My Extended Family

People told me the full time MBA years will be the best of my life.

They are.

Some of my friends are anxious to get back out to the world, get in the game again and restart their lives. I remind them that never again in our lives, will we have so many friends all around us, all the time. Friends that rather than having to develop and maintain a career, develop and maintain relationships. It's just part of the syllabus of b-school. It's what we do.

This thanksgiving I celebrated with a group of my friends and some of our families. Though I missed thanksgiving with my family, I'm glad I had my extended family to celebrate with. This year I am thankful for the opportunity I have been given to experience these two years with a fantastic group of people.

Mid Point Perspective

You were an ace at your company, promotions, money, fame and glory. Then you get into a top b-school, maybe even a few. You're about to embark in the journey of your life. You have so many o options for career paths. You may want to switch a career, or keep the one you had, you may even start your own company after school. Life is great, the world is your oyster.

Then an intense wave hits you and you try keeping your head above the water holding with one hand a 50 pound weight with "academics" printed on it and another with "recruiting" on the other hand, while your legs carry the ones with "socializing" on them.

Somehow along the year you may begin to lose the perception of what was it about you that was so special as you get beat down to a pulp made out of dried up silly putty. You'll get confused and may even lose sight of what it is that you really want to do as they tell you to expand your horizons and look at all the options. Then, just as you thought it will never happen, you get an offer for an internship, maybe even two and before you know it, the year's over.

You may think that you are not prepared, but you surprise even yourself when you see how well you are and how much you've learned this year. You feel good about yourself and even better if you came back with an offer.

Reporting from the mid point, these are just my two cents.

Discounted 9 months in order to adjust to a first year perspective, it comes out to around 1.3 cents.

Amazon Kindle @ Darden

Amazon Chooses Darden as First Business School to Use the Kindle was today's article title in businessweek. 

"You might have heard word yesterday that a select number of universities had been selected to participate in Amazon’s new Kindle school initiative. What you probably didn’t know is that one of those universities is a top business school." reads the article.

The new Kindle will be used as of next fall (lucky class of 2011) in and outside of class. 

This is a great initiative in terms of sustainability not to mention convenience. As an avid technologist, I've already been using the V1 Kindle since it first came out. It's been very helpful this year when Darden gave us a choice of using online PDFs rather than acres of cut forests. It's great and convenient on the treadmill and would be even better with the text to speech feature. The only disadvantage so far was that the conversion of PDFs was not up for the challenge of graphics. Hopefully now, with the native PDF support, that would not be an obstacle anymore.

Hopefully, Amazon and Darden would take the extra step and provide it to current students as well as provide all of our cases in e-format so we could save more trees and make my room less of a mess.

If we calculate the printing expenses saved over 2 years and add the value of this CSR to sustainability, I'm pretty sure it's worthwhile to provide us all with Kindles.

Raising Second Years

I've just finished bidding on all of my courses for second year.
Last year, I've read a Darden blogger's post that told the tails of bidding for SY courses and mentioned that it may sound weird that we have to pick all of our 2nd year courses now, at the end of first year, but in fact it makes a lot of sense and he also mentioned we can change the choices we've made afterwards.

Well, I'm here now, and it doesn't seem weird at all. In fact it makes perfect sense. By now, we should all know (more or less) what we want to do after we graduate, so we know what we'd like to get out of next year to best prepare us for the job and life after school.

Perhaps next year, someone else would be writing about a post he read a year back about choosing SY courses.

We use a bidding system to get our course picks. We receive a number of points and use them after devising strategies and predictions using game theory, psychology and dark magic to predict what our peers would do, and try to get our ideal schedule. I have less points because the school deems it fit to put me at a disadvantage because I've gone on a GBE (Global Business Experience) to Sweden this year and that counts as a course credit for next year.

I can't believe how fast the year's gone by. In two weeks, we'll all be raising second years. Our second year friends, mentors, spirit guides will all be gone to their new lives post MBA. It's a little sad. I think I'll miss those guys.

Our professors have been working us really hard here the past few weeks. It kind of feels like Q1 again with all the presentations, deliveries, team projects, late nights and a high ratio of Pizza to healthy meals. They say that in a tough economy, the marketing department gets the first cuts. Well, in my time shortage case, the Gym, sadly,  got cut. I will have to find time for that somehow since immediately after our last exam, we're heading to Beach Week!

