Midterms A-Comin'

Actually, finals. This quasi-quarter/semester system is still a little strange. Anyway . . .

Decision Analysis and Leadership are at the end of this week. Then it's Spring Break! I'm looking forward to the two weeks, although I have a lot of homework to do.

To everyone with midterms in the weeks to come, Good luck!

The Internship Fund

I decided to delete my original post and feature this comment instead. It was written by someone called GoldStandard – apparently, a student here at SOM who is in the Gold cohort.

My original post on the Internship Fund detailed events as they were (partly) witnessed and (partly) reported. I like what this person has to say; that is, I much prefer his/her interpretation. Is it true? Well . . . I don’t know. I have now heard so many different accounts of what happened that night that I can honestly say I have no idea. But GoldStandard seems to bring everything together nicely, which leads me to believe that his/her version is probably the most accurate.

GoldStandard: Thank you! But the “crying” line? Not necessary.

"That's just hilarious j.b. You seem to have only half of the story... but I guess you can be wrong and still blog about anything.

The fact of the matter is that Gold actually won in the last seconds because two people - that's right, just two people - wrote very large checks to put Gold over the top. Keep in mind that these checks would not have been as large if it was just a regular donation process - but the spirit of the fund and the competition fostered these actions. You see, competition can be a good thing sometimes. There is no possible way there would have been more money raised, but I doubt you were even there to know that. In the end there was so much money being donated by all cohorts, it was impressive… and this was after the “secret money” was publicly donated.

The half of the story you had somewhat right is that a small group of Gold students pooled their money to gain a strategic edge. The rest of the cohort was not involved so that donations would actually be recognized to keep everyone – in all cohorts – giving.

Regardless of this small pool of funds, Gold was still too far behind. The “secret” money was given well in advance of the deadline and others were well aware of this. In the final seconds, as other cohorts were throwing down money to garner the win – Gold was the cohort that stepped up and knew what it took to win. While other cohorts tried to lowball their final donations to just squeak by, Gold went over and above to guarantee a win - it always does.

Stop crying and do something about it next time."

Marketing Final

On Friday morning, my classmates and I took the final for our core marketing class. It lasted four hours. Some described it as anti-climactic. Others found it challenging. I thought it was fair.

I think I did well enough, but I no longer attempt to guess how I perform relative to my classmates. I'm always wrong. My new approach is to aim for a perfect grade, thus ensuring that I get a decent one. My old strategy - trying to do better than just 10% of classmates - backfired a bit in the second half of my first semester.

Operations starts on Monday. I'm kind of bummed, as I really enjoyed my marketing class; and I doubt that Operations is going to excite me. But maybe it will. Who knows?

Crime And Punishment

Two of my classmates were kicked out of school recently for cheating. As I understand it, one guy gave a softcopy of his assignment to a friend, who, prior to submission, made no changes to the document except to replace his friend's name with his own.

I told this story to a relative who asked me why the committee expelled the guy who actually did the work. I can only assume that the guy knew that his friend was going to cheat. But maybe not. In academia, the punishment rarely seems to fit the crime. . . . Remember the HBS 119? Add to this that we go to the Yale School of Management, which takes its emphasis on social and corporate responsibility more seriously than most, and the committee's actions are not that surprising.

All I really want to know is . . .

What were these guys thinking? I mean, it was one assignment out of many, worth an insignificant number of points (3, to be exact). To have spent so much money and devoted so much time to the pursuit of an MBA to throw it all away for ~1% of your grade in a class?!

But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that the shame and embarrassment they feel over this is likely to haunt them, resurfacing whenever they think of Yale, run into a former classmate, etc.

It's just sad.

P.S. While the school made no formal announcement, it wasted no time in removing them from the online facebook.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

It's one year old, today.

Number Two, Again

I just got waitlisted for an internship with another company. The good news is that my interview with this company went really, really badly. It was, aguably, the only interview I bombed. So even at my worst I am still a pretty good interviewer. In some weird way, that's comforting.

So far, I have interviewed with 5 companies. I've been waitlisted at two of them. I have second interviews at two. And I am waiting to hear back from one. Not bad. Plus, as SOM06 points out - and as I try to constantly remind myself - it is only February. Most companies looking to hire interns in my profession usually don't begin recruiting in earnest until March, so I'm even a little ahead of the game.

I am very excited about one of the second-round interviews that I have coming up. I will be flown to this company's headquarters, given a rental car, wined and dined, etc. How cool is that?!