Archive for the ‘Clubs’ Category

I am now two weeks into Q2, which means that I am done with 5/7th of my time at Darden.  Amazing.  This quarter is thankfully a bit lighter for me.  I am taking four classes and a research elective.  I am most thankful that there are no more 8AMs.  Early week I start at 10AM and have Operations Strategy, Systems Design & Business Dynamics, and a Reading Seminar in Management, which actually meets just once a week.  Late week I also start at 10AM and have just one class (nice!) which is Entrepreneurial Finance & Private Equity.  Considering how I wasn’t so sure I get everything I could in FY finance classes, I am really enjoying the the EF&PE class.  Maybe taking Valuation last quarter helped with that.  In any case, I continue on this liking trend.  I am currently reading Eyewitness to Power by David Gergen for the Reading Seminar.  Interesting perspective into leadership lessons learned from past Presidents.

I think I may have mentioned before that a huge chunk of my time goes to various club activities.  As the VP in charge of competitions for the EVC club my goal for this year was to increase participation and prize fund.  So far, I’m proud to say that my team and I have succeeded on both accounts.  The Darden UVA Business Concept Competition drew a record of 54 submissions this year!  For the first time ever, we also split the competition into two categories: Consumer Goods, Services and General & Life Sciences and Hi-Tech.  I spent last weekend along with a few other EVC members reading through all the submissions and picking the finalists who will present live in front of judges and an audience next Friday.

I also finally took my shoes to a cobbler.  I ended up dropping off a couple of pairs of boots at Ace Shoe Repair on Zen Road.  It cost me $22 for the 2 pairs of boots to put on new tips and the turnaround time was 1 week.  That is definitely more expensive than what I was paying in New York, but the quality so far seems good.  I’ll try to report if I notice any problems but so far I would go ahead and recommend this place.  I will most likely drop off the rest of my shoes there eventually.

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:

Wow, spring break was not nearly long enough! It doesn’t help of course that I was sick the majority of the week but I guess at least I got to sleep a lot. Classes start tomorrow, though not until 10AM for me thankfully, with LO and Marketing Intelligence. I’m pretty excited to only have two classes early week, and not have any 8AMs at all this quarter.

To kick the quarter off early and set the tone for all of next year, the newly elected officers of the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club had a hearty discussion over a welcome-back dinner tonight. There are many good ideas and projects in the air, let’s hope that everyone remains this enthusiastic during our year of reign. And in spirit of that enthusiasm, we have two more meetings scheduled this week. The weekly Wednesday evening meeting and the meeting on Thursday with the Philippe Sommer, Director of Entrepreneurship to discuss the vision of the new leadership team. Meetings seem to be the theme of the week. Darden bloggers are also meeting on Thursday. Plus, I’m hoping to set up a meeting this week with a potential faculty adviser for the Retail and Luxury Goods Club.

Other things to do besides meetings:

• 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!

Image via Wikipedia

Just one more day and it’s spring break! Of course it would be much better if this “one more day” didn’t contain a DA final, sigh… Today wasn’t too bad. I slept in a bit, and then got started on my MC paper. If I were smart like so many of my classmates, I would have finished the paper over the weekend, but noooo… I had to bake apple tarts. At least we more or less got to pick our own topics. They just had to be related to our final MC presentation. Since my group and I did our presentation on the importance of voting, I wrote my paper on the importance of H-1B visa reform. While I was doing my background research, I came across many interesting sources. If you have the time, check out Compete America - it is actually backed by the likes of Google, Microsoft, Intel…

And by the way, you are reading the blog of the new VP of Entrepreneurship of the EVC Club! Technically I lobbied for this position to be created specifically to fit what and how I want to contribute to the club next year. Nonetheless, I had to give an impromptu speech at the elections last night. I’m not sure if it’s MC, class participation, or just more experience speaking in front of groups of people but I felt a lot more comfortable and confident speaking last night. Oh, or it could have been the vodka cranberry I was sipping on…

I should be studying for DA right now (translation: watching Nip/Tuck) but before I go let me tell you about Luscious McTasty and Molli Mounds… There is a dance studio in C’ville that offers pole dancing lessons. Yes, you heard me right, pole dancing lessons. About 12 of us girls from Darden are taking a private 9 week class. I just came back from our second session and I must say - it is amazing! I may be discovering a second calling… Just kidding on the second calling part, but I have considered going to amateur night somewhere to pick up some extra cash… Again, kidding! In any case, it’s extreme fun, plus a great bonding experience for us girls. And for all you men reading this, don’t worry they offer pole dancing lessons for men as well!!!

I’m almost half way done with finals and procrastination abounds… Don’t ask me how I come across these things, but this is hilarious… Who comes up with this stuff?

So with FMP and GEM out of the way, it doesn’t seem like the rest of the week will be too bad. Tomorrow we have the STRAT final. I’ve just been reviewing the tech notes we were assigned during the quarter. I’m not sure what else to study really. I should probably just call it a day since tomorrow looks to be pretty busy. After the final I have a meeting to discuss the next steps of the Retail & Luxury Goods club. I’m hoping to get permission for an official distribution list and also figure out how to get a website going. I’d also love to be able to participate in the club fair at Darden Days. After that meeting it’s off to the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club elections. A bunch of us are running together on a ticket. I’m aiming for VP of Entrepreneurship. I’m not sure how much opposition there will be for any of the positions as it seems that the candidate for President put together a ticket of pretty much every actively entrepreneurial or VC-oriented person in the first year class. The elections are being held at a bar though and we technically don’t have a final on Thursday (just a paper) so hopefully it will be fun.

On another note, I cannot wait for warm weather! Yesterday we had a really nice day - sunny, upper 60s, maybe even 70. It was a perfect afternoon to walk to the downtown mall to grab lunch. Baggby’s on E. Main street is one of my favorite sandwich places. It’s a bit on the expensive side in my opinion but the sandwiches are well worth it. Plus, you get a cute little chocolate chip cookie with every order!

Just down the street from Baggby’s is one of my favorite dessert places - Splendora’s Gelato Cafe. I am a HUGE fan of gelatos and sorbets, and often frequented Cones on Bleeker St. when I lived in New York City. And while Cones remains my favorite gelato joint, Splendora’s is a close second. Interesting fact - Splendora’s was started by a couple of Darden grads!

So Q3 is pretty much over - there are only two more days of classes left. That’s exciting for many reasons. I’m a little ashamed to admit that I’m mostly thrilled because after Thursday I will no longer have to get up at the crack of dawn to go to class. I’ve managed to get all the classes I wanted for Q4 without scheduling a single 8AM class! For some reason this makes me think of the Darden Daze video. You have to watch it!

Let me backtrack a little. A week ago we bid for our Q4 electives. We have two core required classes and room for three electives. The core classes will be Ethics and Leading Organizations. The list of available Q4 electives wasn’t huge but after consulting with some SY students I settled on three I think will be interesting and beneficial. We had 450 points to bid on classes we wanted. They also sent out the stats from last year’s bidding results. That was very useful in helping me determine how much I should bid on each elective. So thanks to my masterful allocation of points, I will be taking Marketing Intelligence, Data Analysis and Optimization (the 11:45 class, not 8:00AM!) and Strategic Communication (with same professor I have now for MC). Woohoo for sleeping in! I might even swing by the gym some mornings…

Another exciting announcement - I am holding the first meeting for the Luxury Goods & Retail club tomorrow! I have been thinking about starting this club since I got to Darden and it’s finally happening. The interest level from my classmates seems to be pretty high and I hope it will stay that way. Most of the top business schools have a club covering these industries and I’m really happy that Darden will be joining the ranks.