May 26th, 2008 | Food for thought |
“Studies reveal that in the dog-eat-dog, look-out-for-No. 1, highly competitive business world, only the aggressive, risk-taking alpha male can expect to succeed as an entrepreneur.”
Now, as this article states, the above is a commonly held stereotype and although personally, thanks to my parents I suppose, I’ve never felt that way myself, I do notice that a much smaller percentage of my female friends and acquaintances chose the entrepreneurial path than male. Do you think that this is a generally accepted stereotype that is affecting the career choices of the two genders or are there some other factors?
May 25th, 2008 | Books, Exams, Summer |
Wow, okay, I’ve been slacking on the whole blogging thing the past month a half. Thanks Mandy for a gentle reminder that I need to get on it. As I mentioned before, Q4 was surprisingly busy for me, and unfortunately the end of FY felt a bit anticlimactic… I think this was mostly due to the fact that we all finished our finals at different times. Unlike core classes, electives don’t have a scheduled day for finals. Some of my more determined classmates were done as early as Wednesday whereas some of the less motivated (possibly me…) took until the last minute on Friday. In addition, the FY disorientation took place the Friday before finals, kind of in the middle of Darden Days ‘08. That in itself seemed liked poor scheduling, with various DD activities cutting into exam studying time. Okay, okay, it’s highly unlikely that I was going to use that time to study anyway, but still.
After I turned in my last final, I promptly planted myself on the couch and spent the following week watching movies and reading for fun. First book was one I’ve been meaning to read for a while - Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Maybe I was still tired from taking finals but I was never able to fully get into the book. Up until the very end I felt like I had to force myself to continue reading. I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars. I didn’t realize that this book was made into a movie recently. My friend saw it and claims that it is one of the worst movies she has seen. Oh well, just added it to my Netflix queue. My next book was Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood who also wrote one of my favorite books - Handmaid’s Tale. I really enjoyed this book and read without being able to stop. In fact, I was a bit sad when I was done and wanted it to keep going. I should also add that dystopian novels tend to be at the top of my favorite lists. In any case, I give this one a 5 out of 5. Another book I didn’t absolutely love despite the generally excellent reviews is The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. Once again, I give this 3.5 out of 5. There were definitely parts that I enjoyed but the attempts at philosophical discussion seemed a bit forced and pretentious to me. Judging by all the wonderful reviews of this book, I stand alone in my opinion.
I’m also in the middle of reading two other books. What is the What by Dave Eggers and The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. I’m having a really hard time getting past the first couple of chapters of What is the What, which I suppose doesn’t surprise me that much since I simply hated A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The Philippa Gregory book is okay. I more or less know what happens so it’s hard to find the motivation to finish that second half. On my list to read soon: The God Delusion, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Blind Assassin. There are many more of course, but I think I will tackle these first.
What else is on my plate in the next couple of weeks? The Incubator officially starts on the 27th, although I’ve been going in for about a week now. I’ve even hired my first employee - a web developer! Later next week I’m in a wedding in Virginia Beach. What an expensive ordeal that turned out to be… The following week my brother turns 25 (wow, we’re old) and I’m off to Miami for the weekend with my boyfriend. Can’t wait to hang out on the beach tanning and reading books. Yay for summer!
April 14th, 2008 | Classes, School life |
I seriously thought that this quarter I would have a lot more time. How wrong! Although the class and homework load does seem to be a little bit lighter, or at least much better distributed, I’m inundated by group projects, club meetings, various applications, summer work plans, etc.. Granted, I do enjoy all of my classes so much more this quarter. I suppose it’s because I actually picked 3 of them. Speaking of picking classes… We are supposed to put in our bids for all of next year and wow, it is much tougher than I thought.
The whole first year class received three files - a word document with instructions and two excel files, one with quarter schedules and one with a list of all classes offered. In addition, you can download a pdf with historical bid point information (min, max, avg, and std deviation) for each course offered this year. The sheer volume of all this information caused me to keep putting off choosing classes for a good week. Finally my boyfriend took mercy on me and shared the spreadsheet he used to pick his classes last year. And although I had to spend a good hour populating the spreadsheet with the most recent bid history and current course offerings, it was a great help. Now I just have to get myself to log on and submit my bids.
My incubator application is in and I’m a bit nervous. I think I have a great idea and I put in a lot of time into researching and writing the executive summary but there are quite a few people applying and not that many spots available. Please keep your fingers crossed for me! Though, I think that regardless of whether I am admitted or not, I will be here in Charlottesville working on getting it off the ground.
By the way, I just found out that I and four other Darden bloggers have been nominated for the BoB by Clear Admit. In addition, a future Dardenite was nominated in the applicant bloggers category. Congrats on the nominations everyone! BTW, check out the new pictures of all the Darden bloggers.
April 1st, 2008 | Classes, Clubs |
I really hate rainy days. All I want to do is sleep, sleep, sleep. I can’t believe that FY is going to be over in a month… It’s actually a little bit scary how quickly it flew by. I imagine that next year is going to go by even quicker, at least that’s the impression I get from current SY students.
Some good news on the Retail & Luxury Club! We got the go ahead on electing officers and starting our plans for next year. For all you prospective students out there, we are also going to have a table set up during the club fair at Darden Days 2008. Yay!
For all you female entrepreneurs out there check out the business plan competition below:
March 23rd, 2008 | Classes, School life, To do |
Week one of Q4 is done and so far I’m loving it. No classes before 10, which means that I have that extra time in the morning to either sleep in or get some work done. Even with a 10AM start, I’m still done by 1:10 early week, which makes me feel like I have all the time in the world. I was actually just talking about that with some of my classmates yesterday at the gym. With recruiting being over for most people and more flexible schedules, everyone is starting to feel a lot more relaxed. All of a sudden people are finding time to get their cases done, go to the gym, cook dinners, and still be in bed by 10PM. Amazing!
First impressions of my current classes:
LO & Ethics - interesting material, but I find it hard to participate in class so far. Either I don’t have much to say or someone right before me makes the same point I had. Will have to work on that.
Marketing Intelligence - so far so good. Started off the quarter with a topic that called out to the Russian in me - the branding options for the Kalashnikov name. Followed that up with mental accounting in class #2. While some people found the technical note a bit dry, I though it was very interesting. Mental account is definitely something I do often. For example, when I buy something on sale I tend to say that I saved $200 rather than that I spent $100. Of course I know the difference but it feels much better to think that I actually saved money.
Data Analysis and Optimization - really enjoying this class so far. We started with data optimization. Using solver a lot.
Strategic Communication - qualitative class, seems to be very brand focused so far.
Things to do:
- File loan applications for next year
- Decide which idea is the most viable and apply to the incubator
- Start writing a business plan… or at least get the executive summary done
- Register to vote (new citizen!)
- Figure out what to get my parents for their upcoming anniversary
- Plan trip to Russia
- Get back in the gym!
I can’t believe how quickly the summer is going by. Some of my classmates are already half way through their internships. I am, of course, working in the incubator and I have to say that starting your own venture is A LOT of work. I mean, I knew that going in, but it exceeds even my own expectations. I’m enjoying it though and hopefully will be at a good place in August to continue my work during the school year.