MBA Hustle

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

World Cup, Work and Finance

It's been a quick minute since my last post. I've been caught up with world cup, work, and a Fin Mgmt class I'm taking over the summer. Aside from Brazil my world cup teams aren't doing too well. Cote d’Ivoire and T&T got their walking papers last week. France looks suspect and even if they pull it off against Spain they’ve' got to face Brazil (assuming Brazil beats Ghana). So essentially I get to see Brazil beat up on two teams I otherwise was hoping would have gone even further

Anyways on the application front I'm working on narrowing down the list of schools to which I'll apply. I've got eight schools in mind and I just can't see how I wouldn't apply to any of them. On the other hand I think trying to produce 8 solid applications might be biting off more than I can chew even if I split it up between the first and second rounds. I’ll probably try to do a mini MBA tour late August/early September to check out some of these programs, sit in a few classes, and meet a few students. I think after that it’ll be clear which ones are keepers. I also started work on my application essays, and by that I mean writing drafts, getting totally disgusted with what I wrote, throwing it out and starting over. I can already tell I'll be glad when the whole application process is over.

On the work front, my meeting with my boss got postponed till the 5th. While I kinda want to get that conversation out of the way I'm kinda glad for the delay because I need to get my spiel together to get him to write me a super recommendation, possibly eight times.

I'll keep y'all posted.

laterz

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Unbelievable!!!!

T&T 0 - Sweden 0

I've already lost my voice.

The cat is out the bag

Alright, so I'm driving back from lunch with my boss yesterday and we end up talking about future projects I might work on and in general what direction I wanted to take my career.So I figured this would be as good a time as any to bring up my plans for business school.I'd been really nervous about having this conversation with him. He's a good person and a great boss but I knew he wouldn't be too thrilled about me leaving. So anyway, I tell him I'm looking at a number of programs,and he asks if I had considered the part time program at a nearby university which has a pretty decent program but is not quite what I need to successfully transition from IT to management consulting. I indicated as much to him. By this time we were back at the office and we both had meetings to go to so he asked me to schedule something for us to get together and talk. The problem is he's out of town all next week so I get a whole week to sit around and be even more nervous than I was before about the whole thing. Fortunately the World cup is underway and being as I am a huge football fanatic it will be more than enough to take my mind off of that. For all you football fans out there I've got four teams that I'm following...Brazil, France, Cote D'Ivoire and of course T&T. It's always easier to tell after everbody plays their first game but going into the tournament I think Brazil will go all the way. France can as well since there not going in as overly confident as they did in 2002 and also because Thierry Henry had another phenomenal year at Arsenal. By the way I'm also a huge Arsenal fan. Cote d'Ivoire is my dark horse team..they've got Drogba, Eboue, Toure and I think they can do what Cameroon did back in 1990. I hope they go even further. T&T I'm hoping can do one of two things make it to the second round or get at least 4 pts from the group stage. Neither will be easy but this is a game of upsets - any thing can happen. Anyways the T&T/Sweden game is starting in a bit so I'm out...

laters

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Wassup!

What de man say? Wassup!

My name is Neto (pronounced Nato) and after perusing many-a-MBA applicant blog over the last application season, I decided to start one of my own to chronicle my application experience.

A little bit about myself…I’m from the West Indies…went to college in Chicago…and now I work as a Software Systems Engineer at a mid-size business services firm in the Midwest. I like my job because even though it is mad hectic I do get to lead some interesting projects and that leadership experience is precisely what I was looking for when I accepted the offer to work there. This is actually my second job out of college. My first was ok but I was working more as a “code monkey” which was cool at the time but when it became clear to me that I wanted to go the MBA route I knew I would have to seek out other opportunities.

Anyway, the application season is underway with most programs already having announced this season’s deadlines and some already having published this season’s application essays. It’s going to be a long summer and an even longer fall. I’ll try to keep everybody updated on how things go…hopefully this blog doesn’t end up being a compendium of what not to do when applying to b-school ;-)

Laters