A lot has happened since my last entry. I decided to accept a Domestic Corps internship in Chicago this summer, with the National Foundation of Teaching Entrepreneurship, helping them devise a 5-year strategic plan for the organization. I was in the fortunate position of having to decide between two offers, the other having been from a socially responsible organic bottled tea producer in Maryland. The latter was an Operations position, which would have been but a minute departure from my previous pre-Ross experience, and so I chose to accept the non-profit position. More on that to come. It would seem that about half of our class remains internship-less, and on-campus recruiting has been reduced to a low hum rather than the frantic buzz it once was.

We are currently in the early stages of the MAP program. I'm on a team working with Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. While MAP is, in most years, about half international projects and many students get the opportunity to go abroad, this year the majority of the projects are domestic. My team will be spending about 3 non-consecutive weeks on site in Chicago, and we're already discussing making a trip to the Mayo Clinic at some point in the coming few weeks, for research. While this may seem disappointing to some of you, I assure you it's a relief to have the time to be home and cook and go to the gym and live a normal life this term. Indeed, most teams are sticking to a 9-5, M-F schedule throughout their MAP projects.

Course bidding also begins today. The first 3 quarters are Ross, MBA1s take classes that are, for the most part, assigned to them. There is some room for electives but it's minimal, and you're stuck with ones that have space reserved for first years on a first-come, first served basis. Going forward, we will bid for courses. This is kind of a scary proposition to me, since there is always the possibility of not getting the classes you need or want. Of course...if I sat down to look at the Fall A course offerings, I may feel a bit better about the process. :)

For those nonbelievers – it’s true, Michigan feels like the tundra in January! When people are writing daily Facebook status updates about the negative temperatures, you know it’s real.

Onto positive and warmer thoughts. MAP assignments have been released and I am excited for both the topic and the opportunity to work on an international assignment. I got one of my top five choices to work on a project for the North American product launch for the hybrid/electric vehicle battery market. The best part is that I will get to spend a week in Graz, Austria! I’m still a bit envious of my classmates that will be spending up to a month in locations like India and Peru but I consider myself fortunate to have been assigned to an international MAP in the first place.

Now if only the last two weeks of classes could just wrap up already….

The projects have been announced, and the teams have taken shape. We submitted our top MAP choices about two weeks ago and the MAP office has been hard at work, matching us to our project assignments. No one knows exactly how the process plays out, but in the end each MBA1 was assigned to a project ranked within their top ten, which is pretty impressive.

I am so excited about my assignment! It involves working with a rural hospital in Uganda to analyze areas for procurement and inventory management improvements. The project interested me because I am really enjoying our operations class this term, wanted to work with a non-profit for MAP, and hoped to gain some international experience. The project kickoff is still off in the distance (although not that far, since there’s only three more weeks left in the Winter A term) but our team of four students will be meeting for the first time tomorrow. We are all from different sections, which is great—as much as I love working with my section, it will be a nice change of pace to work with a completely new group.

Lastly, congratulations are in order to the newly admitted students for the Class of 2011. Hope to see you at Go Blue Rendezvous!

Sorry for the bad pun, but there is a lot of new building excitement and building excitement for our futures this summer. We started Winter A classes last week. Walking into the new building was a surreal experience, or maybe it just seemed that way because I arrived early for my 8am class and felt like I was still on break. The building’s wintergarden area is expansive and airy, and the first time I tried to do my homework there it almost had an upscale hotel feel to it. The orange--I mean terracotta!—color has grown on me, but I can’t quite figure out the interesting carpet selection. It looks like a mix between a world map and an MRI scan, and has certainly been the topic of many conversations!

This week has been extremely busy with group projects and also marked the start of internship interviews for many MBA1s. Despite the mock interviews with companies, advice from the Office of Career Development, and practice with other MBA1s, my nervousness was overwhelming as I sat in the interview waiting room today. Fortunately, my classmates sensed that and started chatting away with me to keep me distracted until it was time for my interview. That’s the great thing about Ross. You can always count on your classmates for support!

