Orientation Week - First couple of days...
Orientation week is now well underway. We have had the first few classes. Ethics and Time Management. Plus a class on effective teamwork.
Ethics has been a focus at Tuck long before the scandals in corporate America started hitting the newspapers. The focus has only become sharper now. The best thing about discussions on ethical dilemmas is that there are so many dimensions to them. They also highlight the responsibility each of us has to uphold moral standards and lead by example. But again, by definition, a dilemma has no single appropriate 'answer'. Toss into the mix cultural differences and you have a recipe for an engaging class. The fact that the faculty member handling the class has spent a really long time in corporate America and has been teaching ethics for ages only makes it more exciting.
Time Management was a bit scary and enlightening. The professor painted a picture of life 5 weeks from now - and it wasn't nice! Most of us would smell bad, dress bad, sleep little, have poor exercise and poor eating habits. A recipe for disaster. But such is the pressure of Fall A term. We were encouraged to prioritise, make an effort not to cut down on low hanging fruit like sleep/exercise. Let us see how many of us can actually implement these suggestions.
Earlier today, we were told about our study groups. The constant emphasis on teamwork was a key reason for me to choose Tuck. In my previous life, prima donnas were the rule rather than the exception and I was pretty much accustomed to running my pop corn stand. Now, that shall change and I am looking forward to working with a super diverse group. Among the 6 of us, we represent 4 countries, have work experiences ranging from 3 years to 20 years and are pretty much generalists. There is a White House intern, people who have worked on deals at marquee investment banks, founded non profits that are operating across the globe and have worn all hats from IT to operations to engineering. And I am still talking of my study group here. Fascinating! In order to ensure that the groups got off to a good start, we had a session on effective teamwork for the class of 2006 with members of the class of 2005 fielding questions and making suggestions on how best we could make teams work.
The socializing goes on uninterrupted. I probably know about 30% of the class (of 262) by name now. I will be happy if I can know 50% of people by name by end of orientation week. There is always 2 years of time to know everybody - afterall there are clubs, activities and electives!!
The resume is 50% done. It is due on Sept 20th. Am hoping to get it reviewed by a few second year folks by then. There is some tricky formatting to be done. Tomorrow I should be able to do that - after doing some work for Habitat For Humanity.
posted by Tagad_Tale @ 10:29 PM
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