The MBA Student Voice

Reflections on a Quarter Gone

Hypothetically speaking this post was supposed to be delivered at the end of Orientation, but at that point I didn't really have much to say. Or rather, I had a lot to say, but my mind was unable to coalesce all the random thoughts into articulate words. Three months later, all the random thoughts are still floating around my head haphazardly, but I have so much free time during this winter break, I thought what the hell, let's try to reminisce. 

The easiest type of post to write is a list - so here's my top 10 takeaways from my first quarter at UCLA Anderson.

1. I really like LA. Having come from a lifetime of living in Philly, there was definitely a bit of a culture shock coming out here. Yes, the driving culture sucks and traffic is as bad as they say. And even the "walkable" areas of LA aren't really that walkable. But it's a fun city. There's a lot to do. It's a diverse city. And yeah, it does have great weather. I went a month and a half before we had our first rain. In between it was literally all sunny days. One thing to note, the mornings and nights do get chilly, so bring a jacket or hoodie.

2. Anderson's orientation was fantastic. It's a lot of bonding and icebreaking exercises, but I thought they did a great job of creating an open and inviting atmosphere where you really felt like you could approach and get to know everyone. It sets the perfect tone for the school year to kick off. Eventually, cliques will form, but I think the spirit of openness and camraderie they established during orientation has still carried through and made the experience a lot better.

3. Take as many waiver classes as you can - and pass them. You'll hear this advice from every second year you speak to. And coming in, you might think, "yeah I'm gonna prepare and take a bunch of waivers". And then you get here, start meeting people, having some fun and the conversation will sort of unfold:

"Are you taking any waivers?"

"Nah. Well, maybe. I've been thinking about it. Are you?" 

"I was thinking about it too. But now I dunno. It seems like if I took the class it'd be an easy A."

BZZT. WRONG. Not that the class wouldn't be an easy A, but the workload required to get that A is not worth the hassle. I took two waivers, accounting and stats. I only prepared for one, stats. I passed that one, and it made a huge difference in making my schedule more manageable, both throughout the year and during finals week. I'm pretty sure this helped boost the grades for the other classes I did take, because I could spend more time on them. Additionally, the waiver test you take will be easier than all the materials covered in the course. If you've taken the classes in undergrad, you've probably learned everything they will teach. So do yourself a favor and prepare and take the waivers.

4. Go to Vegas. At least once a year, and ideally once a quarter. Because there's no better bonding than when you're sitting in a row with your buds at a Black Jack table just raking it in. And there's no better commiseration than when you're all losing money together at a cold craps table.

5. Try to do well in your classes. You'll often hear that grades aren't a big deal in b-school. While that's sort of true, know that 45% of a class gets an A- or above, at least in the core classes. If you're not part of that large subset, you're going to kick yourself, because it's like you finished the season with a sub-.500 record. Don't be like the 2012 Lakers. Be like the 2012 Clippers.

6. If you get sick, shut it down. And you will get sick. Because b-school is like this echo chamber of grossness - germs get in swirl about and never leave. So when you get sick, throw off your responsibilities for a day or two, shut it down and recover completely. I've seen too many people operate at 60% miserableness for 2-3 weeks at a time.

7. Go out a lot. Even before coming to b-school I was a bit skeptical about the educational value of b-school. The first quarter hasn't really allayed my skepticism. But from a social perspective, it's been better than I thought it would be. B-school, actually, is a lot like undergrad, except you're not as totally clueless. You'd be surprised at how much this adds to the experience. This is why you'll hear a lot of people say b-school was one of the best times of their lives. So go out often, because it's not often you get to hang with a bunch of people with similar goals in a similar lifestage as you. 

8. Sign up for more than you think you can do. Sort of a riff on the previous point, but a bit more academics/school centered. This is paraphrased advice from my section leader. The idea is do more than you think you can do, because you only get this one chance. So make the most of it.

9. Get to know the second years. Admittedly, I haven't done a particularly great job of this. But they're you're classmates too. A second year told me (probably also another case of my section leader's advice) that they're just as eager to meet the first years, but just as nervous, since we have our own cliques and they have their own cliques. So reach out and get to know them.

10. Aspire for something bigger. The school's job is to help us find jobs in the fields we want. They will have a narrow focus in mind. Our job is to go in with a bigger dream in mind and challenge the school every step of the way to think bigger. If you aim higher, it'll also make your job search easier, because you'll have a much more compelling story for the recruiters and interviewers.

