A Random Walk Down Paul Street

My Name Is Ozymandias, King of Kings!

2009-11-30T18:59:00.000-08:00

So my internship has gotten odd. I've always been working remotely from my manager and the tech transfer people, but I at least had a place to sit at the Cambridge office. While I was in Paris, those desks were given to a different group, so now I have no place to sit. When I go to work, I find the other TechOps refugees, and we huddle in a tiny conference room like cornered rats. No good. Peace out Novartis office, hello MIT office. All I need is internet and cell phone service anyhow. This has turned out to have some unforseen advantages:

Shave? What shave?
Jeans
Free lunch at Sloan events

That's basically the Triple Crown of work awesomeness.

Oh yeah, I signed for a job. In true consulting fashion, I made a slide...

Game set match. Winner: McKinsey in Boston!

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

2009-11-10T15:10:00.000-08:00

I've been a crappy blogger for the past few months as I've been a) being a good husband and daddy, b) engaged in that time-honored MBA tradition of finding a jay oh bee and c) just plain forgetful. Let's examine a) and b) individually....

a) My internship has afforded me liberties that most LGO interns don't have. In August, Novartis relocated my group from Cambridge to North Carolina. As the meager (and unpaid) intern, I was not moved, so the office in Cambridge now holds myself and HR. I'm just happy they left me internet access and a supply of toilet paper. Since my job is now purely remote, I generally work from MIT or from home where I can do the same job while wearing jeans (MIT) or boxers and stubble (home). This has made the past few months fantastic for my wife, who takes advantage of me being home to go out while the kids nap. She also takes advantage of it to set unruly children on me while I'm sleeping and snap pictures....

My naive hope is that this will build up positive karma for when I inevitably have to go and get a real job that leaves Kelly home with the kids for a lot more time. Speaking of jobs...

b) Much to the probable chagrin of the LGO program, my interests have changed since coming to MIT. My self-diagnosed job ADHD requires me to find something with ever-changing work scenery. This leads me towards consulting or leadership development programs. Unfortunately, partner LDPs tend to be geographically rotational (bad), in unacceptable locations (also bad), and/or functionally stifling (worse). Consulting it is! Against all odds, three consulting firms have expressed interest in hiring me. I'm still a bit hazy on exactly what I'll be doing; for what they pay, I assume it involves shredding incriminating documents or fighting to the death in the Thunderdome. That's fine; I'm handy with a chainsaw. I haven't accepted an offer yet, but I do sleep with them under my pillow and whisper "my precioussss..."

The internship is still chugging along, albeit at a less breakneck pace, since I'm generally waiting for data. My internship is basically social science research wherein I analyze employees' perceptions of how technology transfer projects are being managed and correlate their responses to how successful the projects were. Mind-numbing though that may sound, it's pretty cool work, especially for someone who wants to be a consultant who has to "quantify the qualitative" within organizations. The challenge is getting people to respond to surveys and interview requests to get my data. I've resorted to manipulative techniques of social psychology that we learned last fall in Organization Processes (aka "Mind Control"). My tactics are slowly working; not only am I getting my data, but if I snap my fingers twice most of the project managers at Novartis will quack like a duck until I say the secret word.

"We have clearance, Clarence." "Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?"

2009-08-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Currently on a plane en route to Siena, Italy. I'm almost out of Chianti from the last time I came, so I was due for another trip. It's a rough life, this traveling to Tuscany for work. I'm now part of the Mile High Blog Club (a less interesting cousin of that other club). Internship is still going very well, with great exposure to some of the challenges of coordinating operations across national and cultural boundaries. Our internships fall on a spectrum that has pure engineering on one end and pure business on the other. Some people want to lean towards the engineering end, but I'm one of those who is glad to be far towards the MBA end. Reasons are twofold: a) I've already been an engineer at a big company, so I'm kind of "been there, done that" and b) my internship takeaways are very portable - all multinationals face these same business problems, so wherever I end up, I'll likely be able to directly apply these same learnings.

I will consider this trip successful if it ends without me getting crapped on by a bird again. The other day at lunch I felt the familiar splat. TWICE. REPEAT: TWO. DAMN. TIMES. Score so far this summer is Birds: 4, Paul: 0. Unacceptable. Attention Mighty Bird Overlord: I am unilaterally calling a ceasefire to all hostilities, effective immediately. Inform your subjects.

Resistance is futile: you will be assimilated.

2009-07-21T03:25:00.000-07:00

Stardate 2009.202 - Currently seven weeks into internship at Novartis. My mission is proceeding well. Calm before the storm; only about two months until I have to start fulfilling the Prime Directive (find a job).

Ok, enough Star Trek. Internship is great. Novartis is a good company, and so far my project hasn't been radically altered/expanded/shrank/cancelled like some other interns. It's a tough gig for the companies; they have to think up internship projects in December that are going to still be applicable the following June when we show up. Understandably, a lot of company priorities change, so a lot of internship projects are not what they were on paper. This wasn't the case for me - my project is exactly what I thought it was going to be, which is good since it's also exactly what I wanted to do (i.e. very "businessy" with a strong technical bent). Go me!

Not all, however, is rainbows and unicorns. Tragically, my GI Bill benefits are coming to an end. The GI Bill is basically a bribe the government uses to lure people into the military. You give them a bit of money ($1800 in my case) while you are active duty, and when you get out, they throw tax-free money at you by the shovelful for up to 36 months while you are going to school. My freeloading is about to reach that limit. Boo. Peace out GI Bill - Bank of America and I will miss you.

I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti

2009-06-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Almost done with week 2 of my internship. Week 2 seemed better than week 1...now why could that be...hmm..let me think...oh, I suppose it's because week 2 was in Siena, Italy. So far Tuscany is great - perfect weather, good food, and plenty of Chianti.

I went for a good long solo walk in the city yesterday. My hotel is like a mile from the old city (old is relative...nothing here is even remotely new), so I hoofed it in and walked around for like 2 hours. The stores all close up shop at like 7.30, so there isn't too much to do after that. I really enjoyed it - it's nice to just be by yourself for a bit and explore without talking to anyone. I tried to go native by wearing my skinny jeans, sunglasses, and a half-zip polo with the zipper down and the collar up while I ate the local pizza at a cheapo, nontouristy pizzeria. Turns out my skinny jeans aren't that skinny, my chest doesn't look like a manly Italian, my sunglasses are $10 from Publix, and asparagus tastes funny on pizza. I'm a poseur native. It also turns out Siena is pretty hilly (which explains why the Sienese all look like stick figures), so my calves gave me a bit of grief this morning. Stupid calves. Also, a bird pooped on my head. Stupid bird.

