Mt. Cardigan and Accounting...
The Sunday hike to Mt. Cardigan organized by the Outdoor Club was great. It was a short hike (just over an hour each way), but the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. Fall is coming closer and the leaves are just beginning to change color.
The hike also gave me a chance to connect with some second years. So far, I have come away enriched and fascinated after each interaction I have had with a fellow Tuckie, and this set of people was no different. There was an exchange student who told me about the hiring scene in London for the specific jobs in the finance sector I am looking for. Then the conversation shifted to medical devices with a Tuckie who did an internship in that industry. Healthcare is an area that fascinates me. There is so much of innovation taking place in the sector and it impacts lives more directly than any other area of science. A few minutes later I was discussing the power industry and the American experience with deregulation. Texas has had the best experience and everybody knows what happened in California! Apparently, the in the windiest (?) places of the US, cost of generating power through wind turbines is rapidly approaching the cost of gas based power.
At the summit I casually asked another guy what he did in his previous life. He was a professional gambler. That got me really interested. Given my affinity to the markets, we had a conversation that went from how the sports betting industry is changing in his country to avoiding bias while betting. While most people think gambling is a vice, my view is it is just another place where you can apply game theory. This does not mean I have gambled/like gambling.
This morning we had one of the most fascinating classes I have attended so far. We studied motivational factors and how they were a function of different stages of adulthood/indivdual context. From the exercise it emerged that there are lots of dissimilarities between hopes and fears of men and women. Also, married/engaged men tend to think very differently from single men. Everybody who is single had getting a suitable life partner as a top hope and not getting one as a fear No 1. For the married folks, their hope was that the marriage would work. Single women seem to have this huge fear of loneliness. And single men between 26-28 seem to want 'strings-free sex'. Jokes apart, the analysis of how we pass through different stages of adulthood (from 22 - 65) and how our priorities change over this period was very interesting. That is one subject I would love to understand more. Self awareness I believe is the key to being happy.
Company presentations have been continuing without a break. All these days I was sure that I don't want to go into consulting. But, I just may make an exception for The Firm and drop my resume + covering letter. Some aspects of company presentations I find extremely stupid. Like how firms try to say that visiting a place is same as seeing a place. In my pre Tuck life, I did some serious travel on work - and have learnt that all you see when you travel on work is the inside of airport terminals, the route from airport to office and the office. Now, that is not seeing a place!
Before coming to the US, I was unsure on how I would continue to be connected with my friends. Thanks to technology and timezones, that isn't an issue. An upside is that I am able to reestablish close contact with the horde of friends who are on this side of the globe. Good friendships survive more on faith and don't require constant contact to remain strong. This belief of mine has been vindicated further now. The other day I was chatting with a friend I haven't seen in 6 years. After lots of discussion on credit derivatives and merits of working on the buyside vs sellside and prospects for markets in India, the topic shifted to marriage. The best thing about desis is that most of us rest easy on the knowledge that there is safety net called arranged marriage and sometimes don't even try to help ourselves! Whereas in the US, pple who aim to get married by early 30's start looking out actively at mid 20's. And the fear of remaining single s huge. As an observer, it seems quite stressful
Have an accounting mid term tomorrow. Some collaborative work has resulted in a good page of notes. A review of the last year's exam and I hope I am ready to take on the test.
Work Hard.. Play Harder ?
The much awaited Decision Sciences mid term came and went :) I think it was okay.
Excel is something I have been fiddling around with for sometime now - thanks to the work I did. But just over 4 years ago - Excel was an unknown animal for me. When my first boss expressed his unhappiness about the fact that an assignment he had given was taking longer than he expected (coz of my lack of Excel knowledge), I remember telling him that as a computer science graduate, I was more familiar with building a tool like Excel than using it! But today, if I want to write some code, I would rather write VBA on Excel than write stuff in C.
With the exam and some rather time consuming Accounting stuff behind us, we were ready to take on the weekend. Friday night was the Mexican party. Viva Mexico. The party was good - but I didn't last there too long :). When a friend wanted a volunteer to drink some Tequila, I went along. And before I knew it, my mouth was at one end of a funnel while tequila from a bottle was poured at the other end!! It was good. And in 20 mins, I chose to return to my room and think about ways to bring about world peace - with my eyes shut. Go figure!!