I said I had ten. Here's a bonus eleventh. Just have fun. Business school is not srs biz. It's not Rocky vs. Ivan Drago - it won't make or break you. So have a good time with it. The time really does fly by.

Late addition - Find an awesome roommate, because going solo is an emo pity parade, while two+ is the start of an award winning lolcat brigade. Seriously, I'd only have half the fun if I hadn't lucked out with a very cool roomie. (Unfortunately, I don't have much practical advice on how to go about actually finding a good roommate, beyond talk to people and trust your instincts.)

And now... lazy picture spam...

Partying hard in Breckenridge.

My beloved Deloitte case team... we did not win. I'm still sort of pissed about this.

Finals week dinner.

Celebratory learning team... dessert?

Boarding at Breckenridge... sort of. In between falls would be more accurate.

How you stay awake when you have 8am classes every day (sucks!).

Culture.

Networking on the blacktop

A big part of the MBA experience involves networking, going to mixers, events, etc, etc, etc. And while all those are a necessary part of the entire experience, too many canned networking events is sort of like too much canned Spam - you can only down so much of it.

But prior to orientation starting there's only so many opportunities for you to meet your classmates and the people around you. Thankfully, one of the more niftier ways has been on the b-ball court. For the past week, we've played ball basically every afternoon over at Westwood Park. Each game is competitive, but at the same time pretty casual. Light on the hard fouls, heavy on the bricklaying. For someone who hasn't played in years, it's quite a workout. But it's also a fun and great way to meet new people and get to know them without the pomp and circumstance of fumbling business cards and brushing up on your elevator speech. If you're interested in playing, check out the Anderson B-ball Facebook Group.

-Brian Sim

 

Arrival in LA in Five Days or Less

My route went:

• Sunday: Delaware (my parents' place) to Pittsburgh, PA
• Monday: Pittsburgh to Columbia, MO
• Tuesday: Columbia, MO to Denver, CO
• Wednesday: Denver, CO to St. George, UT
• Thursday: St. George, UT (by way of Zion Canyon) to Los Angeles, CA

My relationship with driving is sort of like Calvin's relationship with bicycles. Basically, I hate driving with every fiber of my body. And for the longest time I avoided it as much I could, which is actually very easy in Philly, because it's such a condensed, walkable city. Before driving to LA, the longest drive I'd done was for about 5 hours. To Pittsburgh actually. So driving cross-country, for me, was sort of akin to a sprinter just deciding to run a marathon on a whim. Well with that said, I'm happy to say I arrived in one piece, in a relatively drama-free, albeit grueling drive. Thoughts and picture spam follow...

Random thoughts:

• Driving from the green hills east of the Mississippi to the dry, flatland plains in Kansas, through the majestic Rockies of Colorado and the stunning canyons and Mars-like topography of Utah and Arizona, to the soul-sucking deserts of Nevada and California, an obvious thought dawned on me - the US is effing humongous, and there may not be the same diversity of sights available in any other country in the world
• Driving in the midwest is a joy. Those guys know how to drive. They give signals when they're switching lanes. They don't cut you off. It's nice. Plus, the roads are straight as an arrow. And there's not many cars to begin with. Definitely the most stress-free part of the trip
• Randomly you'll be driving and you'll see blown out tires on the road. And you'll think, "God please don't let my tire blow out and turn me into a vehicular pinball"
• Kansas is hot. Really hot and humid. I thought it was a pretty temperate place, but I made a stop in Hays, KS and got out and as the sun blasted me, I instantly remembered Ichiro Suzuki’s first joke... yeah, Kansas is hot.
• The Rocky mountains are awesome, but coming down the Rockies, you'll see these long patches of dirt with signs calling them out as runaway truck ramp. I thought it was both ingenious and frightening to think they'd planned for a truck in a Speed scenario
• The canyons in Utah are amazing, but driving through the rocks in Arizona is as close as you can get to driving through Mars, totally otherworldly
• Driving through Nevada is the worst, most soul-sucking experience possible. When you're driving and the sun's pummeling you at 110 degrees, all the A/C in the car doesn't do a thing in the world. It felt like I was in an oven that whole time. I couldn't wait to get out of that hellhole, but...
• Driving past Nevada doesn't provide much respite, because the deserts of Cali are not much better... and the traffic picks up and the drivers get worse
• The weather gets much more tolerable once you get to LA, but the traffic gets even worse and the drivers that much more crappier ;-)
• Being in a car for 12+ hours a day is a surreal experience. The world passes by your eyes, minute by minute, hour by hour, but inside that car, it's like time doesn't exist. It's sort of like an out of body experience. I left on a Sunday, arrived on a Thursday, and every day feels like a day that doesn't actually exist... let's call it Caturday
• I think truck drivers have the toughest jobs in the world. That is one job I couldn't do. I would gladly do things like become a peasant farmer, go on a deep sea fishing expedition for months at a time, but I could not become a truck driver even if you offered me a million bucks

