Start another blog? Sure, why not? I already write a blog over here (http://www.smalldots.wordpress.com) and have maintained a personal blog for years (anonymously, mind you), and have been a weekly contributor to a few humor blogs, but never have I blogged my SCHOOL experience...
And that's because when I was last in school, blogs hadn't been invented yet.
That makes me sound hysterically old, when I am not. I am only 37, which I believe technically makes me *adorably* old. Just for the record.
So yes, I am apparently starting my MBA in a matter of days, as orientation begins this Saturday. At least, I *think* it's orientation, despite the SOM's clever attempts to disguise it as an actual, ever-so-brief business course. (I'm sure it's very business-y, really. Something something case studies something.)
But I also imagine there will be a few ice-breakers, and maybe some team-building exercises, and if we're lucky, maybe we will at some point in the weekend do that trust-exercise thing where you fall backwards into the arms of someone you only just met over the coffee station at 8:35 that morning.
I love trust exercises and team-building games! Everybody gets so seemingly earnest and kind, while simultaneously getting insanely, rampantly competitive. Like on Survivor! Which also didn't exist when I was last in school.
The honest truth is, how you perform in some Outward-Bound-inspired activity on the first day of classes is not going to be marked down and remembered by the professors, mentors, and the Dean.
No matter how much you wish it counted towards your final grade, it won't.
I'll tell you who will remember how you behave during orientation. Your classmates. Act like a seething mass of competitive jerkiness delicately sheathed with a thin veneer of barely sincere team spirit this weekend, and it goes down in the only permanent record that really matters -- the undying memory of your peers.
I only speak as the sad voice of experience. I've gone through the grad school ringer once before, and yes, there may have been some jerky competitiveness exhibited. By me.
I got better!
Seriously. In the years I've had to reflect on my first time through the old grad school machine, here's what I have decided are the really important things to remember, as we embark on our little journey together:
1. Be kind.
2. Do what you say you will do.
3. Do it earlier, more thoroughly, and better than you think is absolutely necessary.
Seriously, I have traditionally been the biggest offender in the old first-day-of-classes-olympics. Old habits are tremendously hard to break. So if you see me vying for the reddest apple on the teacher's desk, pinch me, hard. And then introduce yourself. I could use a study partner.
And yes, I promise I will catch you when you fall.
Posted: August 19, 2008 12:26 am | 0 comments
Tags: blogging, fall, foundations of business, new student, SOM, trust
Foundations of Business starts tomorrow, it is past midnight, I need to leave at 6:00 am to make it to class by 8:00 am (stopping for coffee and gas along the way, and making time for the unexpected).
Am I the least bit tired? OF COURSE NOT.
I finished working on my homework -- the McCaskey case -- last night, reviewed it during lunch at work today, and printed it out with a shrug (what do I know how good it is? It's my first case!).
Tonight I've been reviewing and memorizing my route, even though I know it by heart after all the trips I made to 409 Commonwealth Avenue in the spring while I was applying. I also needed to figure out where my parking garage was, so I don't have to go spiraling around early morning streets of Boston in a panic, trying to find parking. It'll be expensive, but I don't have the patience for the T just yet, and I can't be feeding a meter every 2 hours during orientation.
Do the meters run on weekends in the Back Bay? I have no idea. I am sure I will find out in some sad-making way.
I am excited and nervous. Excited because I can't wait to be back in school again, and nervous because I am anxious about how I will juggle this with a very demanding job.
I was working a concert this evening, enjoying the cool late summer breeze, and reflected on how the last time I was in grad school, I was after a degree. This time, I am looking to learn -- to gain actual knowledge about leadership, management, and analysis. Some areas I am already strong in, some I am not. In all areas, I expect to experience a rapid growth curve.
I can't wait.
When I was a kid, a little kid, my mother would always take me to Sears or to JC Penney's to buy one really nice outfit for the first day of school. As I grew older, it became increasingly uncool to mark the first day of school with a special frock or shiny brown shoes that screamed their newness. It bespoke an unbecoming overeagerness that we didn't want to be branded with.
But I never lost the desire to wear something special on the first day. My love of ritual started young, and I always wore something special, even if it was hidden, or encoded so that only I knew.
One year I wore my father's socks, for strength.
One year I wore my best friend's sweatshirt, for solidarity.
One year, when we were all dressing like (Lucky Star era) Madonna, I wore my great-grandmother's lace gloves. Because my great grandmother was awesome.
Tomorrow I will be wearing a talisman, too. If you see me, ask me what it is.
Right now, I should really try to sleep.
Posted: August 23, 2008 12:27 am | 0 comments
Tags: anxiety, clothes, first day at school, mom, school, shopping
Well so *that* was one of the most mentally exhausting days I've had in a long time. My head was nodding the whole drive back to Cape Cod (dangerous but true!), and when I got home I staggered into my bedroom, changed into sweats, and collapsed in an unsightly heap and slept like a stone for two solid hours.
LIKE A STONE.
Of course I didn't help my case by only getting about four hours of sleep and then spending all day trying to charm the pants off of a room full of strangers.
I don't know why, I can't help it! I meet new people and I get all lounge act-y.
No, actually I was pretty well-behaved. I did have a heck of a good time with someone I had met in the spring at the Simmons Leadership Conference. Liana and I are similar in age and professional background, and it would seem in temperament as well. We're also both commuting from over an hour away to the Simmons SOM night classes, which makes us a special kind of crazy. Really looking forward to being in classes with her.
One of the first things I noticed about Simmons was how, when I was going through the application and interview process, every time I went to an event at Simmons I would drive home ELATED. Literally I would feel like doing that arms-spread-wide-over-the-bow-of-the-Titanic thing while driving back home over the Sagamore Bridge. And I never even SAW that awful movie!
Tonight I had the same feeling, mixed this time with a profound sense of relief. It wasn't so much relief that I had gotten in, or that classes had finally begun, but because, during the day today, I felt like I belonged.
I had been worried.
I don't come from a corporate background, and I had had a lingering fear that I would be terribly out of place amongst all the junior executives from State Street that I imagined would be in my class.
What I felt today was a wonderful sense of certainty that is all too often missing from life: the deep, internal knowledge that you are doing the right thing.
I'm in the right place.
(Let's see if I still feel that way during financial reporting and analysis.)
Posted: August 23, 2008 10:53 pm | 1 comment
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