Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Who owns my time???

Oh the crazy hours!!!

I was given enough notice about the complete lack of control of one's time in Bschool, but what's happening is beyond my wildest nightmares. Gladly, i am managing to keep my head above water, just managing. It takes a lot of effort. Again, as pointed out by one of my buddies in the comment section of the previous post, I am enjoying it all the same.

Yeah - I said i enjoyed being so hazed. It is probably because in a Bschool you only do what you love to do. The operative word is love. You will not even be able to do things you like, coz there will be so many things you'd like. Agreed - that could just be me, with my varied interests. But there are SO many options, it is impossible for anyone to not like more than what they can handle. Knowing your priorities correctly, and always remembering to use that knowledge is a survival requirement. It is very easy to find yourself with too much on your plate, and as a result get blown to smithereens!!! That would make you hate yourself and the Bschool experience.

I work for ChiBus, the GSB student journal. For those who are keen to apply to Chi-GSB, this is a great resource to know what is happening at the school and also to take a look at the culture of the students and school. It helped me immensely during my application days, and i hope it will be helpful for you guys too.

I also intend to join the GSB soccer club sometime this week. I did not join yet, as i was fasting for Ramadan and there was no way i could practice. Now that we celebrate Ramadan on Saturday, i will be up for practice from next week. They practice twice a week and there are competitions to look forward to in the near future. I am looking forward to getting myself dirty on the field, after almost 5 long years.

RythEmix is the GSB dance club and we get together every Saturday for about two hours of practice. I am dancing after quite a while and i almost forgot what a wonderful experience it is. It feels great to be able to get back to dancing. I am not sure if I'm good enough to do shows (check the videos in the website to see how good these guys are), but I'm sure gonna try!!!

Finally, I have signed up to volunteer for DSAC. Work hasn't begun at DSAC, at least for us first years, till now. We have a briefing session next week and i expect things to get busy once that happens. This is one position i am very passionate about and i believe i can (and need to) make a difference to the selection policies at GSB. Lets see how it goes.

Just in case anyone forgot to count, there is the crazy course work to handle. GSB doesn't get the "School with the most rigorous academic experience" tag for nothing. One has to prep for classes. If not, you will hate the classes.

Then there are the social events. TNDCs have started. LPFs are being organized every week. Every Wednesday we have Coffee with the dean. People have birthdays to celebrate. People have anniversaries to celebrate. Wait; people actually need no reasons celebrate. When celebration becomes the reason for celebration, one realizes one is in a hazy maze of party after party after party. AND, i hear a second year cribbing that their class is way better than ours in terms of partying. I know - it is contrary to what another second year person said about the two classes. But i now see that it is an individual opinion :) Bottom line - we all party.

Last (but most important of all) - there are the recruiting events. Chicago lets companies in for recruiting purposes only in late October or early November. But companies find other ways to talk to us. During the last few weeks, we have had many companies visit the campus for Lunch 'n' Learns, which are informational sessions to help people know about what the companies and their employees do. We had a resume review week this week. We now need to incorporate comments and get the new ones ready, before the next review week, and then get them reviewed by friends, and then get them reviewed by mentors, and then nit-pick them for ages hoping every word in the document means a million things. This journey has just begun.

Now - that's a long list. I dint intend to intimidate people with such a long list, but this is a list of all things i am doing/will be doing. Others do other stuff. Everyone must be up for it. I am enjoying this ride thoroughly. It is definitely difficult. Whoever said "Getting into a Bschool is the easy part", said it right. But life is much more fun when there is so much happening. I see the stark difference between how it is and how it used to be, and I'd rather keep it as it is today. And i am not alone in that thought.

The only problem is that a day only has 24 hrs. I haven't slept for more than 36 hrs flat now and sleep is quite a premium at GSB. If someone can share some of their free time, i can probably do some more things that i love...

6 comments:

-tvu said...

Sleep is over rated. hehe...

Santosh Venkat said...

hey dude...i cannot believe the life at the GSB or for that matter, any top school. 36 hrs...no sleep.......i cant imagine....

Anonymous said...

Hey Iday

Thanks a ton for giving as applicants such a wealth of info on Chi-GSB.
Nice blog too..I have added u in my link :)

Thanks
Shilpa

Ramkumar said...

Y did u remind ramadan man!! AAAH i miss the OC delicious biriyani.

I wud say soccer and dance is too much. Both need legs!!!:) Take dance da. even if u cant get their funcky steps, do a kuthu and impress them.

sleep is no worry for u. u hv been owl @ night and human @ morning during ur college days.

Take care of ur health man. Health first MBA next.

Mannaru said...

So u haven't slept for 36 hrs but still enjoying the rigors.That says something..

hey Iday,

Is Raghuram Rajan still a member of the GSB faculty.I think he was the chief economist of IMF or world bank..not sure

Anonymous said...

Hi Iday,
Great upbeat post. I've added it to my Top-5 MBA posts of the week. Still, I hope you find some time to sleep in spite of all the fun at GSB.

Maren