I took a time lapse video of my whole drive from Delaware to apartment, but getting those 80,000 images into a manageable video is providing more technical challenges than expected, so I’ll share that another day. For now, you get picture spam.

Picture spam

I drove by the world's largest basket in Newark, Ohio. Umm, it was a pretty big basket.

I randomly drove by this humongous cross somewhere in Indiana, but eh... I've seen bigger.

Like this one. The world's largest cross in Effingham, IL. It's 196 feet tall, they built it just shy of 200 feet, because FAA regulations would require them to stick a beacon on top of it. Incidentally, yes, I am about 175-feet tall...

Which would make this Kansas version of Paul Bunyan about 2,000 feet tall. But sadly, an unfortunate accident shrunk me back down to normal height and I was no match for this 30 foot tall Johnny Kaw statue.

Yeah, they like it big in Kansas. World's largest Easel in Goodland, KS.

If I get on my tippie-toes, I can just about touch it though.

Some spot in Colorado, just past the Rockies. Great views all around.

Some random spot in Utah.

The next bunch of pics are all from Zion Canyon. I started going up the canyon road, but then I realized it would lead me to the Grand Canyon... which initially was on my list of things to see, but didn't make the cut. Once I realized this, I did a U-ey and turned back down and got on the shuttle bus like all the other good, little tourists.

Finally, Thursday, 8pm, I arrive in Brentwood.

-Brian Sim

Go west, young man

Over a year after first mapping out my plans, I'm now actually on my way to living them out. Driving cross-country in my 8-year old Honda Accord, with the 165,000 miles, for the next several days to kick-off my UCLA Anderson experience.

It's been great getting a chance to see all my friends and family in Philly one last time over the past couple weeks. I feel sad, a bit wistful leaving all of them. Like I mentioned previously, this'll be my first time living away from Philly. But at the same time, you feel like you're in a bit of limbo. Not quite where you are and not quite where you should be. So I'm looking forward to finally getting this show on the road, settling in and meeting my classmates. Summer accounting homework has been fun and dandy, but uh, you know, we're just talking bout homework man. Homework. Not work, homework. It'll be good to get the game started.

Now with that said, I just need to figure out how exactly I'll get there. What I'm going to see. Where I'm going to say.

• All the ghost towns in the midwest
• Random roadside oddities like the world's largest basket
• The flatlands and farms of Kansas (I heard it's so flat you can see cows 12 miles away!)
• Casa Bonita in Denver, because I hear it's totally awesome
• Natural wonders like Zion National Park or the Grand Canyon

Or maybe I'll just decide that driving for 12 hours a day sucks and I just want to gun it as fast as possible to LA. I dunno, I'll figure it out. I traveled Japan for three weeks like this, waking up and figuring out where I was going, what I was doing the day of, so it'll be fun to get a chance to do the same in the US. I'll see y'all soon.

-Brian Sim

We're all a little crazy

My UCLA Anderson plans started a little more than a year ago when I made an informal visit to the campus. I started thinking about the west coast, because I wanted to get into product management in the high tech industry, and there were more of those types of opportunities available than there were in the east coast, and near Philly specifically. I knew Anderson provided some great programs and opportunities. So I thought, "hey, this should be a good idea".

A year later, I still think it was a good idea, but you know what? It was also a crazy idea.

If someone suggested that you uproot your life, move away from your family and friends, leave an interesting, well-paying job for two years - basically, leaving a good, comfortable, established life, for the promise of something different/better, what would you say? You gotta be a little bit of a gambler, a little bit of a dreamer, and a little crazy, right?

