It is funny to think about life in increments. For instance, what was I doing last year at this time? I was stressed out about completing b-school essays, most of which I was still unhappy with, and most of which were due the first week of January. I was also stressing about producing a major component of the back to back republican and democratic presidential candidates debates, which also happened to be airing… yes, the first week of January.
Flash forward to this year and I’ve been through an entire semester already. And towards the end of that semester, prospective students with interviews started showing up in class. The cycle moves quickly and soon there will be another set of admits. Weird.
Currently, I’m staring down the barrel of the resume drop deadline for formal recruiting: which is the first week of January. Stressful, ya. But I signed up for this and I’m not really sure that I can complain. It’s a great position to be in.
Whenever I find myself in these types of spots – uncertainty on the horizon – I always find it helpful to look backward before looking forward. Think about where I was 5 years ago today. I had just started my first job. I was thrilled about being at a television network. I couldn’t have imagined ever leaving. And yet here I am, in an entirely differrnt place, completly enthralled by what I’m doing. That gives me great hope. Despite whatever worries me about what’s next, 5 years from now I will hopefully look back at today and think, why was I ever worried?
I don’t often post media here (which is weird, I realize). But I’m counting down to vacation, and this picture is making the negative windchill in Chicago so much more bearable.
Belize, I’m coming.
Like a clap of thunder, first semester was loud and intense. Also like a clap of thunder, the first semester seems to have gone by really quickly. But I like a good thunderstorm, so I’m looking forward to the next one.
Finals concluded. Not really much more to say about that. The ones I was expecting to be impossibily difficult weren’t, while the ones I was expecting to be easy, weren’t either. It was an experience in resetting expectations. But they’re over, and from the vantage point of vacation, that’s really all that matters.
3+ weeks away from the bubble is going to give me a nice opportunity to unwind, unplug, and otherwise chew on everything I learned and all the experiences I had over the last 4 months. I’ll also have to start wrapping up the formalized job search/application process, as the official resume drop date is January 6.
But for now: resting and relaxing.
We’re in the middle of final exams here at hbs. The school doesn’t have a “reading week” for exam prep and all exams are open book. One prof even told us not to study but just get a good night’s sleep before the exam. As usual with anything evaluative, anxiety seemed high at school going into Friday’s Marketing exam. Coming out, though, it seemed most people were surprised by the intensity of the case and the lack of help gained from excessive preparation.
So this weekend quickly morphed from a 48 hour scheduled study session, to a relaxing study as you want weekend with a social outing Friday night and a dinner party last night. Today is study time.
Exams here all work mostly the same way – 4 or 4.5 hours to read a case and write somewhere between 750 and 1500 words analyzing it (some with exhibits to create in the analysis). The exam is then graded and added to the forced curve… approximately 10% of the section receives a 1 (the high mark), approximately 80% of the section receives a 2, and approximately 10% of the section receives a 3 (the low mark).
Racking up too many 3′s lands one in trouble with the school (though there seems to be a whole lot of urban myth going around about what the criteria are for that – and what the consequences could be). The course final grade is derived from some (varying) combination of midterm grade, final grade, and class participation grade, usually weighted heavily toward class participation.
I’m hoping the rest of the exams go smoothly. There are 4 remaining. Mostly I’m looking forward to the end of them and my birthday party on Thursday night…
One of the biggest challenges at HBS is the size of the class. There are 900 people in my graduating class. There is no chance, in 2 years, I will have become friends with all of them. That is a difficult thing to come to grips with. There are surely benefits to having a large class size – it increases the diversity of perspective, it increases the network students have upon graduation.
One of the great dillemmas, I suppose, is how to filter for friends in a group so large. My natural tendency is to want to develop close friendships with everyone who impresses me. Unfortunately that group is way too big here. So I have to pick and choose. But how do I do that? How does a person know who would make a good friend. And when I say that, I’m not talking about the type of person you’d want to have a beer with. I’m talking about the type of person who quickly understands who you are, how you are, and why you are.
That has been an incredible challenge so far. I’ve certainly been lucky in that I’ve developed several really awesome friendships since I’ve gotten here, and generally like everyone who is here, but it’s not lost on me that there could be other people in this class who would make great friends too. The trick is finding them…