This weekend is full of events here at Darden. It's the reunion of a few classes of past. Friday evening is the Darden Follies!
And Saturday is the annual Foxfield Races!

Building Goodness in April

Building Goodness in April, or BGIA as it is known here is something that attracted my interest since before I came to Darden, when I was deciding between schools and was reading about it on the Dean's blog. It is an amazing thing when contractors, students and local shops all partner together with the Building Goodness Foundation and volunteer to renovate around 10 homes of low income and/or disabled families in the Charlottesville/Albemarle community. It is a genuine gesture of giving, and it is extremely rewarding.

A lot of planning is required in order to accomplish so much in just one day and it is student led.
It starts with the inspection of homes finding the best candidates for projects. It is followed by a fundraiser where we all auction all sorts of stuff from golf lessons and 5 course meals through hotel rooms or a cabin in Vermont to pole dancing lessons or a self affirming evening with two students accompanied by a keg.

This year we collected $45,000. Local businesses donate goods, cash and services as well.
We targeted 10 homes and built 2 playgrounds.
Each house is assigned 3 house captains (yours truely was one) that oversee the planning of the work to be done on the house, the interaction with the residents, coordination of the professional workers, purchasing and collecting the materials, driving 16-24 ft. trucks and organizing volunteers.

On build day, 165 Darden students and 100 contractors charge the houses and do their thing.

It's a reall challenge, but we've had some amazing accomplishments on build day. We have given back to the community that is hosting us for these two years and there is nothing that can compare to the feeling we got seeing the expression of our home's residents come back to their new home.








I have had the opportunity to work with great people this build day - the contractors and my classmates who did the most amazing job and accomplished incredible things.



TV news coverage: http://www.charlottesvillenewsplex.tv/home/headlines/42476527.html

Last year GMAC visited us during Build Day:
http://www.gmac.com/teammba/Misc/TeamMBAVideo.htm

Staying Current

As we try to stay up-float while our leaders stabilize the global economy, a huge magnifier glass is pointed at Top B-Schools as can be seen in this NY times piece or this CNN one. The current crisis has been going on for some time and that has given us the time to take a breath and examine what we did wrong. Failed leadership is a theme that keeps coming up. Who can we blame for this? The business schools, of course as can be read from a FoxNews article pointing out the schools that wrecked the economy.

Everybody wants to see that b-schools make sure this situation would never happen again. A story I've heard from a professor at Darden tells of a company that came to visit Darden while they were considering their recruitment options. Once they saw the UVa honor code we have in every classroom, their mind was made up. Incidently, this was shortly after the corporate scandals in the begining of the century, although Darden's emphasis on ethics was established long before that.

I will be taking my first ethics class this week, so I'll be able to share a more personal view within a few weeks.

But Darden is definitely keeping up to date with updates to the program. I started a new course today: "Marketing Inteligence". The professor shared with us the updates to the curriculum, some of which, include some legal studies so that when we come up with creative ideas later in our jobs, we won't get "too creative".

It doesn't end there; We have had a number of "green" draft cases this year examining the current crisis from various perspectives. We have been asked to put ourselves in the various situations and decide what we would do instead of Bernanke or this company CEO or that new graduate consulting to one company or another.

We've also had speakers and panels talking about the current crisis and we've learned a lot from the wisdom of others.

Is this enough? Can the schools do more?
The NYTimes piece mentioned earlier mentions a study that claims that 56% of MBA students cheat. What can a B-School really do to change the values of a 28 year old that believes it is ok for her to cheat?

B-Schools provide a 1-2 year training program, equiping us with a kit of tools and experiences to help us make good judgements at jobs. The rest is on us.

Did anybody get the plate number?

Things are happening at a frantic rate. Three weeks after we started our first year, when we were still trying to get the hang of 3 cases a day, learning team, 8 am classes etc. They came. From diffent parts of the country. From different industries. Yes, companies. There are multiple briefings every day. Sometimes we get 3 parallel and you constantly have to prioritise and drop stuff. I found myself comming unprepared to learning team meetings two days in a row and it feels aweful to let my learning team down. They are a great bunch and whenever someone is unprepared the rest cover and try to bring that person up to speed. Unfortunately for me, if I don't do the work myself I don't feel like I understand enough to participate the next day in class, but then there are more briefings and events and cases the next day. 

Darden's program is the best preperation anybody can ask for the real life. As a manager you'll have to constantly prioritise, skim where you shouldn't put much effort or delegate and drop or postpone non-critical issues. This is why Darden grads "hit the ground running".