A little bit of everything is going on -- Winter A has begun, and I've taken on the "suicide load" of 5 classes, recruiting is in full swing, and MAP assignments are being generated somewhere out of sight, and we've achieved our first sub-zero temperatures (at least while classes are in session).

In brief, we're currently planning the following:
1. Spring Break
2. MAP
3. Summer internship
4. The rest of our lives.

To say it's stressful is a huge understatement. We all know the economy is bad and some companies have decided not to sponsor internships this summer (I had an interview canceled just this morning). I personally came here to do non-profit/social enterprise work, but the flood of other applicants being turned away from the likes of banking and consulting has made the competition for this usually self-selecting arena much more fierce. Many of us are feeling the pinch and are dealing with daily unease, wondering what the worst case scenario is and hoping that, one month from now, we'll feel silly to have even worried about it.

But -- to happier thoughts. MAP selections were due last Sunday and the assignments will come out next week. I personally selected WDI projects -- one with the Acumen Fund in India, another with a hospital in Uganda, a non-profit in the Dominican Republic, CEMEX and Hershey in Mexico (separately!). My domestic choices were all in Chicago, which, while not entirely exotic, still very appealing in their own way.

OH -- and I forgot to mention that the new building has opened! It's only been a week and a half and we seem to be taking it for granted already. It's large and glorious; classrooms have large bright windows, sophisticated AV thingamabobs to play with, there's a bunch of comfy seating and a brand new gym for working out when we're short on time. Most people are pretty happy in the new space (there are some of us, though, who sneak back to the old building for some new-found peace and quiet in the emptiness).

Monday is a holiday from school (those are truly rare), and president-elect Obama becomes the full-fledged commander-in-chief on Tuesday. Even with the bleakness and the freeze, there are still many things to look forward to!

As I nervously wait for close list interview results to be posted, I wonder if the 30+ jobs I've dropped for will be enough to secure me some interviews and a summer internship offer.

In the sky light lit lobby of the new Ross building, students are sitting around chatting about upcoming interviews and going over practice cases and questions. Some are disappointed that they didn't get close listed for their top choice companies and wonder how much they could afford to bid for one of the few open interview spots. As companies continue to reassess their summer hiring needs, we continue to get emails of reduced or cancelled campus interviews.

I have been moderately fortunate in getting close list invites and open bidding interview slots, but I have also received my fair share of rejections. However, in the occasional moments of self pity, I remind myself of how fortunate I am to have an American passport. Many of my international counterparts are truly feeling the pinch of the difficult economic environment. Their options were already limited by the number of companies that are willing to hire internationals. But as companies continue to scale back the number summer interns they are looking to hire, it seems that my international friends will have to search far beyond U.S. borders for a summer internship.

To those that have interviews, I wish you luck and the ability to respond to recruiter questions with ease and charm. To those that are still waiting for interview offers, I hope that you will stay positive and cast your nets a little wider.

There were times during Fall B when I just didn't think it would get here. But here we are, smack dab in the middle of a 3 week break from school. I finished up my last final and hopped right on a plane to San Francisco, where I hung out with some old friends from undergrad and one of my new best friends from Ross. I had never been to SF before -- it's a nice place!

But more ON topic -- there's a lot of Ross stuff going on. Closed lists are starting to come out (wish me luck), a ton of resume drops are happening January 1st, and today, just TODAY, we received the list of MAP projects for 2009. We can't register until January 7th but there are so many options that it's good we have plenty of time to peruse the list and decide which ones would be best for us.

On another front, the Net Impact Forum will be happening at the end of January. I just happen to be on the steering committee for this forum, and so, even during break, we're very busy getting everything in order. If you're going to be on campus January 29th or 30th (or both), I strongly you encourage you to come check it out. Even if you don't know if Net Impact is your kind of thing (though I bet it is!) rest assured we always put on a good event and you'll have a good time and get to meet some current students.