Down the rabbit hole I go

2009-06-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

Started at Novartis Vaccines this week for my internship. So far, it looks like a great place to work. It seems similar to my GM Fuel Cell days in that it is a small, nimble outpost of a much larger mothership with extensive resources, except this mothership is not in Chapter 11. And vaccine manufacture is actually a pretty fascinating industry, so my hopes are high that this will be pretty cool. I may also be biased because they gave us tater tots for breakfast today. Seriously, who doesn't love the tots?

Oh, I should welcome the new LFM/LGO class that started this week. Welcome new class! Word on the street is that you're better than my class on paper, but be warned, we fight dirty and we'll have a one year headstart on you. May the best class (mine) win!

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

2009-05-06T02:04:00.000-07:00

Busy 5 weeks. Turns out you can be an LFM and have a baby, at least biologically. Yep, Claire Frances Witinski came squalling into the world at the end of March. After all the worry, it's been pretty easy, actually: much easier than when we had Anna and I had a real job. The nice thing about having a kid is that it doesn't exactly sneak up on you. Nine months to prepare is plenty of time in b-school to set up your schedule however you need to. My plan to have a light courseload this half of the semester is working. I only have required homework in one class, and I didn't have *anything* due for the first two weeks.

So far living in Belmont is great. I'm <5 miles from MIT, but it's a whole different experience than Cambridge/Somerville - the people are similar but much more neighborhoody and kid focused. It's like Stepford Cambridge. Example: in Cambridge, you generally cross a street via the walk-into-traffic-and-assume-they'll-stop method. Here, they use crosswalks. I almost feel bad plunging headlong in front of cars.

A few things I now know that I didn't before moving here:

Consider the origin of the name Belmont. Bel, as in beautiful, and Mont, as in mountain. Wish I had thought of that before deciding to ride my bike to school. Basically uphill the whole way home.

People here must have bad teeth. Seems like every third business is a dentist.

Belmont schools celebrate Pi Day on 3/14. My kind of place.

Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full.

2009-03-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Been a busy spring break.

1 - We caved in and bought a monster double stroller. We got a Baby Jogger City Elite. It's huge and cost $500 that I don't have. It's so big it looks like it should have a team of Clydesdales yoked to the front of it.

Paul's Helpful Tip #47: If you are buying or may later buy a double stroller before coming here, be careful and make sure you get a stroller that will fit where you need it to. The double strollers are huge, and the apartments are small. Worse, you need to be able to fit it in the T elevator. I measured the elevator at Harvard, and it is 54" long x 59" wide with a 35" doorway. There are a lot of double strollers that won't fit in that, which would make for some fun trips on the stairs. I think the Porter Square T-stop has like 400 steps, so trust me, stairs are bad. We haven't actually used it yet since we're still shy one kid, but I'm ready to kick the tires and light the fires. Yeeeeehaw. Sorry, ex-Navy - couldn't resist a gratuitous Top Gun quote.

2 - After all my ranting in my last post about where to live, we ended up getting an apartment not on the T. It's in Belmont, which means bike, bus, or commuter rail. It's a lot cheaper (~$1500), has a small yard for the dog, and is in a family friendly neighborhood. We're basically the lepers of the local renter market. Kelly spent a lot of time calling around, and because of our dog, cat, and kid(s), no one even returns phone calls. It's tough to find anyone who will look at you with kids because landlords are required to delead any house that they know has lead in it if anyone under 6 lives there. That's tens of thousands of dollars, so no one wants the hassle - they just ignore you instead. We finally found someone who is renting the first floor of their house and already has a dog and kids, so they understand our troubles. I think there was pity involved, but we'll take it; it'll be great for everyone.

We now bring you a rare bit of seriousness re: housing

2009-03-17T16:28:00.000-07:00

Ah, finding a place to live here is a joy. I'll sum it up - live near the T! We live 0.9 miles from the nearest T- stop and it is irritating. Driving is pretty much out unless you're going to the suburbs or the supermarket. You can drive, but traffic is horrible and there is nowhere to park. Technically, there are buses, but here's a useful tip: buses suck. There is generally a bus going exactly where I want to go, but I never take them because they are unpredictable. The MBTA actually has the nerve to publish a "schedule" for said buses, but I think they just use random numbers. When a bus is scheduled to come every 30 minutes and it is 15 minutes off, that is 100% wrong. Congrats MBTA, fine work; you can't get any farther off that that. If you can take one of the buses that runs every few minutes, it might work out (e.g. #1 bus down Mass Ave), but most don't. I actually end up walking a lot of places because I don't live near the T and walking is often the fastest way when you account for the unpredictability of the bus. At least with walking, I know exactly when I'll arrive and I'm not running the risk of leaving early and arriving late due to late buses. Since you, dear reader, are likely an engineer, I'll sum up the options in terms of transit time:

bus - low mean, high variance
T - low mean, medium variance
walking - high mean, low variance

Be prepared for sticker shock if you aren't from San Francisco or NYC. Our rent for a medium sized 2 bedroom apartment with parking and no yard in Cambridge is $2100/month. That's $600 more than our mortgage on a 4 bedroom house back home. Writing that check each month hurts. There is on-campus housing for families that is much cheaper (still over $1500 I think), but they don't take pets and it isn't as nice as a regular apartment. Some people choose to live farther out in the suburbs like Arlington, Medford, Waltham, Newton, etc which can be a lot cheaper ($<1200), but it's also a lot less convenient to class. There are apartments right next to MIT that are very convenient for students to run home during the day, but they are $2500+. We chose a compromise between distance and cost, but we'll be moving further out very soon to lower the murderous rent while I'm on internship.

Let's review. Live near the T. It's expensive here.

I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart.

2009-03-07T17:16:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should actually try to meet my mandate and talk about how this whole kids-at-LFM thing is working out. So far this semester has been going well with a happy wife and child. I'm taking 7 classes this half of the semester, but by picking classes with relatively low workloads and by consciously striking a balance between school and home, things have been remarkably smooth. I haven't gone in to school on a weekend, and I've been able to get most of my work done during the day (a lot during class actually...naughty me). Of course, I work my arse off when I'm at school, but that's part of the deal. If you treat your time there like a day job, it's easy to be efficient and to come home at a reasonable hour. The first half of the semester is over at the end of next week, and we get 2 weeks off before second half. Since Kel will be 9 months pregnant, we are actually going to stay put instead of our usual trip back to Rochester. Come second half of the semester, things will calm down until the deuce is born. I'll only have 4 classes, so it will seem like a vacation compared to this half. Of course, once zwei is born, I suspect the vacation will end...

The weather finally warming up will contribute to a happy home. Winter here is a challenge; while there are things to do with kids, it's a pain to get anywhere. Parking is outrageous (it's like $25 to park at the aquarium...and that's the discount rate for members), so we tend to walk or take the T. People do a pretty slipshod job clearing the snow and ice from the sidewalks, so the sidewalks become downright hostile to strollers. Fortunately, there are a lot of activities within close walking distance, many of which are just in my price range (=free). The local toy stores have sing-alongs, and some of the bookstores have story hour a few times a week. Anna loves all of them, and Kel has made a few adult friends that she sees at some of the events. Still, we're all looking forward to being able to go for a purposeless walk without getting all bundled up and trudging through slush and snow.