Some grads actually said that they have so much spare time now that they are working and that everything seems easier after Darden.

This may be true, but it doesn't really help me right now.  We had the first exam this Friday and I did terrible on it. Most of us feel we did terrible and usually that's fine since there's a curve and it all gets normalized. However, I'll probably be on the lower end of that curve. 

Not all is grim. Deloitte graciously sponsored our tailgate today. Good food, good drinks and good people. I was still hung over from last night's attempt to wipe the memory of the exam from my brain, but I probably didn't kill enough brain cells. I'll keep working on it. 

The game was supposed to be a sure loss to the Maryland Terrapins so a lot of people just went home after the tailgate. Some friends and I went to the game to support our Cavaliers just to be surprised with the great turnout of the game. Our Cavaliers gave us quite a show. We won 31-0.

It was a spectacle.

Some more good news: I've been selected, along with some of my classmates to be an official blogger for Darden. This means my blog would be linked from the official Darden site.

Edit: here's the link: http://www.darden.virginia.edu/html/DardenBlogger.aspx?styleid=4

(Look mom, I'm on TV)

Tips for MBAs

Be bold. 

Be authentic.

Look at the market, see where the balls are rolling, what opportunity lies there? Do you see your destiny there?

This is a snippet of some of the wisdom and leadership philosophy Richard Fairbank, founder & CEO of Capital One - the 13th largest bank in the US - shared with us during Darden's Leadership Speaker Series this week.

Fairbank's r credit revolution is a story of true entreperneurship, taking advantage of opportunity when everybody else was doubtful. Stories like that trully inspire me so I was fully engaged in listening and I picked up some interesting points. 

A CEO will be able to delegate almost everything but one thing.

The one thing a CEO can't do without is vision.

Ok, this sounds very basic, but it's a lot more powerful coming from a person who had literaly made it. 

Hire the best people.

Ok, we know that. Everybody hires the best people don't they?

Well, you have to really put a lot of effort in getting the best people. This is where the most time and effort should be spent by leaders, according to Faribank. 

Create an environment where these best people can actually be great.

Fairbank moved on to encouraging innovation, but warned that changing buyers behavior is very difficult(though it can be done - e.g. IPod). Easier is to improve the buyers' experience.

Fairbank ended with a back to basics advice. The one our parents used to tell us and their parents told them: be loyal to yourself. The pure quest will rally up people around you more than the quest for your next promotion. 

Don't sell your soul and take the job because it pays well or because this is the cool job.

Take the job that you will learn the most from and have the most fun.

First week at Darden

I've had 2 full days of what is going to be the standard day - 5 days a week.

8 am: classes begin.

13:10: "free time" - in which I'm supposed to eat lunch and prepare my case analysis for my learning team meeting. 3 cases a day. Each case takes me 2 hours to read and prepare in a decent manner. Since I don't have that time, I spend 1 hour on each case, trying to skim through it and have some initial analysis about it. I don't seem to have time to read the extra material from the books so far due to my slow reading.Soon we'll add to this company briefings and club meetings. Good times.

19:00: Learning team meeting - where I meet with my (wonderful) team and brainstorm over each case for 1 hour.

22:00: If we finish on time - have dinner with my wife, catch up on study/reading material. Prepare for tomorrow morning and go to bed.

On Friday we had the Voyage of Discovery - a bonding, competative activity for the learning teams wrapped in the theme of the Lewis and Clark expedition. After we had our flag prepared, the trading floor opened, where we traded medicine for buffalo teeth, furs for metal etc. My team showed exceptional focus and discipline as we have in our two meetings. We ended the day with a nice dinner, where a second year joined our team and shared some of her wisdom with us.

Today started with a hiking trip in Shenandoah national park.

The day finished with a picnic in Flagler Court on the Darden grounds with all the Darden community. I returned home a little drunk, but very determined to crack the accounting case.
It's 2 am now and I have to finish a book and another case tomorrow before a BBQ at a professor's house - lunchtime tomorrow. And then, to top a nice Sunday, of course - learning team meeting.

Surviving two full days of the program gives no guaranties for this full week ahead. We already have an assignment for Wednesday consisting a 1/3 of our grade.

Fun times!

Class of 2010

Class of 2010 took the traditional photo on the steps of Sunders Hall.

In two years we'll take another photo, compare and reflect the past two years.