Today morning, I wolfed down a full packet of potato chips with a fatty cheese dip to go. It worked ;-). That gave me the wherewithal to do my time at the gym. Elliptical trainers give you a good cardio workout without impacting the joints. So, from the last couple of weeks, I have stopped using the treadmill in favor of an elliptical trainer.
After spending a better part of the afternoon doing a take home exam on Analysis of General Management, I went off to a section party. First stop was a place 10 miles away from campus. Beautiful location, lovely house. Generally had a good time. Second stop (3 hours after first stop) was this mindblowing place called 'The Grotto'. It was INSANE. A huge house. An indoor swimming pool with a jacuzzi that changes colors, a chandelier that rotated. Fully furnished - and the inmates were paying a tad higher for the place than I did for my dorm room. Next year, I am gonna find a *good* place for myself.
Tomorrow is the Outdoor club hike to Mt.Cardigan. The weather promises to be good. So, I am looking forward to it. As I get more comfortable with the academic load, I have decided to participate in the club activities in a bigger way.
The study group coasts along beautifully. As a set, we are loosening up a little. In fact, some of my study group friends may even be writing guest columns on this blog. Watch out for those! After all, Tuck is synonymous with team work.
Finally, all you pple reading this - feel free to comment. It is anonymous and it is FREE. Everybody with a mind has an opinion, and you have a right to make your opinion known.
Weekend etc..
The past weekend we had a wonderful desi party at a friend's house. There is a huge desi population this year - so the gettogether was a nice opportunity to meet everybody under one roof (invariably we run into each other every day - nevertheless).
On the work/life front, it is pretty much more of the same thing. Company presentations, classes, studies. Clubs are a new element thrown into the mixture. On Saturday evening during the Club fair I signed up for almost 10 clubs. Now I need to decide which of them I plan to participate actively in.
Finance, Investment Management, Technology and Squash are clubs that attract me. I hope to do some Ice Hockey and Outdoors too. While most clubs have their meetings in classrooms (typical size 70 people), the Hockey club has the first meeting in the auditorium that accomodates 300 people! It is more like a cult here. Since I have never skated before - I hope to be part of the Tripods.
This morning a few of us had lunch with the Academic Dean. Every week the Dean has lunch with a bunch of students to understand how things are going. Of course, we could always have lunch with him otherwise too :) - since most faculty members have the breakfast/lunch at the cafeteria and are happy to chat up with you.
A mid term exam and a final exam are scheduled for this week. My preparation level is not as good as I would like it to be. But, it is difficult to balance priorities. I am investing a lot of time into polishing my resume and zeroing down on what exactly I want to do.
Getting into the groove...
The human mind is an amazing piece of engineering! After having been out of school for over 4 years, I thought it will take a really long time for me to get back into the active learning mode. Here I am, day 4 of week 2 - I can almost see myself getting back into the the student mindset.
The week so far has been hectic (isn't that getting stale!!). Corporate presentations have started - Consulting firms, Investment Banks and good ole manufacturing/marketing companies are holding hour long presentations saying how theirs is the best company to work for. Some people sound more genuine than others though :)
Just a week ago, I was sure what I wanted to do. Now, after lots of talking with friends and interacting with recruiters I am less sure about it. People say these presentations help you clarify your goals. They have only helped confuse me.
The party scene seems to be rocking. There is a concept of a social chair - somebody who takes responsibility to ensure that any night anybody wants to party - there is something happening. And there is a quality of life chair who ensures that we lead a balanced life and do some studying to round off the experience.
On my part, I haven't been partying too much (2 days a week isn’t too much!) Just this morning, I was discussing with my professor the way I seem to have changed in the last 4 weeks. She attributed it to the fact that since I was in a different country, different culture amidst a different set of people, becoming a bit introverted was the mind's protection mechanism. It would just be a matter of time before I get to a state of mind I am comfortable with, but I should be conscious that I will probably never be the old me again! These words could be cast in stone. They are so true!
Time is flying by so fast – at times I feel helpless to just watch it slip away. Every moment I am making choices – right now, I could be typing this, writing emails to friends in India, speaking on the phone to friends in the West Coast, reading today’s newspapers or reading a book I borrowed from the library. Of course, I could be playing ping pong or be partying at today’s late night party spot. (Almost each night there seems to be a different place where the Tuck crowd lands up!)
