to start getting cold called and thrown into the fire. Core professors, please be gentle!!

Today was an all day study session, with a small break for me to write my academy application essay. The hope is to ge that turned in after my resume workshop tomorrow so I can get my interview out of the way. The club meetings start happening on Tues, we have a leadership presentation tomorrow night and not to mention the SAC application available tomorrow to try to wiggle into my schedule. AND CAN’T FORGET ROUNDTABLES! I need to research my companies something fierce and get everything all ready for networking night on Weds. Too much too do, so little time.

If nothing else, at least my lunch is packed!

Survived my 1st haircut in Bloomington! Think it turned out pretty good, phew!

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y

Although I would love to say that I crossed all of the assignments off the to-do list yesterday, it ended up being more of a social day.

In the morning, we held our 1st top chef breakfast club! We had over 3 other couples over for a little viewing party with bacon, frittatas, fruit salad and coffee cake. The food turned out well (everyone loved my aunt’s coffeecake recipe!) and the show was fun to watch all together. Figure I won’t have the opportunity to have people over much this semester so better to have them over now while I am still sort of together.

Then we headed to College Mall for some much needed shopping. Got a great fall top and skirt (50% off) that I will hopefully be able to put to use during Round Tables this week. Back at the house we got a little more studying in before we headed out to our friend’s house for game night.

We had a blast at her place; meeting a lot of the people in the German department, making/eating pizza and playing Catchphrase and Scattergories. We didn’t leave until about 11 that gave us enough time to get a little bit more reading done before bed. One more day until class, got to push through to the finish.

Free Day?

So yesterday was our first day of orientation without a seminar or class scheduled. Didn’t really feel like we had a free day though. We got up, studied like crazy until about noon then went out and got some sandwiches with some friends. Then it was back home for a few more minutes of studying before we headed to the art museum for a free tour scheduled by the MBA program.

The museum is gorgeous and has some magnificent pieces. I am looking forward to taking some study breaks there throughout the semester to clear my head.

Then armed with our free coffees from the museum’s coffee shop we went to the book store to try to redeem our points from our rewards cards and get some IU t-shirts. Well after an hour we left still t-shirtless.

Like a couple of whirling dervishes we set out for Walmart to stock up on groceries for the week and to get some ingredients for the breakfast get together we were throwing Saturday.

At home we got a few more minutes to study before heading off to the last orientation activity for the week, the international food fair. A bunch of the restaurants on 4th street that serve ethnic food participated, which is nice because I doubt with all of our studying we will be able to eat there often.

After hanging out with everyone for awhile it began to pour so we headed home to study some more before finally going to bed at one.

Dusting Off Those Running Shoes

Yesterday was our career services day. They equated our job search to running a marathon. Basically saying we have 16 weeks to prepare ourselves for interviews and getting out there and networking. We had about 4-5 total presentations, and it was pretty helpful.

My presentations were in the afternoon but I came into school early and read and caught up on some of the homework. Seemed like a good idea at the time but it made it so i was at school all day since as soon as the last presentation was over we boarded buses and head to Oliver winery’s vineyard.

It was absolutely gorgeous out there, and they were giving vineyard tours and HOT AIR BALLOON rides! There was a great spread and it was a great time. We got home pretty late, I finished some questions for operations and we watched 1 1/2 episodes of Mad Men before passing out.

The lack of sleep is definitely getting to me, and I have a massive headache. Since I already let Addie out just going to make her go back to bed so I can sleep some more. Hopefully that will help.

Join the Club

Today was another full day of MBA programing. The morning started out with back to back presentations on time and stress management. Stuff you guys all know I need help with ;) After a few takeaways…cheap massages offered by health services, SCORE! It was on to the club fair/expo. We had representatives from almost every club come and talk to our cohort and then they let us all out to talk to the reps at their tables in the atrium. It was craziness! Although I pretty much knew which organizations I wanted to join, I did learn about the Kelley International Perspectives scheduled for next year (China, Dubai/Egypt, Israel and Ireland) I am definitely interested in doing one! Just got to figure out which one.

