Back after spring break!

Spring break is over.. :(
Its been just a day since we started school again, and guess what? Life's going an full speed again!!
I've just confirmed the job shadow I will be doing next week. For two days, I will job shadow the CEO of a start-up medical devices firm in Minneapolis. A 'serial' entrepreneur, he has successfully founded five companies (at the last count!) including one of the biggest medical devices firm in the country. I'm really excited to see an accomplished entrepreneur at work! (websites describe him as a 'legend of the industry'!).
I can't wait for next Monday!! :)

The presentation in Kansas

This post has been 1 week in the making!

I started it in my hotel room in Kansas, the night before our presentation to the product team and the underwriters at Zurich NA (Recap - we are consulting for Zurich on product management)
The net connection at the hotel was terribly slow, which was surprising and tremendously frustrating (especially since it was one of those 'premier' ones). I wanted to write a post on that whole fiasco, but I guess I'll save it for another day.

Anyways... the next morning we headed out to the Zurich office all raring to go. And the whole affair was indeed quite a success! I just love it when we cause those 'aha' moments - when the folks listening to us go "aha.. dats so cul!". Well.. thats not exactly the expression used by the underwriters, but I guess you get the point. :)
The presentation was on the feasibility of a certain product launch, and it was very interesting to do all that research and analysis on a product we knew nothing about to start with, but became experts on in a very brief window of time.

And I just got to know yesterday that they will be going ahead with the product launch, based on our recommendations. Aha!!

My consulting gig..

This semester is proving to be way more hectic.. I guess that was to be expected, with my consulting class and Mandarin class over the normal course load.

The consulting class is proving to be a great experience. Our team is consulting for Zurich NA on product management. The way it works is that 4 of us will be consultants to Zurich for an entire semester. The work is what you'd expect from a regular consulting job - the same deadlines, client buy-in, task measurement etc. etc....
Our consulting project is split into three phases, mini-projects if you will. We have the final presentation for our first phase this Friday in Kansas. And most of my time this week will be taken up preparing for this presentation. We're almost done, but there's always seems to be some tweaking left!

We'll be flying out to Kansas on Thursday and should be back Friday night. And the Monday following starts mid-term week... and I've got a couple of internship interviews in-between.. which means that next couple of weeks will be a mad rush..
Time to buckle up for the ride!

Sleepless in Colorado

We reached Colorado on Friday morning for the Net Impact case competition at the Leeds School of Buisness. The case revolved around a business strategy for Sun Microsystems and executives from Sun walked us through the whole "problem" at the reception on Friday evening. It turned out to be quite an interesting couple of days.

The case was given to us by Friday evening and we had to submit our final presentation deck by 8am on Saturday morning. We stayed in a "zero waste hotel", which was so appropriate for a competition on sustainability. The flip side was that our hotel was not quite equipped to handle all these folks trying to log in to their Wi-Fi.. so we were left driving around to find a coffee shop that was not already 'claimed' by another team. Anyways.. lots of coffee later, we had what we believed was a winning presentation; so it was a little disappointing not to win the next morning. :(
But it was effort well spent. A great learning experience, a nice chance to network and a perfect time to visit Colorado!

'Drop Jaw' moment of the trip - folks climbing/rappelling over frozen waterfalls. Amazing!! That one goes on my 'to-do' list for sure. It'll probably be a loong time before I'm able to attempt that one, though..

Tip - if you ever visit Boulder, drive out to the "Oh My God" road. Abandoned mines, dirt roads et al... Definitely worth it.

Life on Skis

Last weekend was skiing time!
Considering that I've never skied before, I was quite pumped up for the whole trip. A couple of hours from Iowa City gets you to the ski slopes. Its not the Alps, of course, but its a great time to spend a weekend (and pretty inexpensive too!)
After falling/rolling/skidding as much as I skied, I think I've got the hang of it now. I'll have to admit - the thrill of the slopes is quite an addictive high.

I'll be going to Colorado this week for a case competition. I'm hoping I get time to go skiing in the Rockies. That should be fun!

Ice storms & Mandarin classes....

I'm taking Mandarin Chinese classes this semester and.. its tough!!
I don't know if I'll ever be able to read Chinese, but I'm hoping that by the time I'm done with B-school I'll at least be able to speak basic Chinese.

And as if the class wasn't tough enough, the weather seems intent on making things a little more difficult. We've had some bad weather last week.. but I hear that the worst is over. I like a little bit of snow (emphasis on little bit) but this may be pushing things too far! And the only place I like ice is in my drinks. Period.

Alumni reception in Minneapolis

2008 is proving to be the 'year of travel' for me... and pretty hectic travel at that!
And I have a lot more travel lined up - the consulting course I'm taking this semester, the case competition, the job shadow and of course the networking trips... Well, it seems like I'll have a lot to blog about!!

We had an alumni reception event in Minneapolis a few days back. It was just fabulous!
Over and above the fact that it was a great networking event, it was overwhelming to see how passionate alumni are to help current students.
And I think thats the best part of being a Tippie MBA. You can feel the strong sense of community the day you walk in; and it seems to stays with you for the rest of your life.
Well.. once a Hawkeye, always a Hawkeye!!

We also managed to squeeze in a a few company visits while we were up there. Considering that internship season is in full swing, it was a good opportunity to check out companies we'd like to work for in the summer.
Talking about internships, its probably time for me to get a little more focussed!