I think the admit letters go out this week...good luck to all who applied and I hope to see you next year. I was pondering what advice might be useful to admits...let's see what I can come up with.

Before coming here, make sure you have a small laptop (or netbook), the smaller the better. If it looks like a mid-90s cell phone or a Star Trek tricorder, that's perfect (yes, that was a nerd reference. If you're reading this, you're a nerd. It's cool, we do alright in the end). A few people here bought the sweet 17" laptops with all the bells and whistles, and now none of them bring them to school because they are too heavy. While you're at it, get an extra power adapter so you can have one at home and one at school.

Don't buy the books until you're sure you need it. I opened one a few times last fall, but that's only because the homework was assigned out of it (which is not normally the case). If you're one of those people who just have to buy the books, half.com is your friend. And don't be shy about emailing professors to see how much you really need the book and if you have to have the latest edition - I did that with my supply chain book this semester and paid $11 for the 2nd edition instead of $100+ for the 3rd. I still haven't used it.

The Günther Look-Alike Contest has begun!

2009-02-25T14:28:00.000-08:00

Last week, we (the class) found out where we're going for internships. I'll be at Novartis working on tech transfer. The internship is based in Cambridge with potentially extensive travel to Europe. The matching process has winner and losers, and I think I came out great; my family doesn't have to move and I get to work at a great company that does good for the world.

The next step in this process is communicating with companies and finding advisors. LFM theses require a Sloan advisor and an engineering advisor. This shouldn't be hard; my advisors would likely get a free trip to Italy/Germany/Switzerland out of the deal, so I'm hopeful.

New topic: I haven't shaved in 12 days. That's right bay-bee, it's Mustache March! From mid-Feb through mid-Mar, all the coolest LFM menfolk (and any interested womenfolk..I don't want to be discriminatory) grow and sport a sweet, sweet 'stache. In mid-March, we get judged on the magnificance of our mustaches.

Right now, mine is in the Unabomber phase where my whole face is unshaven and filthy looking. This weekend, I transition to the child molester phase when I shave down to a mustache. Oh and yeah, people with mustaches look like child molesters. Apologies to my readers with hairy upper lips, but it's true.

You have no chance to survive make your time

2009-02-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

A passel of LFMs and spouses are doing a sprint triathlon in May, and I am foolish enough to be among them. The busy schedule here has taken its toll on my belly, and it's time to fight back. The sprint triathlon has three events: a 1/4 mile open water swim, an 11.8 mile bike ride, and a 5k run. For you real athletes out there, yeah, this doesn't sound like much. For we non-athletes, this is pretty much like something Dick Cheney would use to extract information from us.

The bike and run shouldn't be a problem for me, but the swim...ugh, the swim. I basically swim like I'm continuously trying not to drown. I'm like those people you laugh at in the horrible Jaws sequels who flail about wildly to escape instead of moving towards the beach. The only way you can identify that I'm swimming at all is because my flailing generally propels me in the right direction. I'll a little bit worried that someone will try to rescue me when I do laps.

This is a lot easier to train for when you've signed up to do it with 20 other people. Publicly committing to train for it makes it that much more embarrassing to slack. We have a spreadsheet that tracks everyone week by week, so unless you lie, everyone will know you're being lazy. Fitness through humiliation; it's the American way.

There can be only one!

2009-01-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

We're in the midst of internship matching now. The interviews were this past week. Everyone is guaranteed an internship and they are all theoretically equal, but due to differences in project, location, company, or tangible benefits, some internships are more equal than others. A lot of us are competing against each other for some of the more desirable internships, so it's basically going to be a polite cage match. This year a lot of internships are international, which is desirable for a lot of people (but not those with a 7 month pregnant wife). The flip side is the economy is shrinking our internship pool, so there are barely enough internships for everyone. Well, with less fish in the pond, someone is more likely to end up with that weird bottom-feeder fish that oozes translucent slime and always looks like it has fish-plague.

LFM Internship matching is like med school matching where we rank the companies, they rank us, and an algorithm optimizes for maximum overall joy level. Unfortunately, maximum overall joy will generally cause some individual misery. I won't be among the miserable - violence is always an option. Sweep the leg!

Two weeks of plant trek in 300 words or less ("Lean blogging")

2009-01-19T16:59:00.000-08:00

Ah, plant trek, let's review you.

Visited Boeing in Seattle, Intel in Portland, Amazon in Reno, Harley Davidson and Ford in Kansas City, and Cisco/Flextronics and Dell in Austin. Some of them did better tours than others and some were definitely more enjoyable than others. However, since I'm grateful to all of them for hosting us and taking so much time with us, I won't name any names except to give a special thanks to Ford for staying very late on short notice to give us an unplanned tour of their assembly plant. I'm sure someone will blog about the important and pertinent parts of the trek, so I'll handle the irrelevant parts:

Seattle (Boeing)

Rainy

Portland (Intel)

They fed us like every 2 hours and the bars in Portland were great

Reno (Amazon)

I suck at blackjack. You know that movie "21" where the MIT students rock the casinos? Yeah, that's not me.

We drove through Carson City (capital of Nevada) on the way to Tahoe. One big long strip mall. Seriously, it sucks there.

Kansas City (Harley)

Cold

Kansas City (Ford)

Colder

Austin (Cisco/Flextronics)

Went on a Gluttony Trek to eat lunch at five of the best BBQ places in the area in one day. Ate through the pain - totally worth it.

Awesome mexican food at dinner, drank too much

I fell up the stairs at Flextronics. Up. Twice. In the same spot. With the same people watching. Smooooooth.

Austin (Dell)

Michael Dell stopped by to say hi. Not to me personally though. Shame.

Woo, done in 254 words. Crap, now it's 258. 261. Ok, enough. Hey, look at that; the blog software doesn't count numbers in word count. 276.

This blog has officially jumped the shark

2009-01-14T17:29:00.000-08:00

So I've been a slacking blogger lately while we are on plant trek. However, my esteemed blogmate Drew has been posting daily about our trials and tribulations; you're welcome to catch up on plant trek happenings by reading his almost-as-good blog while I continue my self-imposed exile.

http://lgo.mit.edu/blog/drewhill/

Incidentally, I just reread some old posts and realized that I never credited Drew's wife Lisa with being the undisputed champion of the word game I posted on Sept 10 with "unconstitutionally" for 264 points. My inadequate attempt was "superstitiously" for 248. Props to Lisa; I bow to your superior lexicon.