Then it was time to come home and get caught up on some scheduling stuff for class. I got my outlook all set up for the next two weeks so I can tackle the work a little more effectively (hopefully)

When 4:30ish rolled around it was a mad dash to get all gussied up for our MBA induction ceremony at the union. It was an amazing event, I was getting misty at the end of it when the Dean remarked on us writing our new chapter. Just so pumped to be surrounded with so many bright and talented people, we have such a great class. I am really looking forward to seeing all of what class of 2011 accomplishes.

We all made our way to the Tudor room for a wonderful reception and cocktail hour…that lasted for a few. We actually shut the place down because we were having such a great time catching up with our classmates.

We walked Addie around our complex when we got home and I pounded out some finance problems. Now it is time for bed as i can hardly keep my eyes open.

This is what winning looks like. My team and the Program Chair after our case comp win on Friday

We’ve got spirit, yes we do, we got spirit how about you?!

After a long day of academy and major presentations, and getting bogged down with our future assignments, we headed over to Memorial Stadium for the IU spirit event.

We got to watch the football team practice, receive a tour of the stadium, have dinner with our classmates and their families, get pep talks from the athletic coaches and get to see IU’s famous a capella group, straight no chaser. Was a lot of fun, wish I could relax in the hot tubs in the stadium though after this busy week.

Hoosier Hunt

Scared Straight

Today is what we figured for an easy orientation week, can’t get any worse than case comps right?! Um, not so fast! Today was the start of what we can expect for the rest of the semester…lots of reading, lots of work. Definitely was scared out of our minds today. Then throw in a networking event with peer counselors, a scavenger hunt around the IU campus and a trip to the bookstore that left my pockets $750 lighter (and that’s just for the course packet!) and you will have my day in a nutshell. Ready or not, Core here we come!

Lazy Weekend

Not much to note, as we both were so tired from the case competition we had turned into vegetables.

Saturday:

• some friends came over and watched Top Chef
• we watched the first episodes of Mad Men
• revised my resume
• applied for a chair position in Kelley Women
• finally picked up some coffee and end tables and a cool lime green chair
• got Korean food and some awesome ice cream from Chocolate Moose with another classmate

Sunday:

• watched Project Runway
• did the laundry
• put up wall graphics in the living room to decorate
• finished the goal for school
• read the first chapter for our ACCTG class
• had dinner at Laughing Planet Cafe (my new favorite place in b-town)
• another Chocolate Moose trip

We Won!

Sorry the news is a little late, but after yesterday I was a zombie! But let me rewind a little so you get a taste of the whole case competition process.

My team met in one of the breakout rooms at 8 and practiced, practiced, practiced until we had to head to the judging room. Our presentation went well and the questions we were asked weren’t anything we couldn’t handle. Our mentor sat in on it too and gave us some feedback after so that was helpful. We went to decompress for awhile and then were called back in with the other 3 teams we were competing against. The judges then announced who was advancing to the second round…my team! We were all kind of shocked, and stumbled out to the atrium to await for the drawing of second round presentations.

We selected the second slot, that allowed us just enough time to eat lunch and practice a few more times in our breakout room. Then it was show time! for round two, we not only presented to three second year judges but the WHOLE rest of our cohort. Once again it went really well, the questions were a little tougher but it seemed that the judges were satisfied with most of our answers.

Then we watched the two remaining teams and headed to the auditorium to await the results. Professor Powell walked the whole MBA class through the case and talked about things the second years liked and didn’t like about our presentations as a whole. Then it was the time that all 231 had been waiting for…the results! and when he read green 2, my heart skipped a beat. We won!? Wow! We are barely a week in and i won a case competition against 15 other teams? And with members from really impressive backgrounds. Its amazing that a girl from San Diego State and a dream can really accomplish.

After a much needed nap and some dinner we headed out to Brother’s bar to celebrate with the rest of the class! Glad to have one case under my belt and a jump drive to wear with pride around my neck!

