Think Spring!

Spring arrived in Ithaca a few weeks ago, and it couldn't have come at a better time. Classes are slowing down, deliverables are being non-existent and my motivation to do anything work-related has evaporated. I'm fully in senior spring mode!

Despite the slowdown in class-related areas, the social aspects of my time here have only heated up. The last few weeks brought some fun and new events, such as our admitted students weekend, Destination Johnson, and P.S. - Personal Success, a new tradition started for outgoing second years. Destination Johnson was another great weekend, where I got to meet students who will be first years starting in the fall. It was heartbreaking knowing that I won't actually get to be a student with them, but I'll be more than happy to see them again when I come back for recruiting in the fall. Here's a picture of me and the two lovely ladies (Kelly and Meredith) who stayed at my apartment for the weekend.

P.S. was a new event started this year. It's a day of celebration for all that the second years have accomplished and a chance to network/get advice from alumni as we embark on the next stage of our careers. It was an amazing day that started with a mimosa toast and ended with a fabulous dinner and fireworks! Below is a pictures of me and some of my closest gal pals at the event and of the amazing firework display.

Lots of other things have kept me busy as well (besides my Tivo). I've been working on a second Park Fellowship project this spring with a few of my peer Park Fellows. We're conducting an after-school program on Tuesdays at two different middle schools in the area, with the goal of teaching the students the value of teamwork, communication, respect in both competition and the workplace, as well as throwing in a few business concepts for them to grasp. It's been an amazing time working with the kids and having fun. Here's some pictures from our last session, where the students had to build small cars and compete on distance.

Lastly, we just had our bowling league award ceremony/celebration this past Wednesday at Pixel Lounge, in Collegtown. It was a lot of fun and I even won an award for second highest female average. I only missed first by 0.7 pins! Darn! Oh well. Here's a picture of me with my award.

Nirvana

So these days things are awesome. I specifically set up my last quarter so that I only have three classes, and I'm done by 10:00am on Mondays and Wednesdays and by 11:30am on Tuesday and Thursdays. That does mean I have to get up early every day, but it leaves me plenty of time to hit the gym, take naps, do assignments and whatever else I want. Basically, it's fabulous.

Now there is a common myth that the second year of grad school is automatically easy. I'm here to tell you that is not true. You've got to start planning your first year to make it happen. My plan was to take a few extra credits during the second semester of the first year so that I would have less to fulfill my second year. Then I still had a grueling first semester back so that the last semester would be the best. And here it is! Only three classes and plenty of time to hang out with friends, hit the gym and just relax. It's amazing!

Speaking of fun past times, this afternoon is our first intramural softball game. The weather appears to be cooperating for the first time in awhile, so it should be a good day to play. It's a Johnson school team, but the league is open for all Cornellians, so it's kind of fun that we may play some undergrads. Nothing shows you how old you're getting than playing students that are almost a decade younger than you! I'll let you all know how it goes...

Typical Johnson School

Once again I have to apologize for my lack of recent posts, but I hope to make it up to you with a few smaller posts over the next couple of days (which are VERY busy with end-of-quarter assignments and finals). My post today deals with something that actually happened awhile ago, but it came to mind recently and I wanted to share it with prospective students reading this blog. Basically, this is a story about what it really means to be a student at the Johnson School.

I was speaking with a classmate of mine shortly after classes started this semester. Steve's an Accelerate MBA who is going to be working for the same company I am after graduation. We ended up, quite coincidentally, at final rounds for this company on the same day (they held multiple days of final rounds). Another one of our classmates, Dawn, was also there on this day. On this Friday in December, I didn't really know Steve very well - I just knew his name, that he is an AMBA and that we occasionally frequent the same bars in Collegetown. Other than that, I didn't know much about him. I knew Dawn a bit more since she's another second year student and so we've had much more time together over the past two years. But nonetheless, we all were talking with each other, discussing winter break plans and such right from the moment we saw each other in the lobby.

So there we all were for this day of networking with current MBA Associates at the company, back to back interviews with VPs, lunch with the CEO and a mini training session where they introduced us to their full line of medical devices. Also present this day were applicants from Harvard and MIT (very nice people from what I remember). The whole day went by in a whirlwind of activity and before I knew it, it was over. But during the whole day, the three of us from JGSM joked between interviews and at lunch and showed the camaraderie which just naturally happens here. It didn't matter that we didn't know each other very well - it just mattered that we were from the Johnson School. We had been through the same classes, eaten in the same Atrium and therefore we were very supportive of each other in the final round process. I even offered Dawn a ride back to Ithaca so that she didn't have to deal with the hassle of possible flight delays due to the bad weather which had rolled into the Philly area.

