Long Time No Blog!

I almost forgot that I had a blog until I was reminded by two classmates that asked me if I was mbasalsera! My first year as an MBA student is about 3 weeks from ending. All I can say is Thank God! It's been a tumultuous year. I'm not sure I was cut out for b-school? Or maybe I just wasn't cut out, at this stage in my life, for being so far from the one's I love back home? The work, albeit huge quantities, is not all that difficult. It's not like we're learning rocket science here. Sadly I have enjoyed very few of my classes. Fortunately, the few classes I have enjoyed are all happening right now, so it's making the year end on a positive note. Professors are alright, some fantastic, some horrible, most just average. The administration has a general attitude of superiority to the students. Have they forgotten that, prior to coming to b-school, all of us had already been successful in this "real world" they always refer to condescendingly as if we have no idea what that is. I wonder if I should have waited a year and reapplied to some of the other schools I was interested in? I also wonder if any of those schools would have been much different? (As I re-read this I realize how negative I'm being, please note, I'm tired and grumpy at the moment, I promise to be more positive about my experience in my next blog ;-)

On the flip side, DC is a fantastic city. I really wish I had more time to enjoy it though. I think next year will be a lot better. I'll be taking classes I have an interest in instead of being forced to take core courses. By the way, the core courses are something I actually wanted in a B-school, because I felt like I had no idea about anything after having only been an engineer for so long. However, after having been there done that, I completely regret that decision. I wish I NEVER had to take a marketing class ever. It's not what I like, not what I'm good at, and if I have no interest in it why would I want to be forced to take it? So if you're reading this and deciding between schools or deciding what schools to apply to, definitely consider what classes you are required to take and really think about whether or not you want to go through that! That was bad planning on my part. C'est la vie.

Anyway, as I was saying, next year will be much better. I've obviously learned how to balance my work load a little better. I'll be taking classes of my choosing so the work load will seem less overwhelming and I can try to enjoy life in DC a little more and maybe even get a life outside of school...find some running team or cycling team or maybe even a salsa team to get out with.

As every first year MBA student stressed about an internship....I got lucky. I had my internship lined up back in early October. It seemed absurd to me that I had been in school for less than two months and I was already interviewing and had an offer!! There were definitely a million pluses and a few minuses to having a summer internship lined up so early in the year. The very large tech firm found my resume posted for one of the career fairs I attended. The recruiter called me for an interview. I went through one phone interview and one in person interview at the career fair and had an offer soon after. I took it. It was the right location, the right position in corporate finance and the right $$. I'm not sure it was the right firm but it's a big name and it will look good on my resume. Plus the two people I interviewed with were really fantastic and I contacted two other people in the finance department there just to chat with them about the place and they were wonderful as well, so I took the offer. Of course that was great in terms of me not having to worry about applying and interviewing in the midst of finals, papers, projects etc. However, I sort of wish I had interviewed elsewhere just for the practice. I heard about classmates interviewing in front of panels of management, having 5 interviews, etc and I have no practice with that now. If next year I don't get an offer for full time at my internship or if I don't want to return I won't have the experience of interviewing. Plus when other firms of interest contacted me I had to say I couldn't interview with them because of the commitment I had already made for the summer. But what can you do? Besides I think the benefits of getting a good internship early on definitely outweight the cons by a landslide!

I will try to maintain this blog throughout my internship experience and throughout next year a little better. But no promises! I hope that all those bloggers out there that went through the application process with me are enjoying their first year and have fantastic internships lined up for the summer!

Cheers-
mba-salsera! (I should give myself a new name, I haven't been salsa dancing all year long :-( I hope to make up for that this summer!)