I got more rhymes than the Bible's got Psalms

2008-12-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

today we'll try something new
in what may be a first
an LFM blogging
in terribly bad verse

rhyme will carry the day
none of that prose stuff
it's definitely constraining
let's hope that it's enough

this week it snowed a lot
not good news for flying
bye-bye trip to NYC
Kel was almost crying

it takes a lot to stop planes here
even when it snows a ton
the plow to person ratio
is nearly one to one

well NYC was nixed, but
we still felt mighty antsy
so off we went to a ritzy spa
yep, turns out we're fancy

since then it's been a whirlwind
of families and food
and my crazy toddler running around
most often in the nude

one week left before our trek
to plants around the nation
I'm hoping for a good mix
of learning and vacation

ugh it's hard to rhyme
it really gets old fast
this post has jumped the shark
let's put it in the past

so, dear Gluttony and Sloth
don't bother to pack
because blogging time is over
and vacation time is back

Time for ice cream and a nap. I've earned it.

It's gonna be a red Christmas in Liberty City

2008-12-17T16:06:00.000-08:00

We went out with the married posse last weekend. Kel and I went with a few other LFMs and their wives to dinner and the Boston Pops Christmas concert without...wait for it....without kids! Babysitting here is highway robbery, but we toss all the kids into one apartment and split one sitter. Dinner and concert were scrumtrulescent. Nothing like singing Jingle Bells along with the Pops to get you in the Yuletide spirit. I'm home now for a few weeks before plant trek, and I'm celebrating the holiday by digging Grand Theft Auto III out of the vault. Nothing like splattering a few pedestrians to ring in the season of peace. Anyhow, happy Christmahanukwanzikkah.

Introducing the MIT class of 2031

2008-12-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

So the wife pointed out that I haven't mentioned an important detail of my life in my blog...

Shazam! Goblin #2 is on the way, gender unknown, due date in early April.

We are currently in name negotiations. What this process basically consists of is Kelly suggesting names, me scowling at them, and her glaring at me. Repeat nightly. The "gender unknown" part is a tough one for names - it means we have to argue twice as much to get names for each gender. Oh, and to those out there that haven't had to have this conversation yet? Don't suggest names from Star Wars or any that rhyme with naughty body parts (e.g. "Mulva" and "Dolores"). Turns out that those are only funny to one of us.

The impending spawning does pose some scheduling difficulties. I'm currently trying to pick classes for the spring, and it's going to be tough to choose as many classes as possible that are only taught in the first half of the semester (ending around March 13). Definitely limits my options, but I'll muddle through.

So, to all prospective LFMers (and their skeptical spouses) reading this blog, the moral of the story is that yes, you can grow your family while you are at MIT. I suspect it won't be easy, but we aren't willing to put life on hold just because we are here.

Quantum of Turkey

2008-11-27T16:26:00.000-08:00

The family and I are home for Thanksgiving. I was sick all this week and was dreading being sick on Thanksgiving. I am one of those sad souls who starves himself prior to Thanksgiving dinner to ensure that no gastrointestinal crevice is occupied before the main event. However, miracle of miracles, I am no longer sick just in time for T-day. I credit my mutant healing factor. After a meal that was worthy of my fasting, we continued longstanding tradition and went to the movies (James Bond....I give it 4 out of 5 scoops of stuffing).

Anyhow, happy Thanksgiving world.

Tonight's word is "truthiness"

2008-11-24T12:37:00.000-08:00

We had a guest lecture in System Dynamics the other day. There are lots of guest lectures here, but this one was different. The guest was Jay Forrester, the MIT professor who invented the field of System Dynamics. Oh yeah, he also invented the type of magnetic RAM that was the standard until integrated circuit RAM came of age. That's right, he founded system dynamics and invented RAM. Makes me feel a little bit small.

It was a pretty interesting lecture. He talked about the long economic cycles predicted by System Dynamics and some of the effects we're seeing now. I liked his perspective on the world - he sees things without a political lens and takes for granted what other people refuse to believe. For instance, he doesn't argue about whether Detroit is failing; he assumes it as a part of the economic long wave cycle and looks at the consequences. He may be wrong, but at least he is honest and apolitical about it and willing to change his opinion as new facts arise. The world needs more people who want to see what their data shows instead of making the data match what they want to see.

Oh yeah, and he used overhead transparancies. Old school.

Game, set, match

2008-11-15T14:12:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, a few of us went to an operations case competition at Carnegie Mellon. This was my first case competition; before coming here, I had never heard of such a thing. Since you, dear reader, may be as ill-informed as I was, I shall enlighten thee.

Basically, a case competition is where you get a certain amount of time to come up with a solution and recommendations for some real world business problem. This was a team competition, and my team consisted of four LFMs and one regular Sloanie (nicknamed "Token"). Each team made a Powerpoint deck and gave their spiel to judges that were generally knowledgeable business types from whomever was sponsoring the competition. In our case, the primary sponsor was Thermo Fisher Scientific, and the case was a problem about what to do about two overlapping product lines that they had due to acquisitions.

It was a busy two days. We flew to Pittsburgh Friday morning, went to Tepper (the CMU business school) in the afternoon, worked on the case from 7 to midnight, went back to the hotel and practiced our patter until 3 am, and went back to Tepper for the presentations at 7:30 am. The rest of Saturday was mainly spent waiting for our turn and enjoying the open bar at the restaurant the sponsors booked for the post-competition dinner.

Anyhow, we ended up winning the competition and splitting $8k. Nice day's work and the second year in a row for Sloan. While we didn't get to see the other 15 teams' presentations, methinks the judges appreciated that we didn't focus too much on the tedious analysis and concentrated on telling a good story at a more strategic level. They also seemed to like our polished presentation style - one judge quipped at the end of the post-presentation Q&A, "My only question is which one of you guys is going to be on the Apprentice."

A few lessons learned for future case competitions:

Have an ex-consultant on your team. Chris came from Bain, and he creates Powerpoint slides faster than most people can type. Seriously, it's crazy to watch.

Be bold. It has to be boring watching all these essentially identical presentations, so we tried to spice things up a bit by having Mike deliver his part in a Speedo. No, not really, but that would have worked.

Don't get caught up in the analysis. In the end, all your detailed analysis goes to fill in a few numbers on one or two slides, and no one is going to check them anyhow.

Mingle. If they have a pre-case mixer, drink a beer. Quaff some liquid courage and go make small talk with the competition. Most teams are going to go home empty-handed, so you may as well have a good time and meet some interesting people.

That's all I'm giving you. There were lots more lessons learned, but they're pretty boring. Besides, in case I face you in a future competition, I can't give away the farm.

Pic below is our team triumphant. Left to right are Mike Irwin, Chris Lin, Dave Follette, moi, and Chad Sailer. Handsome devils one and all.

up up down down left right left right b a select start

2008-11-05T18:10:00.000-08:00

So we're doing resume reviews the past few weeks, and the CDO (Career Development Office) recommends having an interesting bullet in your "Other Activities" section as a talking point for the interviewer. Solid advice that I definitely used on my resume, since you want to make yourself memorable to the poor recruiter who is interviewing 20 nearly identical people that day. However, it got me to thinking...what would be some awesome resume activities to put on a resume to get the recruiter excited. Here's my short list compiled during a particularly exciting economics class. I don't have the chutzpah to put any of them in my resume, but perhaps some brave soul can help....

