BoB results 2008

Congratulations to winners of BoB 2008 - July Dream (applicant) and m@ (student). Enjoy your new iPod touch guys! Also, congratulations to all the others who made it to the final list. It has been a great pleasure reading your blogs and i hope to continue reading them...

Employed - finally!!!

I just accepted the offer for my summer internship! I had time till Wednesday to decide, but after a few rounds of introspection i figured I'm already decided on this one and so i did not want to keep my recruiters waiting. So finally my internship search comes to an end, and the wait was certainly worth the job I finally got.

Contrary to popular belief (churned by my own posts i must admit), I will not be interning at an Investment Bank. Instead, I will be working with an Entrepreneur in Chile to help expand his business. In theory, I will be working for a firm in NYC that works with entrepreneurs in emerging economies. It promises to be a great learning experience, quite unconventional, challenging and with significantly higher responsibilities. I really am looking forward to the summer in Chile.

The internship search, for me, has been a great learning experience and has helped me understand a few important things that i did not know about myself. Very importantly, it made me stare at failure, provided more clarity to what i want to do long-term in my career, opened my eyes to numerous other opportunities that i found very interesting, and re-affirmed that there are many roads to Rome!

I am planning on writing a book about it at some point of time. Title suggestions anyone???

BoB 2007-2008 Nomination

I have been nominated, once again, for ClearAdmit BoB. This time, it is under the student bloggers list. Thank you ClearAdmit; I very much appreciate the recognition. And congratulations to all the other nominees.

I believe this is a great time to ruminate on the past 12 months, as far as the blogging goes. I should admit, i intended to blog a LOT more than i did. There are many Chicago GSB experiences i wish i could have spent more time and words on, but it did not happen so. I clearly underestimated the time commitments of a Bschool life. Having said that, i should also admit that given the crazy schedule of a GSB life, i am surprised myself i blogged as much as I did. I'm just doing SO many things at school, and I hope i gave a peek into my life in the Windy City.

As promises go, I am trying to get my life back in order. I believe i am almost there, and once done i should waste lesser time on thinking about myself and more on things i love to do - blogging included. There is definitely more to GSB-life, and I hope to bring more to you guys in the months to come.

More blogging

Being a well-known blogger, well, brings more blogging.

I have been entrusted with the responsibility of managing the blog for the upcoming India Business Conference, organized by the South Asian Business Group of Chicago GSB. The blog went live a few days ago, and is quite fun. If you follow Indian Business, keep an eye open for updates on the conference through the blog.

Best of Blogging 07-08

The annual BoB is around the corner. Check out ClearAdmit's post on this here.
There's a good bunch of nice B-school bloggers around. I'm curious to see who makes the first cut and then the final cut. April's gonna be exciting this way ;)

The MIA quarter

These days, I haven't been blogging as frequently or as well as I'd like to blog. True to its reputation, winter quarter proved to be very very hectic. Academics went up a notch or two, we got involved in numerous activities in school and occasionally, there are things and people to catch up with. If i could do a snapshot of the last three months, it would be full! Such has been this quarter. I'll try to capture what happened, as succinctly as possible.

Academics: This quarter ended up being as painful as i thought it would be. If you remember, i had two accounting courses and the other one was investments. I thoroughly enjoyed (call me a geek) the intense arithmetic, especially in investments, and the accounting courses helped me learn accounting at a much deeper and wider level, after basic accounting in autumn quarter. If i read a annual report, i can make a LOT of sense today, and also derive a lot of conclusions about the firm. It was a LOT of work though, especially towards the end, what with one of the profs teaching the entire course through assignments! I also attended an excel based financial modeling seminar, which surprisingly ended up being super fun. Besides all the accounting i learned, the course on Investments turned out to be really enjoyable. This prof talked formula as if it was his mother tongue; he was better in this language than English, much to the chagrin of many of my classmates! I was enjoying a feeling of dejavu, as he reminded me of of my engineering days, including the cheap thrills when i could recite formulas from the top of my head ;) Irrespective of the grades, this was a fulfilling quarter in terms of what i learned.

Internship: I saw someone asking me the question in the previous post, and the short answer is "No. I don't have a job yet." I went through on campus recruiting, interviewed with a few firms (big name banks included) but unfortunately things did not work out for me. I still value the experience as it helped me learn a lot of things i would eventually use in my career, and it also helped me re-assess myself and go at recruiting all the more harder. It also took me to sides of GSB's career services that i would have never seen. Not to sound boastful - GSB's career services team is absolutely fabulous. Now i see why Economist rated them so high. As for my internship search, i am working on a set of exciting opportunities. Hopefully i will have good news to share soon.

