the calm before the storm
After a few days of break from the internet, I’m returning. On Friday, I made the 16 hour drive from Chicago to Cambridge. It was a relatively smooth drive and I was exhausted when I got to the house. The last three days have been spent cleaning, floor to ceiling the new place, unpacking all the stuff I dumped here in July, and getting ready for class to start on Wednesday.
Analytics (aka “Math Camp”) begins at 8am Wednesday morning. There’s a full schedule of events that day which will take us right up until 11pm Wednesday night. I’m excited for things to get started, I’m just hoping I can last the whole day. I’m not used to intensity starting so early and ending so late. Hopefully the last few weeks of rest will pay off.
Tonight is the first big social event. A lot of the people going to this program on Wednesday are meeting up for drinks and I’m looking forward to finally meeting some of the other people here. Tomorrow will be a day of rest, relaxation, final errands/chores, and hopefully some Olympic-viewing…
the finish line and the vacation
More than four months after being admitted to school, I have FINALLY completed all of my prematriculation requirements. I will be happy if I never have to write the word “prematriculation” again. Today I learned about heteroskedasticity. It’s a much more enjoyable word to write.
To recap, this marks the end of two full courses in Finance and Accounting, and three online modules in Finance, Accounting, and Quantitative Analysis.
Next week, I’ll be driving out of IL, bound for Cambridge for good. As one other prematric requirement, I have to attend “analytics” (read: math camp) for two weeks before classes start. Everyone who I’ve talked to says that it’s actually a really great experience, and that a lot of interesting people go to it, so I’m looking forward to it, but it’s hard to believe I’ll be in classes in 2 weeks.
Right now I’m just looking forward to vegetating for the next few days. And ticking off the list of miscellaneous to-do’s.
taking a break
Yesterday I completed the HBS finance tutorial. And I passed. Glad to have that out of the way. There were a few concepts on it, like levered and unlevered betas, which I found complicated. I thought maybe I was not made for finance, and then my friend from New York arrived last night and told me he had to do levered and unlevered betas on the CFA level 3 in June. I thought my module was supposed to be introductory. The CFA3 is pretty complicated. Oh well.
I’m spending the next two nights in downtown Chicago with the buddy from NYC. Looking forward to a break from suburbanity. Next week a friend from DC visits on Monday, and then I head out of town on Tuesday. Will be racing the clock to finish the QA tutorial for school, but I’m less worried about that than the finance one.
Summer vacation is great.
Sidebar - why is it that people always “can’t wait til summer,” “can’t believe summer’s halfway over,” “can’t believe summer’s going so fast,” etc.? I guess it’s the weather, but I know a lot of people who love cold/winter, and I never hear them say these things about winter. Just a thought.
move. check.
So, I’m done moving to Cambridge. Everything went smoothly (although I do believe I have more stuff than I should… definitely still a packrat, despite having thrown away about 12 bags of stuff). The Penske truck was completely pain-free and actually had a iPod jack… who knew?
I got all my stuff into the house up there, unpacked a few essentials and booked it back to nyc yesterday for one last night in the Big Apple. Now I’m sitting at LaGuardia waiting to fly to Chicago for a few weeks. (And hopefully acquiring an iPhone later today).
Two lessons I learned while moving:
1. Girls have lots of stuff too. But their boxes are labeled with things like “Shoes 1″ and “Shoes 2″ and “Shoes 3″ and “Purses.” Weird.
2. Mt Kisco, New York is not a good place to stop for food while driving between New York and Boston. While attempting to make a rare appearance at Burger King (because who eats Burger King in nyc? do they even have Burger King’s in nyc?), we followed a road sign that said there was a Burger King at the Mt Kisco exit. Well…. literally 3 country roads, 18 minutes, several miles, and a pass thru DOWNTOWN MT KISCO (which is, in fact, nowhere near the interstate), we found the Burger King. It was so far away from the highway that we took a different route back to the highway than we took getting off the highway.
Anyway. Lessons learned.
Looking forward to spending the next few weeks at home. Looking less forward to finishing the Finance and Quantitative Analysis modules for HBS in the next few days, but that’s not so negotiable.
coursework complete.
I have officially finished the prematriculation coursework requirements as of this morning. My finance final exam was fine. Glad that it’s over. The remaining big tasks are: Finance Tutorial and Quantitative Analysis Tutorial, both are online modules offered by HBS. I will likely finish those over the next few weeks, but for now I’d like to focus on the remaining time I have left with my friends in New York City.
I also have to begin to get my head around packing/moving. My boxes of supplies, including these rolls of tape, which are awesome, arrived this week. Sadly u-haul left a few things out of the shipment, so I’ve begun the customer service process, hoping to have the rest of my goods by week’s end. I don’t plan to officially pack until after I quit my job and go away for the 4th, but having the supplies here makes me think about it…
accounting update.
I just got my grade for the class and it’s an A. PHEW. So that’s one more pre-matriculation hurdle down. Still have the finance final to go and then I’m officially done with the course-work requirements.
accounting. kablamo.
I just took my accounting final. Everyone wonders why I am taking exams/classes even though I haven’t started school yet (let alone moved out of new york yet)…
In addition to the accounting, finance, and quantitative analysis online-tutorials that all incoming HBS students have to take, I was required to take actual CLASSES in accounting and finance before matriculating. (I am also required to attend “analytics” on campus in August, before classes start, but we’ll save that for another post.) This was a requirement for me because I am a non-traditional MBA student (read: non-finance, non-consulting). I’ve had some people react negatively when I’ve said to people that HBS labels me “non-traditional” but I don’t mind it, and because of the nature of the MBA program, it’s a statistical fact - I am non-traditional.
So, I set out to find classes to take. Realizing that NYU’s class schedules would not mesh with my moving out of NY schedule, I asked HBS to recommend online classes - and they recommended BYU.
I took the accounting class. It was interesting. I learned things I wish I’d better understood before: like the financial implications of renting/buying/leasing houses and cars, the financial implications of tax-withholding, etc. The structure of the class was compelling. A 3 hour computer based lecture for every lesson (16 lessons) followed by an online quiz. Plus 3 exams (non-comprehensive… the best kind). So I just completed my “final” (non-comprehensive) exam. It went well - the last question on the exam was to the effect of “What is the best way to succeed at life? A)challenge yourself B)learn new things C)be a good person D)all of the above.” I liked that they asked something like this at the end. Not only because it’s obviously an slam-dunk question (if you miss this, you should fail the class), but also because it put everything into perspective, forced me to stop saying “must get an A, must get an A” and just appreciate the fact I’d learned something new.
