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!

The day the earth stood still

And then one day it all stopped. There were no more cases, no more briefings, no more classes.

There were no more commitments. Or were there?

It’s weird, not having 20 things you have to do in every moment and I felts I was missing a purpose. I started going to the gym again, which is great. When you’re done with a day of classes, completely starved and you have to go to a briefing or a club meeting and there’s free pizza there, well… you eat pizza. I’m a fan of the papa like anyone else, but after two quarters, it begins to show. So burning 700 calories a day was a blessed addition to my life. I finally got to use my TV and my media center got the attention it was acing for. I found myself browsing eBay bidding for used PS3s (if you’re gonna buy a blue ray player, might as well add a few bucks and get a console as well, right?).

I visited my brother in NYC for a few days and got to watch the city turning white, eat in different restaurants every day (including the one he’s a chef of – Macondo – highly recommended) and went to see a good DJ in Cielo.

 

It took me about a week to understand that this break isn’t really a vacation. In fact it’s a fake break. I then switched to the cover letter writing, interview preparing and networking mode. I found myself working until 3am, going to sleep red eyed.

 

Nonetheless, it still was an easier time and I’m trying not to get to used to it and mellow up before classes start next week.