That's all for now -- more to come, I'm sure, before Winter A even starts!

December has been busy! The beginning of the month feels like a long time ago. We were just returning back from the Thanksgiving break, rejuvenated by a few days off, and moving into the homestretch for finals. Some December highlights:

• New building reception: The new business school building is almost ready! Students and guests were invited to a pre-opening reception for a sneak preview. It looks fantastic and I’m so excited to have my classes there next term. Not only is everything state-of-the-art, it’s specifically designed to support action-based learning with several community areas and a number of meeting rooms. It’s hard to believe how large and spacious the building is—I joked with my friends that we would need a bullhorn in order to find each other in the lobby!

• Secret Santa/Hanukkah Harry/Kwanza Kris (etc) party: Our section social chairs did a great job bringing in the holiday cheer by organizing a Secret Santa party. We were randomly assigned section-mates to buy presents for with a maximum of $20, so creativity was encouraged! The break from studying was definitely welcome as well!

• End of Fall B: Initially, I thought I had lucked out when none of my classes had final exams, but I definitely reconsidered after completing all of my final projects. Fall B drew to a close for me at 4am on Saturday when I finished my marketing project—with plenty of time to go before the 8am deadline. :) It’s hard to believe that means we are already 25% done with the MBA program. Even though I am enjoying some rest and relaxation during the holidays, I’m already looking forward to my classes for Winter A: Operations and Managerial Accounting (core courses) and Negotiations and Advertising Evaluation (elective courses).

• MAP: Speaking of Winter A, what about Winter B? The Multidisciplinary Action Projects list was just published a few hours ago. I haven’t ranked my top 10 projects yet, but there’s definitely a wide variety of projects and I’m excited to look through them in more detail.

Happy holidays!

“The focused student gets the job� - These were the words of advice repeated several times to us during our RLI orientation week. This was effective in steering individuals like me into concentrating my time and efforts on one function versus attending consulting club meetings, marketing company presentations, the hi-tech industry trek to California, and a host of other opportunities available to schmooze and hopefully impress recruiters. All this in an effort to get an invitation to a private dinner or a closed list interview.

My focus on learning more about the differences between a marketing career with a CPG (consumer packaged goods) company versus a retail company versus a marketing function in a corporation has allowed me to better understand the marketing career paths I can take. I’ve also limited the amount of time I need to devote to making small talk to recruiters while trying to balance a plate of food and a drink (because I go straight from classes to recruiting events in the evening and haven’t had time to eat dinner). This has allowed me to allocate more time to pursue other activities like trying to figure out how I can help Hitchsters.com achieve a critical mass of users and to focus on school work.

Although I still believe that I received good advice, I’ll have to wait to see if I “get the job� before I can assess the outcome. And I have to confess that some part of me still wonders if maybe I shouldn’t have left the doors open for just a little bit longer…just to see what else is out there.

It’s interesting how much people may warn you about the weather in Michigan before coming here and how unprepared you will nonetheless be in the end. We have not gotten into winter but the streets are already covered with snow. I just returned today from Thanksgiving break and found Ann Arbor covered in snow. Of course, this made the route back home very interesting. This weather can sometimes make you feel as if you are winning a small battle in the street, going from home to the business school can be an interesting journey, crowned once you cross the door of the B-School and feel that welcoming warmth of the lobby. Winter in other countries starts to feel as a joke already, yet we continue to receive the same warning: “This is nothing yet�; so obviously, it still seems that we are underprepared.

What has the weather to do with the school experience, apart from making it a journey to get in time for early morning classes? Well, I think Michigan weather is very much like the experience of coming to school to be challenged in an MBA. You get to the city while it’s still warm outside, everything feels like new, you realize that getting here was a big challenge but that you’re already done with the application, you know that there is more still to come, but you think it will not be as difficult for you. However, the cold weather steps in so quickly that it might even be overwhelming at times; you soon understand that it really is here to stay and that you have to and will overcome this. You realize that you need to adapt to this new time quickly. It not only changes how you dress but how you think about the environment.