But it's not just me, everyone else in the program hsa come to the same conclusion too. People choosing to uproot themselves from all over the country, even all over the world. Forsaking a couple prime earnings years, all to converge with others, who like them, are tied together by their willingness to take a risk and chase something different, something better. 

This time next week, I'll be starting my drive across the country and to start something new. It's a little risky, it's a little crazy. But hey, that's what I signed up for. 

-Brian Sim

Helping people, not making numbers, come first

So originally, I was going to write a short post about my plans to drive cross-country from Philly to LA, but I've been so fascinated by the Airbnb "ransackgate" scandal, I figured I'd toss in my thoughts on it.

In case you're not familiar, a little background, Airbnb is a startup that allows people to rent their houses out to others for short periods of time. Basically, it allows you to turn your house into a self-serve Bed and Breakfast. So while you're on vacation yourself, you can rent your house out to others and make a little cash on the side.

Until recently, they'd been a very successful company raising over $100 million dollars, and reportedly having a $1B+ valuation.

But if you had any qualms over their business model, it would probably start with, "I'm renting my home out to complete strangers? How do I know my place will be safe?" and then the follow up question would be "If my place gets ruined, what will I do?"

Well, the worst possible scenario happened. A user named EJ reportedly rented her home for a week, whereupon it was systematically destroyed and robbed by one or more egregious robbers. But these kinds of things can happen - catastrophes, disasters. The character of a company depends on how they respond.

The self-backpatting responses [here and here] from Airbnb claiming that the situation was under control were then systematically picked apart by the victim, in which she tells how the company failed to help her once her initial blog post was out:

On June 29 I posted my story, and June 30 thus marks the last day I heard from the customer service team regarding my situation.

And then even talks about one of the co-founders attempts at silencing her and spinning the news:

During this call and in messages thereafter, he requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access, and a few weeks later, suggested that I update the blog with a “twist" of good news so as to “complete[s] the story”.

Now, I'm not going to claim to know all the details, and there are two sides to every story, but from the outside looking in, it sure seems like the Airbnb founders missed the empathy bus.

The Airbnb disaster is just a small microcosm of how corporations have been failing people. From Wall Street greed to oil company ambivalence to nuclear company incompetence, there's been a non-stop stream of companies screwing up, covering their asses up, and then screwing up even more catastrophically. Many of those companies will recover financially, but the havoc they wreak on people's lives reverberates much longer.

Which brings me to my forthcoming MBA experience. Yeah, business is a heavily quantitiative field; the skills you need to succeed for your MBA only reinforce that. But I believe that the primary goal of businesses is to help people, not to make money. Helping people, doesn't necessarily mean charity. But the transactions take place, the products and services businesses sell, help people do what they need to do and live better lives. Making money? That's a peripheral result that comes from helping people. Too many companies forget this. Or write it in their mission statement and then never look at it again.

Johnson & Johnson's nationwide recall of Tylenol in 1982 is one of the most famous cases of business ethics. Several people died when Tylenol bottles were tampered with and laced with potassium cyanide. J&J determined that the cause wasn't at a production level, and that it likely occurred, because someone was tampering with bottles at retail stores. They could've tried to manage the situation at a local level, but instead they announced a nationwide recall of Tylenol, costing them over a $100 million. You think they didn't crunch those numbers and know they were going to be in the big red? It reminds me of a scene in Fight Club, where Jack is talking to some technicians about recall math:

I'm a recall coordinator.  My job is to apply the formula.  It's a story problem. A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 miles per hour.  The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside.  Now: do we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, (A), and multiply it by the probable rate of failure, (B), then multiply the result by the average out-of-court settlement, (C).  A times B times C equals X... If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

A woman looks at him with wide eyes and asks, "Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?" and Jack responds, "Oh, you wouldn't believe."

J&J made those recalls then because they valued people over the numbers. And the goodwill that resulted, among both consumers as well as the J&J employees, was invaluable. I mean, I worked with people at J&J who still talked with pride of their response, more than 20 years after it occurred.

Compare that to their tepid recall response over the past three years. From stories of them hiring people to secretly buy up bottles of Motrin, to Congress lambasting J&J CEO, Bill Weldon for dodging responsibility to a still ongoing steady stream of recall after recall, it's a continuing string of embarrassments from a company that once prided itself on its stellar disaster management. And while the cause of this recall wasn't nearly as serious as the 1982 recall, the willingness (or unwillingness) of the company to go beyond the bare minimum will be remembered.

