YEEEOOOUCH!

I just dropped $574 on books and course packs for Autumn Quarter!!! Talk about sticker shock, especially on the non-resellable course packs. Also, I'm wondering...the estimated cost of attendance (AKA our official budget that is used to determine our financial aid award) assumes a book budget for the year of $1650. $574 only covers 3 out of 10 courses I'll be taking this year...do the math, that is going to be cutting it close, even taking textbook buyback into consideration. Guess it's a good thing I'm under what the budget allows for things like rent.

Many of the other GSB bloggers have covered the whole bidding process that played itself out last week, so I won't get into that other than to say I didn't spend a whole lot of time trying to game the system and I didn't bid too many points. I didn't get my first choice schedule, but I did get a schedule I like. Since we have LEAD during fall quarter, and I wanted to allow myself some time to get back my study habits, I decided to take 3 courses this quarter and 4 in winter quarter. I orginally thought I would get the three foundation courses out of the way this quarter (financial accounting, microeconomics, and statistics), but then I decided to put off accounting until winter quarter so I could mix in a case course with all the quant stuff. The first year herd seemed to be willing to spend a lot of points on Marketing Strategy, so I figured I'd go another route and try to get a less popular class and not spend any points (saving them for winter like a good little squirrel). I bid on a preferred schedule of turbo micro (with an alternate of baby micro), stats, and operations management (which counts toward a breadth requirement). I didn't get turbo micro (kinda bummed because the prof sounds awesome, but kinda relieved because it also sounds like a truckload of work...20+ hrs/wk!), and I didn't get the stats section I preferred.

Schedule looks something like:
Monday--no classes
Tuesday--Ops Mgmt 8:30-11:30 am, Career Essentials in the afternoon
Wednesday--Microeconomics 8:30-11:30 am
Thursday--LEAD 1:30-4:30 pm, Stats 6-9 pm, TNDC 9 pm til I pass out
Friday--no classes/recovery from TNDC/LPF

Even though I don't have classes Monday or Friday, I figure I'll be down in Hyde Park most of the day every day, but I like the flexibility it gives me if I need to go out of town for a weekend.

We are almost finished with CORE (AKA orientation) and I'm looking forward to starting classes. Tomorrow is the last day of CORE and it's Industry Immersion, a series of presentations and panel discussions to help us explore career options and begin the process of narrowing down target industries/functions/companies. Should be interesting, even though what I think I want to do doesn't really fit into any of the typical MBA career path buckets.

There's a lot of CORE that I'd like to recap, but I think I will do separate entries for the different modules as time allows this week (I should have some time since Wednesday & Friday are free days). This will likely include the diversity module (way better than expected), career services (not long enough), LEAD so far (better than expected).

I have to say, I've been having a great time so far. The GSB may have had a reputation as somewhat lacking in the fun department in the past, but the Class of 2007 does not fit that mold in the least. My classmates are always cooking up some kind of outing, adventure, night on the town, etc. I can tell that over the course of the next two years, balancing my social calendar and my academic calendar will be a challenge. Big time.

First Week Summary

Short version: My liver is threatening to strike.

Long version: It has been a great first week, though it started a little rough. GSB Day 1 was long (as previously recapped by PowerYogi), especially with the post-birthday hangover. There was a lot of information to be communicated to all of us, I just wish it didn't come in the form of 550+ people in one room for 3.5 hrs after lunch with no breaks and not enough AC. I definitely have some ideas for how they might do this better next year and shared them with the GSB staff via the survey they sent out.

As for my fellow classmates...top notch folks. Fun to meet so many new people, although having the same conversation five hundred times gets tiresome. (Where are you from? What were you doing before GSB? What are you planning to do?)

The rest of the week was quite an improvement over the first day. Wednesday was an early wake up call to make the trip up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, for Leadership Outdoor Experience. I'll admit I had some reservations about the 3 day trip. I was worried it was going to be very rah-rah-cheesy, and there were elements of that, but I honestly had a great time. We did all of the daytime activities in our cohorts, and the smaller groups made it easier to get to know people. There was your usual high & low ropes courses, team building puzzle type activities, but also an afternoon of free time to play softball, volleyball, soccer, cards, hang by the pool, take a nap, etc. Lake Geneva is really pretty and we were staying at a lodge type place. The whole time I was there, I kept thinking that I was at Kellerman's (the Catskills resort in the movie Dirty Dancing).

In the evenings, there were games, dancing, karoke, etc. And lots of beer (plus whatever booze people were smart enough to pack in their overnight bags). The socializing kicked into high gear around 9 pm each night and continued into the wee hours of the morning (I went to bed at 3:30 am on Wednesday night/Thurs morn, 4:30 am on Thursday/Friday).

Needless to say, a week of averaging 4.5 hrs of sleep a night sucked the life out of me. I bonked on Friday when I got home. I don't normally nap, and I slept like the dead between 3 pm and 7 pm Friday afternoon/evening. I was supposed to meet up with the WSU alumni group to watch the WSU-Nevada game that night, but I just didn't have it in me.

The week wasn't over though. My housemates and I hosted a party last night. I'm the only GSBer in the house, so between the four of us, we had a wide variety and constant flow of people. I had a great time and I think everybody else did too. We had a ton beer & booze, and while there is still a bunch left, we drank A LOT last night.

So today I'm cleaning and trying to recover. It has been a long week. I think I need to take a week off from the sauce or my organs are likely to go on strike. GSB orientation (aka CORE) continues tomorrow with a curriculum overview and an introduction to the class bidding system. I've got some ideas for what I'd like my schedule to look like and I'm hoping tomorrow will help firm those up. I'm also hoping I'll be able to figure out the whole bidding strategy.

Off to my first day of school

Wish me luck :)

(BTW, just a little hungover from the birthday madness, but not too bad)