It's 1:30...and I just got home

So tonight was our first all nighter! We got our case yesterday and thought we had a pretty good handle on it. My team got to school at around 8 am and I worked the numbers all afternoon. We took a break at lunch time so I could home and take care of addie and then it was back to the break out room. Everything was progressing nicely, until our mentor showed up around 4ish to tear our presentation to bits. So instead of taking a couple hour dinner break, we grabbed a quick one downstairs and worked through the night. We completely redesigned our presentation and was still able to get a half an hour in at our designated practice room. Our mentor brought us some awesome treats (homemade thai curry puffs!) and gave us some suggestions on tightening the presentation. So at 11:30 it was back to the breakout room to tweak it some more. Think we are pretty set. Of course I got stuck with the numbers so I will have a lot of practicing to do in the morning before heading back to school again at 8 (for our 9:15 presentation) phew! What a day!

And so it begins! Our first case study was given to us after we had some housekeeping sessions and our composite photos taken. Today and tomorrow I will be eating and sleeping nothing but Timberland

Last night was the first Kelley Women event. We had appetizers and drinks at Grazie downtown, and it was a lot of fun. I got to see a lot of the second years again from Experience Weekend and meet some more of my fellow classmates. Found out about some of the events coming up, including the NAWMBA conference at Disneyland, and what volunteer positions are available. Really excited to get involved, hopefully the Core will be accommodating!

Extra Credit

In the week we had in San Diego before the move we made sure to check out the Freestyle. What an innovation in catering to the consumer’s taste and up to the minute market research. And don’t forget you end up with grape Coke and strawberry Volt suicides, what’s not to like?

Registering

So its official, I am all signed up for classes. Officially an IU student now!

In about a half hour my team and half of our class will be on a bus headed for the great outdoors. Hopefully this turns into a great bonding experience (if the weather cooperates) and not the Blair Witch Project. Bradford Woods here we come!

I Will Survive

So after a few hours out in the woods, I am now once again in the safety of our apartment. The outdoor team building was a lot of fun, and we really were able to learn to work as a team to accomplish tasks. Pour water from a bucket into a cup with ropes while blindfolded?! Carry team members through a net? Get across a “raging river”? Walk with skis? EASY! We had great communication and really did play to each others strengths. Think we will have a great semester ahead of us.http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=994694090181350300

Dinner and Dirt

So after a short break from all things Kelley, we had dinner with our orientation mentors. We hit up Yogi’s to make the transition to the D-bar that much easier. And if I didn’t already love my team, tonight just cemented it. We got the dirt on everyone and our mentor made sure to give us the dirt on what to expect from our Kelley experience. I am really pumped to get started and can’t wait to work with everyone this semester.

Today’s agenda:

• meet our team & mentor
• opening session
• cultural orientation

Gotta say, I love my team. I am sure they will all be sick of me at the end of the Core but they are a great group of people and we get along famously already. looking forward to the 2 am study sessions

As always, I was totally pumped after the opening session. The faculty and staff are some of the most amazing public speakers and really nail home why this is such a special place

Cultural orientation was interesting, not what I would have scheduled for the first day but we did learn a lot in who we can be perceived and how we need to be sensitive in the workplace

All in all, a good full day. Now its time for our mentor dinner and maybe if I get inspired we will stick around for the D-bar.

Personal Training

How else can you describe the beginning of an MBA experience, other than personal training? You are training yourself to think differently, how to approach problems and to be a successful manager. Meanwhile, pushing yourself to be better and achieve results.

This idea was put forth within the first hour or so of our orientation: that we are surrounded by a team that wants us to achieve our goals and succeed. I knew I made the right decision there in that auditorium during the welcome presentation. Just hits you that there is this life we had before coming to Kelley and the life we will have after. What a trans-formative place.

So right now, I have a lot to think about. Where do I see myself two years down the road after I have received my diploma, or even next summer? A buyer at Target?! A brand manager at General Mills?! Kelley is going to help me crack open the doors to wok to my full potential and I CAN’T WAIT!

After a week in Bloomington, moving into our apartment and going to my Jumpstart classes, today it really starts! At 9 am this morning I meet the rest of my MBA classmates as we begin our two week orientation into the Kelley MBA program. Wish me and the rest of the Class of 2011 luck!