Follow this link to find some of the highlights.

A blast to the past

Yesterday we were given the opportunity to leave a time capsule for our future selves two years from now.
I did.
But then I had this idea, what if I could write to myself from the future. What if I now got a letter from myself in two years time. What would it say?

Dear Oren,
You are about to embark in a journey. The greatest journey you've had so far.
I don't want to spoil the surprise for you so I won't let you in on too much.
I will say this though; I had a blast. My (our) classmates are the best i could possibly ask for. I feel very lucky to have spent these past two years with such a talented, diverse group of people. I have learned so much from them and they, I hope, learned from me.
I never missed an opportunity to participate. Never sat shyly in the back, though I did sit in the back for the first quarter of the first year if I recall.

Our dean, Bob Bruner (yes he still is the dean so try to get to know him better, I was a little weak on that one this time around so you have a second chance - take it) told us (I think it was the day you were supposed to get this letter from me) a piece of wisdom from Las Vegas' casinos. It was a sign he saw over the rouletter table that said: "You must be present to win".
You remember that, right? So be present. These are only two years and they go this fast (swish!)
Be present.

I took most opportunities I had to get involved, participate, volunteer and still I feel I could have done more. So do more!
You'll have tough times, you'll have good times, but don't let any of these interfere with you taking advantage of this once in a life time experience.
Never again will you have access to such a diverse group of people, hudled together in one academic village, willing to share their knowledge and wisdom and willing to learn from one another.

Reach out.
Embrace.
Give.
Receive.
Appreciate and enjoy.


P.S. I just got your time capsule. Thanks for the congratulations.
I really have to say this: I was young back then.
See you in two years,
Me

Here we go...

Wow! These were some intensive few weeks. Prematriculation is officially over today and tomorrow we start the school year.
I've taken some 3 day courses in accounting and economics in hope that it would boost my knowledge in the area since I have no previous experience in the financial sector.
More interesting, however, is the PCAP - Personal Career Assessment Program which was a three half day workshop of self discovery. In Darden we try to trully understand who we are, what our life themes look like and what job alligns well with our personality, expectations and aspirations (A.K.A the Darden Cookie - knowing yourself and finding the job that completes you like a broken cookie and it's other half. If you're considerind Darden, there's a slightly different reference to the cookie here you may want to read about).

We had a two day career forum where many Darden alumni and business people from different industries and roles came on campus and presented us with the career opportunities we have. We all know there's IB, consulting, marketing, GM as the main jobs, but what are these jobs actually like? What is a typical day? How do you get to a PEG? (you don't get there after school if you don't have any previous experience in the area is the answer, at least it's very unlikely). The purpose was to create a safe environment where we could actually ask about anything and open our minds to the different options and indeed there were a lot of them. It made me think about what I want to do and if I still want to. It's a good time to be at school now and it's a great place to be with so many roads open to us.

Today was the official reception of the class of 2010. I found out some stats about our class and I also found out that a fellow student blogger who happens to be on my section has already posted some of it today. So here are the stats:
We have students from all 5 continents.
Our class size is 334
We have 97 women which is 1 woman less than last years and was the highest number ever recorded in Darden.
33% of us are international
Our Average GMAT is 692 and our Avg GPA is 3.35 .
28 is our average age with a range of 22-34.

We were 9 people competing for each addmitted student.

We got a world record holder, college athletes, Peace Corps Volunteers, various military and citizen pilots, a submariner and more and more.

We got our sections assignments today. I'm in section D. I found out that a lot of the Camp Darden refugees* are with me in D so it was great to have already known my peers who will be with me this year. It seems that last year's class started to get to know each other when school started, at least someone told me, but we all were already hanging out together these past weeks. Maybe it's the social online networks or the new DardenPortal, but it feels to me like we got something special forming here.

Tomorrow is our first day. We'll also be getting our learning teams assignments tomorrow so I'll know who are the 4 people I'll be spending 4 hours a day or more with, learning, eating, drinking, fighting... you get the picture. It's exciting.

A lot of things are going through my mind these past few days. It feels like being on a roller coaster at the top just before the first big slope down.
click, click, click... wheels rolling and here we go...