Still remember the code to get 30 lives in Contra (hint: read the title of this post)

Received 2001 Grammy Award for a soulful remake of Salt n Peppa's "Shoop"

Discovered a new primary color named "greeple"

Endowed with Spidey sense

MILF

I guarantee that putting any of these on your resume will elicit recruiter excitement in one form or another.

Royal Rumble

2008-11-02T06:30:00.000-08:00

It's getting closer to the time when we have to start thinking about internships. Their are two sets of internships: off-cycle and on-cycle. They are all the same 6 month length, but the off-cycle internships start in January while the regular internships start in June. The off-cycle internship interview process is in November, so the ball is definitely rolling. So far we LFM's have all been very friendly and nice to each other, but the Battle of the Internships is going to start and we will soon officially be competing for our preferred internships. I like you guys and all, but it's on like Donkey Kong.

Not That Guy from the Thong Song

2008-10-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

I saw John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, speak here recently during a talk to the general MIT population on innovation. One cool thing about being at Sloan is that you benefit from all of the happenings on the MIT side of the house. MIT draws in a lot of speakers/VIPs who might not stop by if it were just a business school but are happy to chat up the MIT community as a whole.

John is known for being a great public speaker, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. One of my goals while I'm here is to improve on my own feeble public speaking, so I went to see John through that lens. The fuss was well-justified - the guy is fantastic. He is funny, engaging, self-deprecating and makes freakishly good eye contact that leaves you feeling like he is talking to you. He manages to seem like he's speaking off-the-cuff while perfectly choreographing his 45 minute talk with a powerpoint presentation without any notes. He also somehow managed to stay synchronized with his slides without ever looking at them on the projection behind him. I was impressed.

I was less impressed with the cell phones in the audience. The first time a cell phone goes off, I understand; we all forget sometimes and the first phone is the sacrificial lamb to remind everyone else to turn theirs off. The second, third, etc times that a cell phone goes off after that, the owner should be tasered. Don't pass go, don't collect $200, just tasered.

After his talk, John invited people to come down for Q&A with him directly. I took him up on his offer and asked him what he did to become such a good speaker. I was hoping he'd name some kind of secret pill or prescription creme I could rub on before a speech. Ugh.....his answer was 'practice'. Yeah, not what I was looking for. Anyone out there have a method to better public speaking that I can buy? Preferably one I can download so I don't have to go to the store?

Catching the unicorn

2008-10-22T05:31:00.000-07:00

So I've apparently been remiss on keeping up the blog. Fall is busy here, and it's easy to get caught up in the rushrush mentality. Fortunately, this week is a bit more relaxed. We're in the middle of Sloan Innovation Period (SIP), a week in which there are no regular Sloan classes. Instead, Sloanies have to take a few seminars on topics that they might not otherwise be exposed to. Thankfully, LFM's are exempt from that requirement so we just scatter to the four winds for a week. We still have engineering classes, but I suspect LFM attendance at those is light...

I went home with the family for SIP. It's nice to escape the constant drumbeat of homework and spend some time with the gremlin. I marked this week by officially becoming old. No, I didn't have a birthday or anything (that was last month...I'm 20hex!)...instead, my rite of passage was losing to my daughter in a video game. We were playing Wii Slalom Skiing (on the Wii Fit), and she beat my score by the clever tactic of just standing there on the Fit watching the pretty lights on the TV. To review, I, who used to be a wiz at video games, just legitimately lost to my 1 year old. I then grounded her for a year. Showoff.

I also took the goblin to Chuck E Cheese. Jarring. Unnatural. I don't want to talk about it.

The Pepsi Challenge

2008-09-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

So there's free food everywhere here. Everywhere. Omnipresent. Ubiquitous. You trip over it on the way out of class and have to pick between free lunches most days. Clubs or organizations that want you to come to their shindig always have food, and they generally advertise "non-pizza lunch". That way, those of us that are vapid enough to base which organizations we join on their culinary offerings can snub those foolish enough to put out a dozen boxes of pepperoni pie. Dinner is scarcer, but still available if you're willing to listen to someone talk for two hours. Apparently the gluttonous feast is just getting warmed up as all of the companies are starting to come and do their presentations for recruiting. Fine by me. Bring it on.

I'm curious to see if you could survive solely on free food. Weekends would be tough, but you could stuff yourself like a grizzly bear during the week and hibernate on the weekend. Thus my challenge to you, dear reader - if you come here next year, see if you can spend the entire fall eating for free. You'd weigh 300+ by December, but hey, small price to pay for science.

Adventure? Excitement? A Jedi craves not these things.

2008-09-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

In our continuing quest to keep Anna entertained, we went to the Boston Children's Museum yesterday. There are a lot of kid-friendly things to do in Boston, and as the weather gets cooler, I'm sure we'll end up checking out all of them. It's funny how your goals change with kids. Pre-Anna, we always tried to see/do everything anywhere we went. Now, we consider it a successful outing if Anna gets tired, even if we only go in two rooms in the whole place.

The museum is great - it's like a big learning playground where Anna can tornado around while Kel and I relax a bit. The other kid destination we love is the New England Aquarium. We have a membership, which I highly recommend if you have kids because the payback is short and it is a fun place for them to kill a rainy day. Anna likes pretty much everything there, but she holds a special place for her pal below....

Drinking the MIT Koolaid

2008-09-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Uhoh, I'm feeling the urge to post something at least marginally informative. I know, I know, it will pass soon. But while it's here...

I went to the kickoff meeting for the MIT Energy Club this week. There are a lot of clubs at MIT, and since it's MIT, many of them are nerdcool. Ahh, MIT. Where else do you get hundreds of people (there are 800 in the club) from all over the map (grad students, undergrads, sloanies) to come and talk/learn about energy technology and policy. They get speakers from all over the place to give talks about pretty much every topic in energy and have social functions for networking with corporate energy types and other interested students. Whether it's fair or not, the MIT brand buys a lot of facetime with pretty interesting folks. That's worth noting in general for MIT - people you wouldn't otherwise ever get to see/meet/hobnob with suddenly show up and want to (or at least pretend to want to) talk to you.