Chibus: This deserves special mention. We're 33% done, unless we delay transition next year, which we intend to do. Being responsible for Chibus has been the single most important experience for me at GSB. It has helped me meet people i probably would not have met otherwise. It is enriching me with experiences which i would have certainly not had. It has offered me perspectives of the kind that would have required a few more years for me to learn. All in about 10 weeks! I love it and cant wait to work on the next issue!!!

Winter Quarter: I've been through a lot this quarter. I gave myself the time to assimilate and absorb the things i learned about myself. I started the quarter as a wreck and today, i feel better than i have felt in quite some time. Both personally and professionally, I've found myself in situations where i was forced to ask really deep and difficult questions to myself, in places where i had to reassess my beliefs and opinions about people, and i believe i made the right decisions. To sum it up, i think this quarter completed what started sometime last quarter - to help me learn about myself, and to improve upon what i saw. I believe I've done that well. Time will tell.

Spring Quarter: I have a packed quarter ahead. I have four courses - Corporation Finance, Economics and Policy of TMT (with Mr. Goolsbee, economic adviser to the famous-person-i-met-in-the-elevator), Marketing Strategy and New Venture Lab. I am super psyched about NVL. I got the project i SO wanted to do and I am sure i am gonna learn a lot, while having good fun, with the project. I'm quite excited about the other courses too, so overall it looks promising.

So with four courses, Chibus and recruitment - I guess I'm gonna be the same infrequent blogger in this quarter too. I am gonna make a genuine attempt at being more frequent that last quarter though. I missed blogging this quarter :)

Good luck R2-ers

This is finals week, and things are understandably crazy. I have an exam in exactly 39 minutes...

GSB R2 results are out this week and i guess they would start calling people from today. I dont have first hand information, but that is what happened last year. I remember being there, and I just wanted to wish everyone on the other side of the bridge very good luck. I hope to see you on our side very soon.

If you happen to get in and think i can help you in your decision anyway, feel free to drop a line.

Update: I'm not sure if it is my insomnia, or if there has been a change in dates, but the results will be out only on 26th, says this page. Still - my wishes stay :)

I'm alive, yeah...

I know. Long time, no see!!! Life has been hectic. This quarter has been a great turning point coz i have been forced to introspect a lot and ask difficult questions to myself. After brooding on them for quite a while, i believe that i am beginning to hear answers from within. My first real winter has been an unforgettable experience.

I've been reading a lot these days. Course material of course. I'm doing that a lot more this week coz I have my winter quarter finals next week. Apart from that, I have been using many forms of media to read/hear/see a lot. The Economist Audio Edition is a GREAT tool. I've been able to cover a lot more of the magazine this way, than the traditional book-reading way. Highly recommended. I also signed up for HBR, and the issues being discussed and the perspectives are really really good. Not that HBR needs by support - but I'm just declaring myself to be an official entry into the really long list of HBR fans.

A few days ago, i happened to find out the podcast on CNBC's "The Business of Innovation". Ignore the "in house innovation expert" though, i find him irritating. But i guess he's there for shock value! The show is very well packaged, with very relevant examples, discussed important topics on innovation and it's got me hooked on to it.

I know i really haven't written anything about this quarter. I am struggling to find time to write something for the blog. I finish my exams next week and I promise a quarter round up for sure. May be more than one post.

A few points before i go:
Admit Weekend 1 happened last weekend. It was great - i met a lot of people who i met during the admission process. I look forward to seeing them all back in September.
Second round results are around the corner. Goo luck to everyone who's been waiting with crossed fingers.
Spring is here. Yaaaaay....
I'll be in California for Spring Break. If any one is around and wanna catch up for coffee/drinks - leave a comment.
I've got a great but hectic spring quarter with 4 course. More on that later, once things get confirmed.

That's it for now. Take care everyone.
Let me dig deep into Futures & Forwards & Options...

Taming the brat...

GSB really is. Or perhaps I am growing up ;)

Quoting one of my closest friends - "I love the way B-school is turning out to be a life changing experience"!!!

A Forrest Gump Like moment...

So today morning, earphones in place, MSS pouring her blissful voice (Kurai Ondrum Illai) into my ecosystem, I walked out of home to meet a friend at school. I live in the 18th floor, and the elevator stops very soon on its descent to the lobby. Enter two burly men, and behind them someone very very familiar. Someone who has been, a year ago, little known in America, let alone the world. Someone who's been sweeping victories all over America in the recent few days. Someone who could potentially be Mr. First Citizen of USA in a year's time.

Mr. Barack Obama.

We exchanged greetings and knowing smiles. I was too overwhelmed, and the elevator journey too short, to talk anything.

For some strange reason i was reminded of Forrest Gump, his moments and his journey. I smiled to myself and started walking. Kurai Ondrum Illai...