Recalls, disasters, these are the obvious cases of having to choose between the people-first or numbers-first response. But little things on the day-to-day matter too. And ultimately, putting people first will help you make your numbers. So it's no surprise that companies with a strong reputation for doing so - Apple, Amazon, Southwest, Starbucks - are also some of the most successful companies.

Paul Carr sums it up perfectly: 

And above all, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remind the current breed of entrepreneurs and investors that, in the final analysis, a billion dollars isn’t actually all that cool. What’s cool is keeping your soul, whatever the financial cost.

-Brian Sim

Planning for round 1 MBA applications

Round 1 deadlines for a lot of MBA schools are just around the bend. Ok, maybe a slight exagerration, but the time flies by. You'd be surprised at how much time MBA apps take. Compared to the fairly breezy law and med school apps I've seen my friends go through, it's really no comparison.

Most of the tier 1 schools have 1st round deadlines in early-mid October, so if you haven't been moving on it yet, now's the time to start. 

1. Take your GMAT if you haven't already (obviously)

Honestly, it's a little late in the game, but if you haven't taken the GMAT yet, you should still be able to squeeze it in in time for round 1. But if you haven't even begun preparing, you're probably better off waiting for round 2 or 3.

2. Figure our your list of schools, if you haven't already

Figuring out the right list can be sort of a crapshoot. You're probably going to balance a lot of 2nd-hand and 3rd-party information to create that initial list. I would suggest keeping your list of schools manageable. One, because each app takes a lot of time. Two, because each app is costly. Most apps cost $200-250. I personally limited my list to 5 schools.

As far as visiting the school, I've known people who've visited schools before to decide whether they wanted to apply. And others who've decided to visit after being accepted to help them decide whether they wanted to attend. There's no wrong answer. Honestly, a lot of times it comes down to logistics. Obviously it's easy to visit a school if it's in your neighborhood, harder if it's across the country.

One thing to keep in mind though is that if you want to do an "official" visit, a lot of schools don't start them until mid-September, so if you want to visit before applying, you're probably going to have to wait for either the round 2 or 3 deadline.

3. Start your essays 

This is the most time consuming part of the app process. Most schools require 3-4 essays, and they're usually unique enough where you're not going to be able to verbatim copypasta essays from school to school. You'll be able to carry concepts and bigger ideas over from essay to essay, school to school, but there's a lot of additional editing and writing that goes on.

Also, start thinking about people to review your essays. Ideally, at least two people would look at it. Partly for proofreading, partly for content. One reviewer should have some experience with the MBA app process, as they'll be able to read your essay with an understanding of what schools look for. And the other reviewer should have some creative background. Why? Because your essay isn't like your resume, where you're dryly listing things that happened. Rather, it's also a creative, storytelling opportunity. And people with a creative background (e.g., copywriters, creative directors, speechwriters, etc) will give you a different perspective and ideas.

4. Identify your recommenders, and ask them... NOW!

The people who should recommend you are the people who've worked with you most. Ideally, your supervisors and mentors. And they obviously should be people you have a good relationship with.

Once you decide who you want recommending you, you should ask them ASAP. You're begging for a crappy, rushed reco if you ask them a week or two before the deadline. 

I gave my recommenders 2-3 months notice. I knew they wouldn't start early, but at the least, I wanted to plant the seed in their head. Personally, I think people's best thinking just happens subconsciously (are my soft skill preferences peeking through yet? :-P).

Once you've got your recommenders on board, don't leave them in the dark, give them some information about yourself and your application. Put together a one-pager that let's them know things like:

• How you're planning to position yourself in your essays/application
• What work experiences and qualities you want them to highlight
• What studies and interests you're planning to focus on at school

The more you can help frame their thinking, the more cohesive and consistent your recos will be.

Good luck!

-Brian Sim

Finding a place in Brentwood - Where to start

LA is a huge city - a huge, sprawling city, from what I've heard. I've lived in the Philly area my whole life, and we have our share of neighborhoods, but the ideal places to live are fairly concentrated and everything is well connected by public transportation anyway, so you're never too far from downtown.

So where to start looking for someone that knows nothing about LA? Especially if you don't want a long commute? Westwood and Brentwood seem obvious since they're close to campus. But what if you don't want to live next to a frat house? What's the deal with the 405? I've heard nightmare stories (the notion of the upcoming "Carmageddon" is comical to me). So I asked my second year buddy match and got some great advice (thanks Tim!)

