Back in a suit

Since recruiting officially kicks off for first years today and I have three presentations to attend (Reebok, Pepsico/QTG, and Jim Beam), I had to pull my suit out of the back of my closet for the first time since MBA interviews. Today is going to be a long day. Met up with my Microecon study group at 8 am, then met with a 2nd year who interned at Nike for breakfast at 9 am. Now I'm trying to squeeze in some blogging and homework before the first presentation at 11:45. My last presentation will end this evening at 8 pm. Not sure when (if) I'll be able to work out today, let alone make sure all my homework is done for classes this week. I also need to get a head start on next week's readings and problem sets, since I'll be in San Diego Friday-Monday. I think I'll be lucky to average 5 hrs of sleep per night this week.

Life moves pretty fast here at the GSB. Recruiting is starting up, midterms will happen by the end of the month, and Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Wazzu was on a semester schedule, so this quarter schedule is a totally new concept for me. Plus, all my classes meet only once per week....that is only 10 sessions of class before finals!

As so many people have said, an MBA is all about time management. There are so many different things you can do in your two years at school. TOO MANY THINGS. It is physically impossible to do everything. I feel pretty fortunate that I realized this early on. I've perfected my ability to say no. If I get an email that is non-priority (i.e. about anything other than class, recruiting/networking specifically related to what I want to do, or the three clubs I joined), I don't let it linger in my inbox as a potential distraction. It gets deleted. Might I miss out on some fun stuff? Sure, but participating may have come at a cost to my priorities. I'm not willing to make that trade-off. MBA admissions officers aren't kidding when they say you should have a pretty good idea of what you'd like to do after your MBA coming in to the program. If I wasn't fairly certain of the industry & function I'd like to pursue, I think I'd be extremely overwhelmed right now.

Time management also means making time for "sanity" activities. For me, this means not letting my schedule sacrifice some quality time at the gym at least 5x per week. This means not attending every single GSB social event so that I can spend quality time with my non-GSB friends. This means scheduling myself some alone time, even if it's only 15 minutes, every day. This means keeping Saturday sacred for some quality time on my couch watching college football (even when the WSU Cougars decide to break my heart 3 weeks in a row).

That being said, let the recruiting insanity begin!