This morning, Sloan had the first of many career presentations. A rep from each of 10 or so industries came and talked to whomever signed up to listen to them talk about I-banking, consulting, energy, retail, high-tech, pharma, entrepreneurship, etc. I went to investment management, consulting, and energy because I know nothing about the first two and I'm definitely interested in the third. The presentations were decent, but what the event really highlighted for me was the extreme willingness of the Sloan Career Development Office to do whatever it takes to get us jobs. Fancy jobs. They are very involved and have a lot of contacts everywhere. It isn't altruism - the brand equity of the school depends on us going out and Doing Things. Just as handy, all of the top tier companies in every industry are already swarming MIT & Sloan, setting up meet-and-greets, mock interviews, dinners, etc. It's like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book with only happy endings. If you were wondering about whether you should go to an expensive, high name recognition b-school or a cheaper, second tier one, my short time here has convinced me that the brand equity is absolutely worth the price.

Ok, it's out of my system now. Back to stream-of-consciousness meandering.

spiraling into deeper irrelevance...

2008-09-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

There's a bar in Beacon Hill called BHP (Beacon Hill Pub) that is the unofficial Sloan hangout on Wednesday nights. I normally don't go, but this week I received special dispensation from the boss and went for a brew. It was nice to be sociable and I had fun chit-chatting with the non-LFM Sloan crew, but I made the mistake of trying the swill known as Brubaker. For the uninitiated, Brubaker is the cheapest beer you can buy around here with the unreasonably low price of $3 for a 16 oz bottle (yes, 16 oz not 12 oz) vs $5 for a draft of anything else. What's wrong with that, you ask? We'll, let's review...

Pro:

low $/volume ratio, an advantage when the income of the average Sloanie is around $-75k/yr.

pH balanced for a woman

Con:

Bottle has glue on it from a previous label. Dead serious. I think they just rinse them in the sink and refill them. I'm all for sustainability and all, but damn, that's nasty.

Taste is not good. Preternaturally bad. 11th Commandment bad - Thou Shalt Not Drink Brubaker. Imagine drinking a warm Schlitz out of the old sneakers your dog gets to chew on. It's that bad. I think they use flavor crystals, but not the good kind. These are the kind that made the cauldron bubble in Macbeth. The kind that the scary girl in The Ring would eat before she ate your soul. Not recommended. Lesson learned.

Eternal sunshine of the demented mind

2008-09-10T14:03:00.000-07:00

So I was sitting in class and zoned out a bit (it happens). I harked back to a word game I remember playing in 5th grade, and I challenge you to defeat me grasshoppa. Here is the game:

Find the english word worth the most points.

The points are found by adding the alphabetic places of each letter in the word. That is, A=1, B=2, C=3....Z=26. My name "Paul" is worth 16+1+21+12 = 50. "Irregardless" is worth 135.

Rules:

Only normal english words allowed. No using that 40+ letter word for lung disease that you saw once in elementary school.

No dictionaries, just your head. Think of it as a mini-GMAT without the fingerprinting and $250.

Time limit = length of a standard Sloan class - time spent paying attention - time spent trying to look knowledgeable so you don't get coldcalled = 30 minutes.

My word was worth 248. I'll post it another time. Limitless power and glory will rain upon your family for three generations if you beat me. Ready set go.

Dogs and cats, living together...mass hysteria

2008-09-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

Since I said that my intended audience is prospective LFMs with kids, I'll periodically go over a few useful lessons Kelly and I have learned here regarding family-friendliness. Today's first lesson is brought to you by our teeth-jarring walk back from MIT tonight along the treacherous Cambridge sidewalks.

Lesson 1 - The Stroller

We bought a new stroller before coming here, and we thought we'd be clever and buy a tiny little foldup that we could collapse on the T to seem like jaded, native commuters. Turns out that those suck here. Thanks to frost heave and poor maintenance, the sidewalks here are horrible and the little wheels on our stroller catch every single crack. Besides, no one collapses strollers on the T; the preferred method of getting on a busy T with a stroller seems to be via a technique I'll call the Battering Ram Gambit. The BRG is a two step process.

Step 1 - When the door opens, nonchalantly move towards the door while pretending that no one else is trying to do the same

Step 2 - If anyone impedes your progress, bash them with the stroller. It will hurt them more than it will hurt the stroller, so they'll move. Apologize, look flustered, and pretend to play with your child.

Instead of buying an umbrella stroller or some similar piece of uselessness, learn from our mistake and buy a huge stroller with giant cartoonish tires. Not just rubber tires, but the inflatable kind that you could interchange with your mountain bike. The kind you normally need to buy at a Land Rover dealership. We'll end up biting the bullet come winter, since Kelly doesn't relish the thought of our current stroller in the slush and snow. You'll be able to identify us - we'll be the only ones with an el-cheapo Walmart stroller instead of the Cambridge standard issue Peg Perago, Bugaboo, or MacLaren strollers.

Lesson 2 - Pets and Housing

Finding an apartment that takes pets of any kind is a pain. Finding an apartment that takes a decent sized dog like a golden retriever is more of a pain. Cambridge hates dogs. I think it's in their charter. Where we are from, people see a golden retriever and they want to pet it. Here, they glare at it and move out of the way. People, it's a golden retriever, not a starved wolf. Unless you are a tennis ball or an empty ice cream container, you don't have much to worry about. Seriously.

Anyhow, dogs are tough in Cambridge. Apartments really don't have yards, so you have to take the dog somewhere to burn off energy. There are very few places where dogs are allowed off-leash, and they aren't exactly lush open spaces. We usually let our dog off-leash in the grounds to a nearby academy, but we have to be prepared for the inevitable scowls from the Cantabrigians.

If you are like us and want to bring a dog, you will likely pay a lot for an apartment, especially if you have kids young enough to worry about lead paint. Our apartment broker referred to our situation as the Deadly D's, for Deleaded and Dogs. With these constraints, we would have been better off looking farther out (Arlington, Medford, northern Cambridge or Somerville), but we didn't know that at the time. Be prepared for sticker shock.

And in case anyone was wondering, the post title is from Ghostbusters. Cinematic masterpiece nonpareil.

Things that make you go hmmm

2008-09-05T15:13:00.000-07:00

It dawns on me that most people who find themselves here are probably potential applicants to LFM, so it seems appropriate to share my application saga.

My application process was not a model for how you should do it. As i mentioned in a previous post, the hard part was deciding with my wife that I should apply at all. I had taken three classes unmatriculated and part-time towards an MBA from the University of Rochester (Simon), but you can only take four before you have to officially apply and matriculate. I took the GMAT with the intent to continue at Simon, did well, and starting thinking...hmm....what else is out there? Unfortunately, this all happened in mid-October, so by the time I decided to apply to LFM, mid-November had crept up on me. The app is due mid-December. Uhoh...

Get the recommendations first. I repeat, get the recommendations first. If your recommenders are anything like mine, you'll be stalking them to get the recommendations turned in by the deadline. The hardest part of the application itself was trimming the essays down to the appropriate lengths. It's easy to write verbose essays with too much detail - it's more challenging to write them concisely. I spent a few nights writing them and then the rest of the month wordsmithing, but I still went a few words over the word limit (like 10 max).