Now fast forward to January when I'm talking to Steve and he mentions to me that he had met with some of the VPs again during a return visit after he got his offer. He said that they were very impressed with the Johnson School candidates, particularly the camaraderie and warmth that we all displayed to each other. They asked if we knew each other beforehand and Steve honestly said that he knew us a little, but not very well. They mentioned that they were impressed by this type of behavior and I guess it showed - there were four open positions at this company and all four Johnson School finalists (another attended a different final round day) got offers! When Steve told me this story, I just laughed because there was no other question in my mind that it would be this way. That's just the Johnson School way.

Bye bye good intentions

Well, well. Here I am poised on the brink of my fifth week of classes, and I realize that I have only blogged once so far this semester. It's been an amazing and interesting couple of weeks so far, and I'm once again blown away by the fact that I'm more than halfway through another quarter of grad school, which means that a few of my classes (three out of five to be exact) will be over in a mere three weeks. How is this possible?! I will be picking up another class to fill the void a bit, but not too much so that my last quarter here will hopefully be as enjoyable as I imagined (and planned) it.

So what's been going on with me? Well, a lot of things have happened since the start. For one thing, the first three weeks of classes lulled me into thinking that this semester was going to be nothing but a piece of cake. I enjoy all of my classes (Critical Thinking, Financial Statement Analysis, Spreadsheet Modeling, Human Resource Management and E-Commerce) and there were no assignments due during the first three weeks. Then last week showed up and suddenly I had an assignment due in every single one of my classes! Thankfully I'm the type of person who always looks a little bit ahead, so I was able to prepare myself mentally for the onslaught of work.

Of course, it wasn't completely easy sailing. The two weekends prior to the "weeklong work frenzy" were crammed with fun and excitement. First, I turned the big 3-0 (yikes!) and that brought with it a fun weekend with my boyfriend and friends here in Ithaca. It also brought a weekend of getting absolutely no work done! Yes it does happen, even in grad school, if you allow yourself the luxury. I did, and paid for it a bit, but not as much as the following weekend when I went home for a wedding. That was the weekend before the dreaded assignment week and it was really hard to take time off then. But I did it nonetheless and was glad that I did at the time. A little buckling down during that Sunday and the rest of the week and everything got turned in on time. Whew!

This semester has definitely had its upsides. I've made a pact with friends to do more activities and we've held close to that promise. I've done dinners at people's houses, gone out to dinner a lot more, hit up Greek Peak for some snowboarding and more. It's been a ton of fun. My advice to anyone going into their second year is to save up some money from your internship so that you can enjoy your last year in college for awhile. One of my favorite topics these days is what to do for spring break (my last one, possibly forever!) this year. My second favorite topic is our bowling league, which makes Thursday nights around here something to look forward to. I'm trying to win the "Best Female Bowler" award this year (I came in second last year), but there's some stiff competition out there. Here's a picture of my awesome bowling team, Brew Crew, making an appearance for the second year in a row. A shout out to Ben Ross, Kate Tansey and Mike Jaffre for making Thursdays so much fun!

The Final Return

This past Saturday I returned to Ithaca for my last semester here at the Johnson School. It was a bittersweet return, given that I was excited to get here and see all of my friends but I know that this will be the last start of new classes and adventures here in Ithaca. My plan is to make the most of it, taking up every opportunity to spend time with others and take advantage of the opportunities that Ithaca and Cornell have to offer. It's bound to be fun!

Winter break was really great. When you're a second year, you're mostly taking elective classes and sometimes classes outside of the Johnson School like I did. I was fortunate that all of my final projects, papers and exams were finished by December 5th, which left me 6.5 weeks of winter vacation. Now THAT is a break. I decided to go on the annual ski trip this year and so I flew out to Steamboat, CO with some of my classmates and had a week-long ski adventure. I'm not a very good snowboarder, so I took lessons with some friends while I was there and in my estimation, I improved dramatically. I'll have to test out my newfound skills at Greek Peak here in Ithaca since I have a season pass. Below are pictures of most of us that made the trip out. As you can see, we had quite a group!

Choosing classes for your last semester is a tricky exercise as I've figured out. On the one hand, this may be the last time that I take this caliber of classes for a long time, so I want to take things that I find interesting. On the other hand, this is my last semester here and I want to have a good time while also learning something. So this was the dilemma I was presented with. I think I've managed to find classes that I'm interested in and a good balance of workloads for them. Mission accomplished!

Well, I'm off to pick up a prospective student for a class visit. I hope that the person finds Financial Statement Analysis as interesting as I do (I'm not kidding. I do find it interesting, at least so far after one class!)