At times I just sit and wonder what a change there has been to life. Just a month ago, I was having a great time at home. Lying on my bed with remote controls for the music system and TV by my side, I could be the mascot for the urban tribe called couch potatoes. And now, the only TV I watch is when I am working out at the gym.
C’est la vie!
End of Week 1 - Phew...
Week 1 of classes has ended. It has been hectic and enjoyable.
This evening I attended a Tuck Annual Giving dinner. Tuck has the highest alumni giving rate among all business schools with 65% of all living alumni donating money *every year*. In fact, there were some batches (going as far back as 1975) with giving rates of well above 60%. The passion among alumni is infectious. There was one alum who graduated in 1937 :) and one who had come all the way from central Asia.
Last night we had this awesome party - Red, Orange, Green party. No prizes for guessing what the colors indicate! The lounge where this was held was a collage of smaller events - with drinking games, beer pong, dancing and people trying to talk to each other over loud music!
During the past week, we have had classes in all core courses. The quality of professors is striking. All of them have decades of experience, excel in teaching while being at the forefront of research in their fields. While a lot of people spoke about the dual excellence (teaching and research) focus of Tuck faculty, I finally got to experience it.
First day of classes...
Today was the first day of classes. I can't believe I came here just over 2 weeks ago. Feels like ages. Our study group met a couple of times (each time we spent about 3 hours!) to prepare for today's class. The output from the group was quite good. The class ofcourse was fantabulous. The very first course at Tuck - and it is a General Management course.
We also had a course on Leading Organizations. Pretty interesting too.
Later today, we had the first of the 'Sector Smarts'. Alumni coming down to Tuck and participating in panels about life in their respective careers. I attended the ones on Finance and Marketing. The Finance panel was very interesting (probably because I want to work in Finance). There were a couple of people from hedge funds and the third person worked for a middle market venture capital firm.
When I was applying to Tuck, everybody I spoke to told me about how the small size of the school ensured access to people - alumni, faculty and administration. While I didn't give this factor much weightage when I chose the school, today I saw what people meant by access.
I was able to spend subtantial time (one-on-one) with the alumni in hedge funds. This gave me an opportunity to bounce off them my ideas on what kind of an internship/job I wanted to look for, how I should market myself for that job, the dynamics in the marketplace etc. And today is just the first day of class!
The Labor day weekend that went by was nice. Made a trip to Boston on Sunday. Lovely city. Did a walking tour of the Freedom Trail. Learnt some nuggets of American History. I will try and audit a course on American History at Dartmouth coz that is something that interests me.
The last few days I have been able to exercise at the gym daily. The exercise routine has almost fallen in place. Hope I am able to take time off consistently and exercise.
Career search seems to be a huge part of life at business school. This afternoon when I opened my mailbox I had a folder from a top consulting firm with promotional material giving details of the presentation they have on campus in a few days and a shirt from an I Bank. The T shirt says Tuck nice and bold on the front. So, I guess a lot of us will be wearing this very often! Am hoping for more goodies from the other recruiters ;-). Each morning we get copies of Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal - thanks to other sponsors.
I wish somebody could sponsor and get me an extra 4 hours in my day - that would be AWESOME!
Orientation Week - almost over....
Orientation week is almost over. We have had classes in Ethics, Communicating Across Cultures, Time Management and almost 50% of the time devoted to career management.
Spent a nice day trying to put up a roof for the Habitat For Humanity at Wilder,VT. I have always been interested in being an active member of the community I am part of, and look forward to doing more such activities. This particular initiative was organised by the Allwin Initiative. They seem to be doing some cool stuff. That evening we had a dinner where Mr.Jim Allwin spoke very eloquently about the need for good corporate citizenship. Milton Friedman may have different views, but I would rather agree with Mr. Allwin.
Last night we had a random dinner. The people at Tuck amaze me continuously. There was this guy who played on the NCAA as a basketball player. Pple who have lived and worked in so many different countries. We went to a Japanese stakehouse. I liked what I ate - Tepayaki Chicken.
My study group is gathering momentum. I think it pretty much rocks. Accomplished people with no egos makes for a great combination.
This morning we had a very inspiring talk about how to get your dream job. Drawing a balance between money, life and family can be quite a challenge I realize. But sometime during the next 2 years I hope to make the hard decisions.
Tonight we have a dance and dinner. Am wondering whether the Amitabh Bachchan dance will cut ice with the elite here :) - or should I stick to the few tango steps I know. Decisions, decisions.. all the time!