So why do I think that the MBA experience resembles facing the Michigan weather? Because it is about quickly learning to manage a changing environment, an environment that will not be indulgent, an environment that will demand you to think differently, an environment that will challenge you consistently. However, you also get to realize that although the environment might be demanding, it is still shaping everything into a really awesome experience, parallel to the beautiful and picturesquely white-covered streets of Ann Arbor right now.

Recruiting is starting to take a life of its own! Researching companies, attending corporate presentations/events and writing thank-you notes always takes longer than I anticipate. I feel like I am taking “Recruiting 503� alongside the two Fall B core courses this term (Marketing 503 and Management & Organizations 503) and two elective courses (Strategic Brand Management and Management Presentations.)

Don’t get me wrong—recruiting has been a top priority since we arrived at Ross in September. However, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind as I’ve switched gears from resume refinement to “acing� interviews. Internship interviews don’t formally begin until January, but companies have been on campus conducting mock interviews for the MBA1s. Mock interviews can be tricky: they’re meant to be educational to help students properly prepare, but at the same time, they’re not 100% mock interviews either. I’ve been busy doing mock mock interviews to prepare for the mock interviews to prepare for the real interviews!

So where are all these interviews coming from? The majority of marketing interviews are held during Super Mock Interview day, which is organized by the Ross Marketing Club. I was impressed--15 companies participated (and some companies had more than one interview schedule) which provided ample opportunity for students to practice their interviewing skills. I met with three companies and received really helpful feedback on my behavioral, case and marketing interview responses. I still have a lot of work to go, but practicing now will make the interviews that much easier in January (I hope!)

And of course, there’s so much other stuff happening besides classes and recruiting. I’m definitely trying to make the most out of my time at Ross by experiencing as much as possible: helping to plan Go Blue Rendezvous (Ross’ admitted student weekend), competing in case competitions, and even testing my dubious creative writing skills by working on a skit for Follies (a student show satirizing life at Ross.) If only there were more hours in a day!

Fall B kicked in and we are already mid way through it!! Quite a few things happened since I blogged last.

a) First it was the West Coast Forum. About 100 of us took off to sunny San Francisco to explore career opportunities in the Bay Area. We met with a number of Ross alums from almost every big tech company in the Valley. It was fun to meet some of them who graduated more than 15 years ago.

b) I have only three courses this term - Marketing, Management & Organizations (M&O) and Valuations. Marketing is lot of fun. Prof. Nordheim is phenomenal. Every day in class we have two groups discussing the marketing strategies of major firms and brands, and what they could do to position themselves better to customers. We dealt with as varied brands as Victoria Pink and products such as Hershey's chocolates.

In M&O we discussed topics such as: what is it that makes a team amazingly functional or wildly dysfunctional. We also had an insightful discussion last class about "Abiline Paradox" It is about a Texan family that takes a trip out for lunch to a place called Abiline 40 miles away from home without none of them actually wanting to do that. It just happens because no one wanted to voice their opinion of not liking the idea.

c) Our new building is going to be ready by this January and our next term classes are going to be held there. Yay!

d) Recruiting is picking up speed. Company presentations are almost over. I even submitted my application to one of the firms I am interested in. Yes, the economy is doing bad, yes there are fewer jobs but we have a TON of really helpful second years that are helping us in being better prepared for recruiting. It is amazing to see the number of hours these guys spend in mentoring and coaching us. Perhaps this is one other things that makes Ross unique. Every one is keen on helping and make the school an even better place.

e) Finally MAP registration is up. I am pretty stoked up and am anxiously waiting to know of the companies sponsoring MAP this time.

It's cold! It just started to get this way, with snow flurries a daily occurrence. It's a nice snow, though -- like a snow globe being shaken up all day long.