The email inviting me to an interview came in early January. The interview itself wasn't terribly stressful. I had gone on the forums at clearadmit.com and accepted.com to see what kind of questions Sloan asked, and I had answers or topics ready for most of them. At least as importantly, I had just had training on how to conduct STAR interviews when hiring people at GM, so I was familiar with the format. My essays were all written with a STAR template, so my stories were even lined up in the right format. The advice I wish someone had told me? Bring cough drops and water. I repeat, bring cough drops and water. After talking for almost 45 min straight, my voice went out and i had to leave the interview for a minute to get a drink. Definitely screwed up the flow.

There, now you don't have to use an expensive image consultant to get into Sloan. You owe me $400.

Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of Sloan

2008-09-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

Class is officially in session. Scheduling and coordinating is harder than it was in the summer, since LFMs aren't in the exact same classes as either the Sloanies or engineering students. Just like this summer, everyone is in a group, and all of the regular Sloanies within each group are in the exact same classes (but can choose either finance or marketing). That's basically how LFM was this summer, but now we have to balance these groups with our electives and engineering classes. Not a big deal, just harder.

On the plus side, class starts later now, so I've been able to hang out a bit longer in the morning with the family. Anna starts squawking at 7-7.30, so I get to see her awake and in full, well-rested, crazy mode before going to class.

We did up our schedules this week. LFM is great, but it's pretty limiting on what you can take because you have to meet both sets of requirements in only 4 semesters at MIT. There are a lot of cool MIT and Sloan classes I'd love to try but don't have room for. The engineering requirements are particularly tough, because you realistically get one elective class total in the ESD program. I shouldn't complain - it's not worth paying the extra $73k out of pocket for non-LFMers to be able to take a wider variety of classes. Of course, knowing that I shouldn't complain doesn't mean that I won't.

They're heeeeere....

2008-09-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well, Sloan Orientation week is over and it turned out pretty well. Let's review, recalling that Kelly and Anna stayed home so she could relax at home and I could be social for a week.

Monday
Started with a lot of hootin' and hollerin' trying to get everyone all psyched up about being at Sloan. The incoming class of just under 400 (including LFM) was split into six oceans, each of which went to a separate room for their first few hours at Sloan. This intro meet-and-greet turned out to be a big, granfalloon pep rally for each ocean where we got our snazzy ocean T-shirt and had to learn a cheer. Much hootin' and hollerin'. Picture a Southern Baptist Revival with more Asians.

During the circus I met my new core group. There are seven of us that are in most of the same classes together and can work on homework together. They seem great, so we'll see how that goes. We are only required to do a single project together, and I'm the only one bound by the kid constraint, so it remains to be seen how group-involved I will be able to be. While I'm not rah-rah on team building and mandatory fun, it is nice to have the chance (i.e. be forced) to get to know a few more people in detail.

Not a lot of people in Sloan seem to have kids. It seems to be a much more career superstar, hard-charging group than LFM, but it's too early to tell if that will cause conflicts. I definitely appreciate the LFM clan to come back to at the end of the day. Going out with the spouses and kids is a great way to settle back in to normalcy, at least for a few hours.

That night was a clambake at MIT. Unlimited oysters and lobster. Of course, I don't like shellfish, so booo. However, it was also unlimited Sam Adams. Boo rescinded. Good chance to network. I talked to a hedge fund guy for a half an hour - I was completely lost but enjoying it.

LFMs seem a bit jaded. We've been here a summer and all did the team building stuff once before, so we're ready to just get going.

Tuesday
More stuff we've done in LFM orientation. Ah well, the food is still free and everpresent.

Wednesday
Today was ropes course day. It was about 45 minutes away at some camp owned by Northeastern Univ. It was like Outward Bound but with much better food and all the ice cream bars you can eat. I mean Oreo Ice Cream Sandwich, Twix, Snickers, ChocoTaco...the whole megillah. I'm shallow enough to base my view of an experience on the free food. It worked, I loved it.

Sloan has a very high international representation. I love this - LFM is great, but you don't get the broad perspective that you get with a more diverse mix of people. It makes it harder to connect, since we don't have the common ground of engineering, but if I wanted easy, I wouldn't be here.

Thursday
Had a few morning group things, then the Beer Game. I won't explain the game, but it is an introduction to the field of system dynamics in which anyone can understand the rules of the game but no one expects the crazy outcomes. General Motors sponsors it as a chance to keep their name in the hearts and minds of all these motivated people. As one of only two GMers in the class, I had to introduce it. Well, I didn't have to, but I didn't have any good reason to say no. It forced me to speak in front of 400 people, which is not my strength. I was given a few bullet points to use as a template, but I basically said thanks from GM, talked about how GM uses system dynamics, and made a feeble self-deprecating joke so that I didn't come across as a complete tool for the corporate masters. Feedback from random people afterward was generally positive, though if anyone who told me I did well is reading this and you were lying, leave me to my blissful ignorance.

The Beer Game was followed by a poorly named reception. See, I hear "reception" and I think "dinner", especially when said reception is between 5:30 - 7:30. Apparently MIT doesn't eat dinner during those hours because it was cheese and crackers. I'm talking cheese bonanza - like 8 kinds of fancy cheeses., but still....

...and the gold medal for Men's All-Around Blogging goes to...drumroll..me!

2008-08-24T16:15:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in the air on the way back to Boston for Sloan orientation. Vacation was great - plenty of downtime interspersed with vacationish (?) activities. Kelly and I went to a Rochester Red Wings AAA baseball game for $6/ticket. I don't think you can get a Coke for that at a Sox game. Took a nice pic with the cell phone camera....how did we live without digital cameras?

This flight is making me miss the Olympics. I love the Olympics - all these sports we never get to see suddenly get prime time. Who knew synchronized diving was a sport? Turns out it's a bizarro event that isn't really any fun to watch, but hey, had to learn that somehow. Kelly and I have resolved to go to the 2012 Games in London. Hopefully the pound sterling isn't at like $4 by then.

As I said, I'm coming back to Boston for orientation. LFM has its own orientation in early June, but we are required to attend regular Sloan orientation so we can bond with the regular Sloanies. Kelly and Anna stayed home in Rochester for this week. Sloan has a nice set of activities for significant others to get to know each other during orientation, but this way it'll give them a break and it will give me a chance to play nice with the Sloanies by going out to dinner, drinks, etc. With a family, I haven't done much evening socializing. That hasn't been a problem and it's been necessary to keep an intact home life, but it will be nice to be social with the new crowd for a few days before reverting to being a hermit.

...how I became the prince of a town called Rochest-air

2008-08-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

This week is vacation. Class ended Friday with a family picnic, after which Kelly and I packed up and headed home to Rochester. After a busy semester, it's nice to have a bit of downtime (averaging >1 nap/day, been to the beach twice). It feels weird to not be spending so much quality time with the laptop (I spend enough time with my trusty Dell M1330 that Kelly refers to her as Della the Digislut). The first day back, we had a block party on our old street It's an annual event, but this year I pretended in my head that it was a celebration of my triumphant return. I won the inaugural Daddy Tricycle Race. Admittedly, I was the only one who didn't fall over or have their tricycle break under them, but I'll take any victory. I'm second from the right in the picture. It started getting dangerous about three seconds after this shot.

