Summer chronicles

Hi folks.. I'm back!

Apologies for my prolonged period of absence from the blogosphere. For the record - it was indeed my intention to have at least a couple of posts on my summer experience before now. :)

But here we are, and to pick up from my last post - I decided to take the internship in Washington DC, implying that I would start working 3 days after finals week.

After 2 days of farewell parties for the graduating MBA Class of '08, I landed in DC on a Sunday afternoon in what we shall charitably call "an exhausted state". And so began what has been, in hindsight, a fabulous summer.

As I'd mentioned earlier, I'm interning at a consulting firm that specializes in international business. Two swaying factors in my decision to take this internship - first, the work I would be doing seemed really great.

One project involved creating an internationalization strategy for an Italian IT firm; and the second involved working with a European Clinical Engineering firm that is trying to enter the Indian market through an acquisition.

The second factor was that I would be located in Milan, Italy for half the internship. Now, in addition to the fact that I'd never been to Milan before, this was enticing for better (?!) reasons too - I would working from the client location for a while and this meant more exposure and responsibilities and by implication, more challenges.

I would be getting excellent exposure to strategy consulting and would be able to work at a much higher level than regular summer internship jobs. And I would be in DC/Milan.
In the end, it was not too difficult a decision to make.
:)

Summer in DC !

I've (finally) decided on what I'll be doing in summer. And guess what? I took neither of the jobs I talked about in my previous post. I will be working with an international business consulting firm in Washington, DC.

They are quite a niche firm doing great work. Their main focus is on helping firms expand to emerging markets - Latin America, India, China, Africa etc. I will be working on two projects during the summer - both with clients based out of Europe. I have a good feel for the kind of work I will be doing and am I excited! :)

The flip side - I will need to start as soon as finals week is done (Thats two weeks from now). Which means no real break after the semester. I could have used a week off, but I guess I'll have to wait till summer's over. And then there is all the logistics associated with moving to DC for the summer. But I'm not complaining!

I've got a pretty packed schedule for the next couple of weeks.. the final presentation for our consulting class is due this Friday (we'll be presenting at the Zurich office in Chicago) .. got a couple of cases due this week.. next week is finals.. then I start my internship the Monday after that. But I guess its only a fitting end to what has been a hectic semester!

Decision time...

Not all decisions can be postponed indefinitely...
I now have two internship offers and both are great opportunities. One is with a strategy group of a multi-national media company - they have just acquired a competitor and if I were to join them I would work on the strategic integration of the two firms. Pretty cool stuff. And it is located in Iowa City. Considering that I have a lot of travel lined up in fall, I wouldn't mind spending the summer here.

The other offer is equally interesting - it is with a UK based engineering firm that has operations across the globe and the internship serves as a feeder to their full-time rotational program. The interesting part of this job is that the rotational program will have me working in different roles in least three different countries in two years. In summer I will probably be located out of Chicago, but that is still open.

And now comes the dilemma.. I will have to choose one fast! I need to reply to the folks in Iowa City by tomorrow and I think I know what my decision is. But I'll hold out till the last minute! And I'm also waiting on a consulting gig I interviewed for. This one's on the East Coast and I should hear from them soon.

The MBA Spring Banquet

Pics from the annual MBA Spring Banquet... It was a blast!! :)

TGITs and early Fridays don't mix...

There was a pretty good turnout at yesterday's TGIT.. which meant a late night for me. And today morning I had to be up early to make it for breakfast with the Tippie Board of Visitors. Just spending time with a group of distinguished personalities, as we had in the room today, is a fabulous experience. Later in the day, we had a CEO roundtable focussed on leadership and ethics. The roundtable was moderated by Len Hadley (retired Chairman at Maytag) and the panel featured Clay Jones (Chairman, President and CEO of Rockwell Collins), Mel Haught (President and CEO of Pella Corp.) and Donna Katen-Bahensky (President and CEO of Univ. of Wisconsin Hospitals & Clinics). An excellent opportunity to pick the brains of accomplished business leaders, the roundtable definitely lived up to its promise.

A fabulous day, tempered only by the fact that I'm sleep deprived.

Next semester in Europe!!!

A little background information I probably should have blogged earlier... the Tippie MBA now has an exchange program for the fall semester with the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasumus University, in The Netherlands. So the student who goes on exchange this year will spend Fall 08 (Sept-Dec) at RSM. I think its an excellent opportunity to further broaden your horizons and learn more about European and global business practices. At building a network at one of Europe's top B-schools is definitely a plus.

So.. guess who's going on exchange to RSM this fall??!!! No prizes for guessing - yours truly. :)
I'm quite excited about the prospect of spending a semester in Europe. I'm just hoping that the dollar will strengthen against the euro by September!

A Day in the Life of a Tippie MBA....

Last night, I got back from Chicago by 9pm after a day-long assessment for a summer internship. (Unfortunately, I'm one of the few people in class who have still not decided on what they'll be doing in summer). Anyways... a snapshot of a day in my life..

6:30am - Alarm goes off... snooze.
6:45am - Second alarm goes off... aarrgh.!! Wake up, play my morning songs (the wake-up playlist!), check if there is any new email.
7:30am - Getting ready to head out. Apparently, its raining heavily outside. I absolutely hate it when I have to wear a suit and it rains... (sigh..)
7:45am - Pick up the WSJ on my way out. I'd planned to drop off the car first thing in the morning, but the rains have made me change my mind.
8:00am - Meeting at JPEC (John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center). My job at JPEC is to make investment recommendations for a Venture Capital fund. We analyze the business plans and financial statements of the firms that seek funding. We've scheduled a meeting with one such client today, so this is a pre-client meeting.
8:30am - Meeting with the client at JPEC
9:45am - The meeting at JPEC got over few minutes early. This gives me time to drop off the car.
10:00am - Meeting with team from the Strategic Business Consulting class. (Recap: We are consulting on product management for Zurich Financial Services)
11:00am - Lunch with Laura Desmond, CEO - Starcom Mediavest (The Americas) and 4 other classmates. Laura is an alumna of our university and one of the youngest CEOs in the world to lead a marketing services company.
12:10pm - Attend presentation by Laura Desmond.
1:15pm - Catch up on pending email/phone communication. Most of it has to do with arranging team meetings, although the emails that take longer have to do with my internship search.
1:45pm - Need to work on a finance assignment. Head to the business library to use the Bloomberg terminal.
3:30pm - Leave for an interview with Pearson.
4:00pm - Interview for summer internship.
The interview went quite well. The role would be in corporate strategy and I'd be working directly with one of the VPs. Should know their decision soon.
5:15pm - Leave for apartment; get out of the suit! :)
6:00pm - Attend a class to make up for an earlier one I'd missed. Thank God this is not a regular class. A 6pm class on Thursday is definitely not my thing.
7:15pm - After being edgy for over an hour (I told you.. classes on Thursday evenings are just not my thing! ), I decide to head out to the TGIT.
This week's TGIT is at a local Mexican restaurant - martinis included!
10:30pm - Back at the apartment after dinner & martinis. It is actually quite early for a Thursday night, but today has been a long day. I'm ready to crash...
11:45pm - After an hour of emails/news/setting out agendas, I'm ready to crawl in for a good nights sleep.

Tomorrow's going to be a busy day too. I'll be attending a presentation, and later having lunch with Scott Heiferman, CEO/co-founder of Meetup, and a Tippie alumnus. Should be another interesting day.