More On The New Core Curriculum

Located here.

Curriculum Reform

Tonight, Dean Podolny introduced the new core curriculum. In a word: Wow.

While I am not at liberty to divulge the details (the PR machine will go into motion in just a few months), I can say that the changes are revolutionary. No other school is offering an education like this. The new core curriculum takes a truly interdisciplinary approach to management education.

This article in the Yale Daily News lays out the basics pretty well.

The Class of 2008 will be the first to benefit from the changes. This class will also be smaller than usual, as space in the class is being eliminated to "ensure effective implementation" of the curriculum.

I'm curious to see how people will respond. Personally, I'm a little bit jealous of the Class of 2008. This is what management education should be.

Edits everywhere. LOL.

More Internship News

I just received a list of projects from the company where I will be doing my summer internship. I have 18 to choose from and 17 interns to compete with. Some of the projects are more quant-heavy than others, but most of them look good. Just one is a real dud. I now have to rank the projects in order of preference. I also have to make a decision about when to start. A quick look at my bank statement tells me that the sooner I start, the better.

The interns that I will be sharing office space with come from the following schools: Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Kellogg, NYU, Stanford, UNC, and Wharton. It will be great to meet people from business schools all over the country. I'm really looking forward to it.

Summer Sublet Trouble Already?

Tonight, I headed out to NYC to view an apartment. I would have preferred to wait until I had several appointments lined up, but this one sounded too good to be true. $1100, Upper East Side (not too far up, though), own bathroom, penthouse with spectacular views of the city, etc. I thought, "I'll check it out; and, if it's as good as it seems, I'll write a check on the spot."

I get there and the place is GORGEOUS! But before the woman who is subletting her room has finished giving me the tour, she says, "How would you feel about paying $1400? I'm asking because this is a really great place, but it's rent controlled. And the rent may go up." I explain that $1100 is as high as I can go. She then says, "I understand. It's just that it's rent controlled. But it won't go up to $1400 over the summer."

So, is the price increase related to rent-control or not?

Later, during our conversation in the living room, she says, "You're great. The only thing that might be a problem is that I really want $1400 for the apartment. I'm just thinking that it's a great place, and why not try to come out a little ahead on the deal?" Before I could even respond, she changes the subject. Five minutes later, she pushes me out the door.

I'm not surprised. This is clearly the first time she's ever done anything like this. (She's twenty-two years old.) And I'm not sure I really mind. I didn't know for certain that the apartment was rent-controlled before agreeing to see it, but subletting a rent-controlled apartment is illegal and I would hate for this to become an issue half-way through the summer. Besides, her current roommate - and the guy I would be living with over the summer - seems to lack social graces. The thing that upsets me is that I travelled all the way to New York and back to see the place. I wouldn't have done this had I known that she had decided to raise the price! So I wasted both time and money ($10 cab to train station + $28 roundtrip off-peak ticket + $4 subway fare to and from apartment = $42).

Another inquiry about a sublet returned an email that seemed as if the person were barking at me: "When do you need apt- What Date? When will you be in Manhattan to see apt. on West 10th street? How Many people? Is that May thru August? Please reply ASAP ---not enough info...." This place was super expensive, and she sounds a little agressive, so I'll be sending her a TBNT email.

*Sigh* I was hoping that finding a place to live in NY over the summer would be easy. I suspect that it may wind up being even more difficult than landing the internship itself.

Spring Break

I just spent a few days in New York. I went there to meet with some Yale SOM alums at the company where I will be interning this summer. I love our alumni! They're incredibly helpful and supportive of fellow SOMers. And they're full of personality. One alumna kept me in stitches the whole time we were together.

The company visit only took half a day. I spent the rest of my time in NY hanging out with friends. I also managed to meet up with a classmate of mine. Over brunch, we talked about some of the rumors we'd been hearing about curriculum reform and next year's in-coming class. The Dean is scheduled to speak to students about curriculum reform next week. I'll let you know what I can, then. The stuff I've been hearing about admissions . . . well, I don't know if it's true. And since I'm not connected to the committee in any way, I am unlikely to know anything for certain until the school publishes its numbers in the fall. There could be some very "uplifting" news, though.

Only seven more weeks remaining in my first year of business school. It seems as though things should be winding down, but they're not. LOL. Anyway, should probably try to get some more work done.

Another Forgettable Night

Crash won. Surprise, surprise.

Once again, the Academy has proven that the Best Picture award is not necessarily given to the Best Picture. Unlike Titanic, however, when the Academy’s decision was based on gross receipts, Crash had nothing going for it except that it was the least controversial "controversial" film up for the award. What can you say about a film that took its premise from a bad Ally McBeal episode and tried to make it interesting by borrowing the structure of Magnolia and the cast of Rent? There’s a great read on the subject of why Crash won here.

Of course, the first twenty minutes of Brokeback Mountain was like a Marlboro print ad come to life, so it may not have been the best choice for the award either.

Wondering why Walk The Line wasn't up for Best Picture. It was great! And Reese Witherspoon certainly deserved her award.

Rachel Weisz, however, did not. Sorry, but she’s a terrible actress. We all saw The Mummy and The Mummy Returns, no?

The arrogant and sadly disillusioned George Clooney also won . . . a huge disappointment.

And that Pimp song? It’s fun, but one for the history books?

The show’s one saving grace was Jon Stewart. I particularly enjoyed his remark that the Academy’s next tribute should pay homage to the montage, a device it uses far too often.

As far as I can tell, the Golden Globes seems to do a better job, not only with the ceremony itself, but of giving credit where it is due.

Finals Done! Internship Offer Received! Spring Break Arrived!

What a 24 hours!

I took my Leadership final yesterday afternoon. I loved the structure. For every wrong answer you circled, you got a point. If you circled the right answer thinking that it was the wrong answer, you got negative four points. This was great for me because there were five questions for which I did not know the correct answers, but by POE was able to elimate three. So I got three points each for those questions, as opposed to a full four. Better than zero points, eh?

This morning was my Decision Analysis final. A bit of a disaster. Utilities were a nightmare and took up waaaaaaaaaaaay too much time. If I got more than 50 (out of 100), I'd be surprised. I suspect the mean this year will be lower than last year's, so a 50 should put me in proficient range. But, who knows? The guy sitting next to me called it quits twenty minutes into the (three-hour) exam. He just got up and left, having written nothing down. So, yes, the exam was THAT difficult.

After taking the final, I had to do homework that was due just a few hours later for another class . The ringer on my phone was off, so I didn't hear it ring. But a call came through during that time with an offer to work at a company in NYC over the summer! The offer is VERY generous, the company's great, and I'm really excited about it. I've always wanted to live in NYC - not permanently, but for a while. So the prospect of spending a summer there is v.v. cool. The best part, though, is that this takes a lot of pressure off.

On top of all this, Spring Break is here! While I have no definite plans, I think I may rent a car and explore the Northeast. A few days in NYC may also be in the offing. In any case, I still have homework to do and hope to use some of this time to catch up. But I'm not going to punish myself too severly if I choose to waste the majority of my break. :-)