Where is this year going?
Sunday, November 22, 2009 from Deirdre Hatfield, MBA \'10
Whew... these past few weeks have been crazy. I ran my half-marathon on November 15 and it was an incredible experience. The 13.1 miles actually flew by despite the numerous hills (mountains?) that I was climbing and descending. I finished in a time of 1:55:24 which I was very happy with, however, nobody warned me about the recovery process. The first day was fine, but then then soreness descended and I spent the last week gingerly lowering myself into chairs and making odd noises that I'm sure had my classmates looking twice... doesn't matter though, well worth it. As soon as I crossed the finish line I mumbled something about the next race... running is really addictive for me. I came home and signed up for two more races and of course I will be running the Boston Marathon in the spring! All that running requires a lot of fuel so I'm always scavenging for a good meal. I didn't have to look far though, MIT Sloan puts on a Thanksgiving Dinner for the class every year complete with everything that makes Thanksgiving so good. Everything I go to here in business school always reminds me of how incredibly diverse my class is. I was standing in line for the food and overheard one of my friends asking what gravy and stuffing were... it made me realize how many a.. .. read more..
Guest Speaker Events
Saturday, November 21, 2009 from Yoomi Hong, MBA \'11
Between classes, homeworks, activities, recruiting events and job search, I occasionally find some time to attend interesting guest speaker events that are held on campus during lunch or after classes. They are always a great way to learn more about a particular topic while getting free food. Here are some of the events I have attended so far: \"The Next Financial Crisis\" by Professor Simon Johnson (www.baselinescenario.com) \"The Aftermath of Deep Financial Crises\" by Professor Kenneth S. Rogoff \"Dean's Innovative Leader Series: Leading During Times of Crisis\" by S.D. Shibulal, Co-founder and COO of Infosys Technologies \"Energy in Brazil\" by Jose Antunes .. read more..
2009 National Real Estate Challenge
Saturday, November 21, 2009 from Yoomi Hong, MBA \'11
I took the 6:35am flight out of Boston to Austin for the 2009 National Real Estate Challenge on Wednesday. The National Real Estate Challenge is an annual event hosted by the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin. The case competition is based on an actual real estate transaction closed by Goldman Sachs REPIA and provides a great learning opportunity as well as a chance to network with real estate students from other top business schools. The case is released at 6pm on a Thursday, so the teams spend all weekend working to submit their slides by 6pm on Sunday. The teams then fly down to Austin to present the case in front of panels of industry professionals the following Wednesday and Thursday. There were 19 schools competing this year. The MIT team was comprised of five students - three of us were from Sloan and the other two were from the Center for Real Estate (MIT offers a masters degree in real estate). The team members were selected by the officers of the Real Estate Club through an application process. This year the case was a casino/hotel acquisition project in which we had to analyze issues surrounding the branding, partnership, construction, operation, as well as the overall financial structure and returns. Our team spent over 40 hours over the weekend di.. .. read more..
A day with Tufte
Monday, November 16, 2009 from Francesco Baldisserri, MBA \'11
Image by star5112 via Flickr Very few things would have me wake up at 7 on Veteran\'s day after a clubbing night, attending the 1-day workshop of Edward Tufte , guru of information design and presentation, is one of those. I\'ve read Tufte\'s books few years ago ( Beatiful Evidence and Visual Explanations ) and since then I was curious to attend one of his classes. When I found out it was coming in Boston I immediately signed up: the 200$ student fee included also all his four books, good deal. I arrived there one hour in advance but several people where already there. Notably Tufte was walking up and down the auditorium, signing participants\' books and chatting with them. While he was signing my book he asked me \"So, what do you do?\", I replied \"I was a management consultant but now I\'m doing an MBA in Boston\"; he gave me a kind of skeptical look as if I was the very opposite of the typical attendant. The class started with a beautiful video about the visual representation of music (see Music Animation Machine - Stephen Malinowski ). I said class because it was really structured as a lecture; for every new topic Tufte would say the book and pages related (eventually asking the audience to read the section before starting) and then started his lecture. Unlike the classes I\'m used n.. .. read more..
Notes from Net Impact: Selling Up or Selling Out
Monday, November 16, 2009 from Shayna Harris, MBA \'11
2500 students and social change leaders converged at Cornell University last weekend for the annual Net Impact conference. This gathering brings together students and busines leaders who are concerned about people, planet, and profits the 'triple bottom line') and this year considered a key question that we face - \"What inspires you to challenge the status quo?\" This intriguing question followed was high on the minds of the two dozen Sloanies who I attended the conferfence with. How do we make REAL social change? Do we follow an 'insider' or an 'outsider' approach? Assuming that social change can happen via business, we wondered, is it most impactful to do so while reforming a large corporation (ie. the behemouth of Walmart), or by starting up our own small and progressive social enterprises (of which there were many inspiring and successful examples at the conference)? This debate was perhaps most salient during the final keynote address of the conference, where the founders of Ben & Jerry's, Honest Tea, and Vermont Bread Company spoke to the question of \"Selling Up or Selling Out: Maintaining a Social Mission while Growing to Scale.\" Each of these companies were founded to addr.. .. read more..