* Veterans of the legendary Camp Darden

Camp Darden

Darden is known for its rigorous program. It was actually a part of why I chose Darden. I like to push myself to the extreme, testing my limits. So I was planning on August 18th as the start date. What I didn't take into account is the load I'll have during the pre-matriculation period. According to the wide recommendation for people with no finance/economics background, I registered for the economics and accounting pre-mats. I also took the career orientation workshop and attended some of the international workshops, the last one's theme was "why are americans like that?". As a dual citizen, I play both sides of the field so I switch between international and american at my convenience. There's a lot of red tape involved in being a dual citizen, but I won't write about it now.

To sum it all up I've had classes at 8:00 am up until around 16:00 including Saturday (!) and that has left me little time to finish up on my Darden assignments. There's a checklist provided by Darden with a time consuming list and at the end of it they told us to relax and enjoy the rest of the summer, which kind of made me laugh as I was reading it in my war zone of an appartment.

Surprisingly, the pre-mats turned out to be a lot of fun. The Dardenites that were around the past weeks in Charlottesville started going out, having parties, going bowling, having more parties and there were also some parties. What started as a mailing list that kept on growing as more people turn out in C-Ville and more events are added to the mixer and was later transfered to a google group is now known as Camp Darden.

Every day involves at least one of those activities usually ending up pretty late and the next morning people actually appear in class at 8:00 am. i didn't have the American college experience (beer pong is unheard of in Israel) so I'm having a lot of fun experiencing these now.

A few nights ago I attended an Edward Fourtyhands for the first time and besides the fact that the only 40 oz. bottles I found were bud & bud lite it was great. Besides being just great people, class of 2010 turned out to be a real fun bunch as well.

Now all that's left is to finish all of my assignments for tomorrow in the half day that still remains of this beautiful Sunday :P

Leaving the country

I still don't fully grasp that in a few days, I'll be leaving the country. Yesterday I had my farewell party on the roof at work and it was heart warming, seeing all those people whom I've worked with the past four years. I've made some close friends there and it is tough leaving all those behind, in addition to the career I loved. Part of the switching countries process is detaching from a lot of material stuff. In my years of existence, I've managed to accumulate a lot of belongings. Shipping everything in a container is too expensive so, like a lot of other students going for their MBA in the US, I'm selling everything I can, donating the rest and throwing away tons of stuff. When I started clearing the house I thought about every little thing before throwing away. By the time I was finished, I was throwing/donating quality stuff without a second thought. Today I said good bye to my best friend since the 7th grade and I still don't really acknowledge that I'm leaving.

Tuck Visit

Tuck is one of the few top schools that will interview you prior to submitting your application. It's a great opportunity, especially for internationals already visiting to leave a strong impression since it's not likely that you'll come there again just for an interview. The downside of it is that you really have to prepare. Although we've done some mock interviews, looking back, I realize I was insufficiently prepared. We were lightly preparing our first applications to Darden while we were traveling so we just weren't polished enough.

Before driving to NH, we had to go get our found luggage containing our suits we needed for the interview. Just the night before, when we landed, AirTran informed us that they don't know where our luggage is, so we were extremely happy when we were notified it was found. Joyful that we didn't need to go shopping for suits we started driving to NH.

Dartmouth college is impressive. Located in Hanover, NH with all that green and forests around was very attractive for me. I like small places and Hanover was really a gem. We stayed in the nicest, coziest, homey motel in Lebanon (the nearby town). You come to realize that the center of your life would be around the school's building and we even heard stories from the Tuckies that during the harsh winter, they sometimes just stay indoors without ever leaving the school since it's connected to the dorms. Anyway, Tuck is really something else. The main hall has a fireplace and I've read that the whiskey club (yes, an official club for tasting whiskeys) sits around the fireplace drinking and telling stories. We walked by students sitting around with their laptops to the admissions office. The furniture around us is all oldish style in a good way. The staff was very nice. Parking is allowed in specifically designated places around campus. There are very few of these. However, I've heard one of the staff mention to a prospective that if he got a parking ticket, that he should just bring it to the admissions office and they'll take care of it.

I was interviewed by a second year student. When I analyzed it later on, I realized I should have shown more confidence with this guy, but as I've mentioned I wasn't prepared to take on an interview at the time. From what I've found out prior to the interview, the Tuck interviews are a flowing conversation, but that doesn't mean it's a walk in the park.

The class visit was OK, though there was nothing memorable there. Lunch in the cafeteria was decent and the student community seemed nice and helpful. We already had a scheduled meeting with an Israeli student of course and he was kind and informative. The main attraction of Tuck to me was the small class and tight-knit community, living in the middle of nowhere, NH - that's actually a good thing by my standards - bonding for two years. I did hear later on that students there actually need a liver transplant after two years there. I'm sure I could have taken it.