The last few days of classes were fairly slow, but a definite highlight were the plant treks. In LFM, you're encouraged (nay, required) to go to visit some local partner companies. The companies go over what they do there and give us a tour of their facilities. Coming from the auto industry, I was looking forward to the opportunity to see other industries, so I went on the treks to Raytheon (defense), Novartis (pharma), and Axcelis (semicon capital equipment). They all put on a good show and tell, and all three seemed to value the LFM program. I was very impressed with Axcelis; they had their CEO and a bunch of VPs come in and let us pepper them with questions. Their honest and experienced answers were fantastic, and I felt like I got more out of an hour of back-and-forth with them than I get out of days of class. It's easy to sit in class and critique how companies do/did run things in a case study, but hearing the challenges and complexities from the people walking the walk adds a lot of depth. Many thanks to Axcelis for the opportunity. Also for the cookies.

Incidentally, if you're searching for deep meaning in my post titles, please let me know what you find. Maybe you'll surprise us both.

Irregardless, comporkagurk is not a word...

2008-08-13T13:59:00.000-07:00

Today, we had our final presentation in what I think was the most interesting class of the summer. The class was "System Optimization and Modeling" (or something like that), and it delved into different types of optimization and models/simulations for quantitative business problems. Great class. This presentation marked the last major assignment for the summer. We still have two days of class left, but since all tests, presentations, and projects are done, I think most of us have pretty much punched out for the semester.

This class was one of the summer classes that all LFMs take. Before the regular Sloanies get here in the fall, the LFMs comprise most of the people on the Sloan end of campus. We all take the exact same 5 classes in the summer, which gave us a great chance to get to know each other. The classes in the summer are Operations Management, Lean/Six Sigma, Leadership, Probability & Statistics, and the aforementioned System Optimization. The classes are fairly specific to the LFM program and not typical b-school fare (e.g. accounting, finance).

Anyhow, the reason I bring up the presentation is that it reminded me that I should talk about groups. For those of you who don't know much about b-school, everything is groupwork. Even the assignments that aren't groupwork are groupwork (I realize that doesn't make much sense, but it's true). You end up spending a *lot* of time with your group, so it's important that you get along. There are no guarantees that each group will mesh well, but my summer group was awesome. Unfortunately, the groups we have in the summer are not the same groups we have in the fall. We're all a bit sad to be breaking up to be placed in new groups when the regular Sloanies come next week, but better to have grouped and lost then never to have grouped at all....

Cheers to Team #7 (we never could come up with a more clever name). To protect their secret identities, I'll disguise their names, but thank you PJ, CashMoney, Rice Paddy Island, Mango, and Junior for making this a fantastic summer.

Patience, Reader-San

2008-08-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome! I haven't had to write anything for everyday consumption in a while, so I hope what I write here is of value to you (or is at least marginally coherent). I haven't yet figured out how to text message or IM, much less post anything on the internets, so this blog thing is a whole new world of confusion for me. Please bear with me during the learning process.

Anyhow, I assume you've made it to my humble blog for one of a few reasons, which I rank in decreasing order of likelihood as:

1 - You're considering applying to LFM (Leaders for Manufacturing) at MIT and are googling anything related to LFM. I think everyone in LFM did that, so welcome. I hope I can help answer your questions.

2 - You're in my LFM class and are reading with morbid curiosity to see if I write anything bizarre. Wish granted.

3 - You're googling me, in which case I hope I know you. If I do, hello! Email me! If I don't, are you stalking me? Don't email me!

3.1416 - Sorry, this is MIT. I had to throw pi in here somewhere.

4 - You're surfing drunk again and won't remember this in the morning.

If you're considering applying to LFM, welcome and please read all of our blogs to get a good all-around feel for the program. I'm hoping to tailor this to a specific demographic of potential applicants: parents of small children. Of course, I fill a few other demographics that might interest the reader (e.g. college dropouts, ex-enlisted military, mechanical engineers, people who like cheese), but my focus will be on balancing school with family.

I'll start with a bit of background on me. I'm originally from Webster, NY. After a few aborted attempts at college in which I conclusively proved that brains != maturity, I enlisted in the Navy as a nuke. Six looong years later, I got out, married my wife, got a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Rochester, worked in fuel cell R&D at General Motors for 4 years, had a daughter, and here I am. At MIT, I'm getting an MBA and a MS (called an SM here...nevermind) in Engineering Systems. Wow, that was condensed.

On to my target demographics....

First, a quick note to ex-enlisted military. There are a lot of military in my year at LFM. We have 4 ex-nuke officers, 1 coastie, 2 army, me, and probably someone else that I'm forgetting. I am the only ex-enlisted, but to any enlisted who may be considering LFM, I promise you that you don't have to be an officer to be admitted.

We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog. When I was considering LFM, my biggest concern wasn't getting admitted, but what would happen if I came here? I am married with a kid, so my priorities and challenges are different than a normal MBA student. I remember not having an easy time getting information on what life was like here for people with children. Getting two degrees in two years sounded fairly time-consuming, and my priorities have to be a daddy and husband first, student second. There wasn't much discussion during the application process on how to balance those necessarily competing demands. My wife and I discussed this program at length. We've both taken on risks in our lives, but we had settled into our lives very well. So well, in fact, that I felt that I was stagnating and needed to grow. That's where LFM came in. I was terrified that I would look back on my career and life 30 years frow now and cry over the chances that I didn't take; the road less traveled that I didn't go down. However, I was equally scared of not being able to work out a balance that would be ok to me, my family, and MIT. I've been here for a few months now and so far that balance has worked out fairly well. I treat school like a day job and (usually) stay from 8 am until 5 or 6 pm going to class and working with my group on homework. I generally have a lot of work to do in the evening, but I'm home doing it, which is a lot more palatable. Working a lot during the week has also allowed me to have my weekends pretty much completely free. We'll see how this balance is restruck in the fall, but I am optimistic. Admittedly, I have to figure out how to make it happen or my wife will kill me. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for nerds...

The SO's (Significant Others....Sloan has to have a term for everything) have a very good network. There are about 10 married people in the class and 4 or 5 that have kids. The SO's immediately found each other and started having playgroups, going places, planning dinners, etc. If you're considering coming here but are worried that you'll be the only married person or the only one with kids, you won't be. Every parent in the program thought they would be the only one, and here we are, going to aquariums, playgrounds, etc with other parents. It's almost like we're normal. Almost.

Anyhow, feel free to comment. I don't actually know how to read them yet, but hey, we'll figure this out together...