Fall B is half over already which is pretty hard to believe. It's busy, but a lot less stressful than last term (at least for me). I'm settled into Ann Arbor, I don't miss New York, I've made some great friends, and math isn't beating me in the head for several hours a day.

Of course, with Fall B comes recruiting. More recruiting than I had expected as I scheduled a presentation here and there in Fall A. In case you're wondering, there are several forms recruiting can take: First, we have corporate presentations, in which reps from the various companies and firms (usually Mich alum) come and give us a general overview (and they usually have a sign-in sheet, which makes this very important); secondly, we have office hours, which last anywhere from 10-20 minutes of one-on-one time (or sometimes two-on-one) with a rep in which you try to convince them that you're smart, good-looking, and a perfect fit for their firm. There are other events -- workshops, lunches, etc, which pop up from time to time, as well.

All this means two things: you're very very busy running from event to event, and you're wearing a suit a lot of the time.

Which brings me to "something I wish I had thought more about before b-school": clothes.

Buy a lot of dress clothes. I have two suits, and about 4 dress shirts that I can wear under them, but it just never seems to be enough (big drawback to having been able to go to work in jeans and t-shirts in my past life). There just isn't enough adequate shopping in Ann Arbor to make last minute decisions when you need something new. And if you're like me, you hate to iron, so you need to have an arsenal of fresh shirts lined up in the closet.

It was unusual. It was unusual in every detail.
Lectures, where the professor of Statistics can give you information about different rappers on the West and East coast of the United States. Of course, it is Statistics, it is not Modern Music, but basing on this short information, we can determine how many students prefer rappers from West coast, how many students prefer rappers from East coast, how many students hate rap at all:) and then create the probability 95% confidence interval that randomly selected student would prefer rappers from East coast.
Lectures, where Microeconomics Power Point© presentation includes slides that reflect current situation on financial market – the known in microeconomics “Moral Hazard� problem was discussed not using the old examples from the books, but considering controversial $700B stimulus package that appeared only 2 weeks before this lecture.
Lectures, where the professor of Finance can tell you this dialog with his brother:
• Professor’s brother: What do you think about XYZ stocks?
• Professor: I do not know…
• Professor’s brother: What kind of finance are teaching to???!!!
and explain why it is normal situation: the better you know finance, the more you understand that you get very small part of the world knowledge (in this dialog – the price of the stocks already includes the possibilities of the future growth).
Nevertheless, the most unusual thing for me is the whole approach to the education. We passed 3 exams during three days. When first time I heard about our exams timetable I exclaimed: “It is impossible to prepare for exam using only 20 hours!�. However, in business school exam is only the measure of the knowledge, which you received during previous 1.5 months. Maybe be it is an usual situation if you get your bachelor degree in western university, but in eastern countries we used to prepare for an exam using 3 or 4 free days just before the exam during which we are trying to recall almost everything. It wasn't easy and examination period lasted painful 2-3 weeks-)

It's November 3, a day sandwiched between two very important events: Ross's annual Halloween party, which was Saturday, and the presidential election, which is tomorrow.

Pertaining to the former, I have to admit I've never been a Halloween person, mostly due to the fact that by the time I think about a costume (around 3 pm on Halloween), it's entirely too late to acquire or make one. That said, I found myself talked into attending the Halloween party this past weekend, with about 499 of my fellow classmates, (both MBA1s and MBA2s), and just this once I'll admit to having fun. I didn't really have time for a costume, but I found that if I distracted folks by asking about theirs they didn't bother to give me grief about it.

Now, about that second one. Ann Arbor, I am told, is a bright blue spot in what can sometimes be a red or pink state. For that reason, Obama's supporters and volunteers have been hitting us pretty heavy since August, registering voters and leaving tokens of propaganda on our apartment doorknobs. Several bars downtown are hosting election day parties. I, for one, cannot wait!