Sloan Visit

As an engineer, employed in the high-tech industry and aiming to return there - MIT was in my top list. After parking in a garage 10 minutes from school we discovered there's free parking right in front of the school. We met some nice prospectives in the lobby and started chatting. We then met a current Israeli student who seemed keen on the school, but we kept getting interrupted and didn't really get a chance to connect.


The class itself and the conduct in the class wasn't that interesting for our taste. We had lunch boxes prepared for us, which was very nice of the school and had lunch with current students. Of course, we got to ask questions about the school and application process.

We had a meeting scheduled with another Israeli student. We were eager to meet him, since the Israeli angle always reveals interesting information. We had a small communication breakage with him and couldn't find him for 15 minutes. When we managed to get him on the phone, he decided to cancel the meeting.

We left the school with feeling that we don't quite fit in the school's culture. I think this is the first time we really understood the importance of visiting schools and getting the feel from it and the people there. It's a good school, and I'm sure other people may find it more of a fit. By the time we reached the car, we had already decided not to apply to Sloan.

Stanford Visit

Unfortunately Stanford hadn't yet had class visits available. I was really hoping to see what a Stanford class is like and get the feel of the student body. I did however meet two Israeli second years - who were a couple, which was great since we had the same goal of getting admitted together. They were two superstars who managed to get admitted to 5 top schools together and chose Stanford. They were extremely nice and spent some time with us over lunch telling us about the program.

I really liked Palo Alto and the campus itself. It provides the pastoral learning atmosphere and you have San Fransisco not so far away. We attended a short session conducted by the admissions staff and that was that. Our time was short and we had to proceed to our next stop - Boston, where we'll visit MIT and then head over to Tuck. We had just a few stops along the way: A few days in Vegas, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale and a short 3 day vacation in the Bahamas.

Haas Visit

We drove around Berkeley for a while before we reached some office that sells parking permits. Since they didn't know the way to the parking lots, we spent some more time finding one next to school. A Haas student later told me: "The best thing about Berkeley is our great location. The worst thing about Berkeley is our great location". The campus is beautiful and locating the b-school in it was an experience.

Stories of festivities in Haas' open area (concrete yard? see pic) and the smiling faces of students imprinted in my brain that it is a happy place. The class itself was fun and interesting as the students were summing up the result of a negotiations simulation. There aren't that many students in the class and this gives somewhat of a more intimate feeling. The professor added to the experience with her energy, smiles and good spirit. She looked like the stereotype of a California girl (no, I don't wish they all could be California girls - because I embrace diversity [I also stated that in one application essay]).

The professor then presented us with a short film created at Google labs where they teach the same class. I found out then that Google actually has their very own Haas MBA program running within the labs(!). The film was quite amusing, simulating negotiations of phone reps with angry customers.

A current student than took us to lunch in their very own grill-restaurant, which served some good ol' American cuisine. You are not entitled to lunch as part of the school visit. We met there some more pleasant Haas students and got to - you guessed it - talk about the school and admissions.

We were then taken to meet student ambassadors and admissions staff who were very kind. Some more prospectives joined the session and I discovered another Israeli there, which was great. There was no real answer for the financial aid issue with Berkeley. There is no loan arranged by the school without co-signers. This fact is extremely important to internationals. It puzzled me that Berkeley does not remedy this when I saw how a friend of mine had to deal with the financial issue with the high cost of living in Berkeley vs. the other offer he had at another ivy league school.

Unfortunately the Haas visit was added to our traveling plans at a short notice and we hadn't managed to meet an Israeli student there. The ambassadors gave us his contact, but due to timing constraints, we only had a phone call that evening after we had arrived to Palo Alto.

That evening, we continued working on our essays for our first application - Darden - as we've done throughout every stop in this trip.
The next day was a visit to Stanford.

Ross Visit

It's a real short ride between Detroit airport and Ann Arbor. Something to keep in mind when considering interviews/conventions you'd want to get to during your two years. We touched base at a motel and met our Israeli MBA2 contact at his apartment. He called on some of the other MBA1's and MBA2's and we ended up sitting in a pub with 4 of them. Nastia (my wife) got a nice big 'X' mark on her hand, since she hadn't brought an ID with her. She was totally flattered by that of course. The Rossies are a fun loving, friendly bunch. Besides the fact that they spontaneously went out with us, they were ready and eager to answer any questions we had. No need to tip toe around the Israelis, so we really got to ask anything.

