Monday, January 28, 2008

My first editorial

It is up here. Nothing spectacular.
Definitely not as spectacular as the way it was written.

We feel that the paper was handed over at a wrong time. The evil combination of recruitment is and class work is killing enough. To handle production of the paper in between all this is fun only in hindsight!!!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Chi-buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

7:30 AM today, on a call with my publisher...
Me: Well, thanks for all the help! Have a good night!
She: (After a pregnant pause) Well. To you too.
Me: Oh Wait! Did i just say Good Night???
She: (Chuckle) Yeah!!!

It has been that kind of a week. With classes and recruitment at their rigorous best, B school is back again. In the middle of all this, we just submitted our first edition of ChiBus for print. The paper should be in our hands today noon and i cannot describe the excitement and fear. Since people are busy with recruitment, it was just me and my co-editor in chief from start to finish, with considerable help from three other souls. End result: near sleepless nights for the last three days. The best part was when i wrote my first editorial in the bus on my way home. I had to suit up and attend a recruitment event and the bus journey was the only time i had in between. It was crazy fun!!!

Well, i hope the paper came out alright. We'll know this evening.

I'm gonna crash now. Good day folks.
Later...

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Talk about timing

I'm down with a fever. The doctor on call @ Uchicago-hospitals says it could be some sort of viral infection. I had to skip a career services event today, where i was scheduled to have a mock interview. Our interview week starts in about 10 days. I have a bunch of mocks lined up during next week.

I've fallen sick at exactly the wrong time!!!

After 15 hours of sleep (and that's quite a waste of time actually, considering what's happening around), after taking medicine prescribed by the doctor and some comforting phone calls from friends - i feel slightly better. I have SO much work to do; i am actually looking at an all-nighter. Like everyone at school, I have a tough 3 weeks ahead. Three classes to which i have vowed my fullest possible commitment, recruitment, Chibus (our first issue coming out next week) and customizing myself (as clearadmit put it) - makes for an overflowing calender. I still enjoy doing it all, just hoping my health would return to normal soon.

I believe it is recruiting time at almost all schools, with fellow first year bloggers blogging their experiences and perspectives. Here's wishing them all good luck in their respective job searches. Hope you'll find the job of your liking, and come out with posts about the same in February.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Winter Quarter begins...

The winter quarter of the first year is the sum of a defining few weeks in the life of a GSB student. This is when we start realizing the potential of the customizable curriculum and this is when most of us get our internship offers. The quarter starts in anxiety and ends with jubilation and a mood of celebration! I am looking forward to the next 10 weeks.

I waited to post about my courses, because i wanted to sit through one class before commenting on them. I have signed up for three courses this quarter - Accounting & Financial Analysis I (also called footnote accounting), Accounting & Financial Analysis II (also called M&A accounting) and Investments. After a quarter of fighting through a particularly less exciting Microeconomics (the face-value excitement fizzed out) and a quantitatively dull Accounting course, I feel totally at home this quarter with the three math heavy courses i have signed up for. We're also applying a lot of what we learnt in accounting in the previous quarter, so that is kind of fun as well.

With these courses though, there is a key differences - the work load is heavy! I feel terribly bad about the this part because we have really good work to do but i don't see how we can humanly handle course work and recruitment. I really want to give these courses the time they deserve and i see that it is gonna be a huge case of time management, at least early on in this quarter. I am gonna give it a good shot though.

At the recruitment front, things have started happening again. Interviews are scheduled to begin on 22nd and we have a series of mock interviews starting this Saturday. I am smack in the middle of preparation, and so is everyone else. The mocks will be a great testing ground to foolproof answers and interview strategies before the real ones come home.

In a strange sense I am enjoying being in the midst of all the excitement, after the four week long break from business school. The break was good in a lot of other ways - self introspection and all that jazz. I found a few flaws in me as a person, decided to work on them and i guess i already see positive changes. Too soon to judge if they have changed me, but i intend to improve on what i am seeing. Let's see where this takes me!!!