The majority of people live west of the 405 between Barrington and Bundy to the west and east and Santa Monica and San Vicente to the south and north. It's an ideal location because it's a short commute to campus (getting across the 405 is a pain but east of the 405 is where most of the undergrads and grad students without cars live), it's close to the bars that Anderson students go to most (Q's and Cabo), and it's convenient to go west into Santa Monica. Coming from santa monica is more of a congestion issue. If you don't mind a 45-ish min commute then it's doable, but it's more like 15-20mins from Brentwood.

-Brian

The road to LA: introductions are hard

If you're reading this - welcome and hello! My name's Brian Sim, noob incoming class of '13.

I'm excited to be heading out to LA, albeit in a "I'm not really thinking about it, because it's a long time away (even though it's really not)" way. And heading back to school, after working for the past several years, will definitely be interesting. Can't say I'm looking forward to fun with homework and exams (who is?), but I am looking forward to meeting my classmates and being back in a social scene where everyone's working towards similar goals.

Well... all except the icebreaker process, I guess. Why is that? Maybe because it always feels so proper and impersonal. 

• Answer some basic questions like: where are you from? Where did you go to school? Where did you work? What did you do this past summer? What are your hobbies? What do you want to focus on at UCLA?
• Answer a random icebreaker like have you saved any cute, endangered species?
• And then it's onto the next person. 

Plus, it's your first impression! No one wants to be defined by your response to a silly icebreaker question! I relate this whole thing to anticipating swallowing a spoonful of medicine. No, no, no, no - GULP - whew! Yes, it's over! Now we can have fun.

But enough rambling. For the sake of forward progress, let me be proper and impersonal so that we can graduate towards being improper and personal with each other.

Where am I from? Where did I go to school? Where did I work?

I've been a Philly boy for basically all my life, from birth all the way to now. I concentrated in Marketing and Communications at the Wharton School of the U of Pennsylvnania, and ended up working in marketing agencies after graduation. Started out at a small boutique ad firm, helped it morph into a digital consultancy, with my most exciting contribution being helping to develop a new 2D barcode technology and company called Jagtag. After there, I joined a large firm called Digitas, focusing on digital marketing within the pharma agency. Eventually, I decided massive, worldwide conglomerate companies were not my cup of tea, and for the past year or so, have been splitting my time as an independent marketing strategist for another smaller, healthcare focused agency, and working on a startup technology company.

What did I do this past summer?

Besides working, I had a chance to take a pretty long trip, backpacking through parts of Asia. Actually, I thought I was going to be unique in this regard, but then I learned that a bunch of people were doing similar trips! So now I feel less special (cue the "awww" audience track). But back in April/May, I went off for 6 weeks:

• a couple days Macau (meh)
• a week and a half in Hong Kong (fun!)
• a day in China (counterfeit goods!)
• 3 weeks in Japan (my 2nd visit, and my favorite of the bunch) 
• and a week in Korea (my 5th visit, but my 1st traveling alone)

The plus side of going in April/May was that the weather was awesome throughout the whole trip. I'm pretty familiar with the sweltering summers in these places, so I wanted to avoid that. The only downside was that I think I left before our class of '13 Facebook group was formed, so I missed out on some chances to meet up with fellow admits around the world.

What are my hobbies?

Duh, winning? Heh, had to sneak in a Phillies reference in here somewhere. I'm looking forward to checking out the ghost town that is Dodger Stadium (sorry Dodger fans, but I hope the McCourt disaster drags on for a while).

What do I want to focus on at UCLA?

I'm thinking strategy or entrepreneurship, focusing more on the tech side, because that's what I enjoy thinking about and working with. But actually, I'm trying to remain pretty open-minded. I figure the whole MBA experience is one of the rare "reset" or "redirect" opportunities you get, as far as your career goes, so best to expose yourself to as much diversity as posible. You never know what you might be enchanted by.

Have I saved any cute, endangered species?

Why, yes I- actually, no I haven't. ;__;

One last one for the heck of it, what's next?

The road to LA has been a long one. Planned out for the past year or so - I think it was about this time last year I started doodling with the essays - but time flies, so it's a little astonishing for me to look forward and see that I only have about 6 more weeks before driving out west.

Looking forward to meeting the rest of you soon enough, that is once we get past the icebreakers. ;-)