The next morning we had the class visit. The campus is spread around in buildings in Ann Arbor. The b-school is one of these. The full time program currently occupies the executive residence as far as I understand along with the part time, evening time and BBAs. The new building should be ready for fall of 2009. Until then, it may be a bit overcrowded. At least for my taste. Parking is not offered by the school, so we parked on the street and fed the meeter when it was hungry. There were a few of us visiting class. We got two escorts splitting us into two groups. Unfortunately we got a not so interesting class. Lunch with students was very nice. We had lunch coupons for the cafeteria and we got to ask questions about the school, admissions etc. The students were very kind. We had early dinner plans with the Israeli students so we took a walk around the campus. Luckily it was a perfect, blue sky, sunny September day. As sun is a rare commodity in Ann Arbor, the students take the opportunity and adjust their clothing accordingly. We sat down in a coffee shop and enjoyed the view and perfect weather.

It was really fun meeting up with the Israeli students again. We went to some fast food Italian restaurant and got to talk some more and meet some more of the Israelis.

We said goodbye to Ann Arbor and headed off back to Detroit. Stanford and Berkley are next.

Darden Visit

Last September, my girlfriend (toady my wife) and I set on 3.5 weeks of airport hopping around the USA. We landed in D.C. and after spending a few days at my girlfriend's parents in a suburb of D.C. we headed to our first school visit.
After almost 2 hours of drive we reached the gorgeous Charlottesville. Rumors have it that route 29 is a highway patrol goldmine, but I guess I was driving the speed limit.

We met with a current student in the evening who showed us around town - specifically the downtown mall. We had dinner and talked about school and the application process (surprise!).
We then turned in for the night preparing for the next day's class visit.

The GPS kindly pointed us to Darden blvd. There, surrounded by forest resides the Darden School of business administration.

At the gatehouse we got our parking permit, allowing us to park anywhere in the boulevard. I could feel the history surrounding me as we walked through the great wooden doors. These facilities are actually quite new, but they were built in accordance with the architecture of UVA, which was built by Thomas Jefferson's vision of an academic village. In short - amazing (UVA is a world heritage site BTW).

The visit started with 'First Coffee' - a 50 year tradition - a 9:30 gathering (after first class, which starts at 8:00 - Did anyone say MBA boot camp?) with a fresh, steaming cup and discussions about every topic from academics to hobbies with students and faculty. We were a bit shy and didn't get into any discussions. Networking in US standards is uncharted territory for us. We knew we, like a lot of internationals, had to learn this.

Off to the admissions office, where we received our case and had half an hour to prepare before our escort came to pick us up. This was my first case study ever so I didn't really know what to expect. The case was part of the 'Leading Organizations' course or as students call it - 'LO'.

Our student escorts took us to our separate classes - I was in section B. I kept rehearsing the short introduction of myself that I've prepared. The Israeli culture is very concise and strait to the point. We usually state our first names and current positions. Blabbing about your accomplishments is considered showing off, so speaking about myself in that manner is a skill I was still trying to master. I was somewhere at "My name is Oren..." when the professor asked me to introduce myself. I did so very briefly and that seemed enough. Than I was asked to tell an embarrassing story about myself. I censored the real juicy stories and told a nerdy dry "embarrassing" story because I actually wanted to be admitted to the school. I was finally allowed to sit down and watch the show. Or so I thought. You see, in Darden you don't watch the show. Instead of listening to the professor, you talk. If you listen to someone it would be to another fellow student. And you'd better listen. You can't lose trace of the conversation because you might get cold-called. The class split up to some group discussions for a few minutes and I actually participated, which seemed great at the time. What I didn't know then is that the whole learning experience at Darden comes from self learning, then group learning with your study group (3 hours every night) the rest is completed and polished in class by the 60 students who make your section. The professor is truly merely a facilitator.
There is no real way to transmit the experience of a Darden class. You really have to be there. This is probably why Darden requires that all domestic applicants interview on campus.

After class we were taken to have lunch with current students in the very impressive dinning hall. Food was good (paid for by the school) and the company even better. Darden students are friendly, modest and helpful. I can assume this collaborative, supportive atmosphere comes from the study method.

We were then off to the suburbs of D.C again. The next day held an early morning flight to Detroit. Ann Arbor awaits.