Myths of the MBA
Tuesday, November 10, 2009 from Luke Behnke, MBA \'11
I am sure there are a number of prospective MBAs reading this who are currently applying to school, frantically writing essays, finding recommenders, taking the GMAT (hopefully you have already done this one!), etc. etc. And each of your motivations to apply are probably very very different. Hard to believe I was there a year ago. Now, having been at Sloan for a little over 2 months, I have to say it was well worth the effort already. I came here to really learn a lot about business theory and practice, open my mind to many different perspectives, build a useful and interconnected network, and learn as much as I could about the opportunities ahead of me. I am convinced that this last benefit -- REAL exposure to what is out there from classmates who have actually done it -- is one of the best things business school has to offer. Despite what you may hear, business school (I believe especially at MIT) is academically challenging and competitive. It isn\'t just about the \"network\" at all. There is a real academic and practical benefit, well beyond the \"good old boy\'s club\" often stereotyped. Which brings me to the point of this blog. Now that the immediate excitement of getting here has passed (actually, it is still pretty exc.. .. read more..
Korean C-Function, Latin Si-Function & Fall Ball
Sunday, November 8, 2009 from Yoomi Hong, MBA \'11
Korean C-Function I was part of the fan dance, which I helped put together. The C-Function was a great success with a lot of great shows and a fun dance party afterwards. Latin Si-Function The Latin Si-Function was amazing, with great food from different Latin American countries and some very creative shows. The highlight of the event was the competition for el Chile Dorado and the Macarena video compilation: Fall Ball Fall Ball this year was at the State Room with an after party at Felt. .. read more..
MIT Elevator Pitch Contest Takes Startup Salesmanship to New Level
Monday, November 2, 2009 from Yoomi Hong, MBA \'11
MIT Elevator Pitch Contest Takes Startup Salesmanship to New Level Posted using ShareThis .. read more..
Nolan\'s Halloween at MIT
Sunday, November 1, 2009 from The Little Things - My life as a mom at MIT LGO
We went to four Halloween events with Nolan this year! I made Nolan a costume; he was a ghost. Boo! HallowMIT Last week was HallowMIT, MIT’s campus wide halloween party. There were a bunch of carnival-type games, candy and cotton candy, balloons and the MIT Beaver mascot. There was also a room off to the side where you could carve pumpkins, but we didn’t find the room until all the pumpkins were gone. They also had a photo taker that would take pictures and turn into buttons, but we too tried too late. They did have balloons, which Nolan is obsessed with. This event was best suited for elementary-aged kids. We arrived to the event about an hour after it started, because it was during Nolan’s nap time. We saw Noramay and Chas there, too. Sloan Halloween Friday, we had two events hosted by department schools. First, was the Sloan Halloween. It involved a trick-or-treat around the Sloan and Tang Buildings (candy for mommy and daddy), and then a reception with food in the lobby. We came an hour late to this event too, because it started during Nolan’s nap time. There was a lot of babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, and it was probably best geared towards preschoolers. It was fun to see some of the other kids. Chemical Engineering Graduate Students Halloween From there,.. .. read more..
The Inclusive School Pride
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 from Evening Walk
Every MIT student who participated in the today\'s MIT 100K Elevator Pitch Contest must have felt tremendous school pride. There were so many, impressively many, students from other schools -- even as far as Michigan and Penn -- who tried their luck in this world\'s greatest American Idol for entrepreneurs. What\'s more, there were people who weren\'t even students or alums, and they gave it a shot too -- some of them may even go to the finals! It was just so inspiringly inclusive . Magic happens when you merge bright with inclusive. .. read more..
Wine In The Elevator
Monday, October 26, 2009 from Evening Walk
What’s the closest thing to having wine in the elevator? At MIT, it’s having wine at a practice bootcamp the night before the MIT 100K Elevator Pitch Contest . That’s exactly what happened tonight at a session organized so thoughtfully by the MIT Entrepreneurship and Execution Club . Students practiced their pitches and received feedback, and the event spoke volumes about the often unsaid wonders of entrepreneurship at MIT. First, it’s really remarkable that students felt completely at ease practicing and polishing their pitches in front of their future contestants. This symbiosis of cooperation and competition is a powerful fiber in the fabric of MIT. Second, it was amazing, pride-instilling, and heart-warming to see how generous the students were with their time, knowledge, and ideas. These are the things that often aren’t easy to see when looking at MIT from outside in, but they are very much the things that serve as the very definition of entrepreneurship at MIT. .. read more..
Sloaned.
Sunday, October 25, 2009 from Kutral Ramesh, MBA \'11
Wow! Where did my month go? Actually, reading through my previous entry, it feels like it’s been ages since core started! Reality check – it’s just been slightly over a month. Guess the best way to fill you guys in will be snippets from various random facts about Sloan. Sloan time: Well, this is one of the most interesting and useful concepts I have found in Sloan. Can you relate to that feeling when you wake up and realize you have 5 more minutes to snooze? Sloan time pretty much instills that feeling in me! In Sloan, all classes start 5 minutes late and end 5 minutes early than the scheduled time. For instance, the stated time for a typical morning class reads 8:30-10:00 but classes are actually in session only from 8:35-9:55. The idea is to give students enough time to commute/settle between classes (which are mostly next door)! Five minutes may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, when you are rushing through that last calculation in that homework or trying to schedule that meeting with your team or sending that all important email before class, every second matters The Core: Ok, people weren’t kidding about ‘surviving’ the core. I for one always thought the core was over rated and hyped. Let’s run a simple calculation – we have 4 core subjects twice a week + 2 co.. .. read more..
SIP?
Saturday, October 24, 2009 from Francesco Baldisserri, MBA \'11
The week after the first midterms you\'d like better spend your time celebrating and going out rather than attending classes. In this scenario SIP is a good option. SIP (Sloan Innovation Period) is a week where you attend to ad-hoc classes (or better, seminars) on various topics, ranging from Introduction to Strategy to Leadership Style (...). Even more interesting, if you bid wisely for your classes you can arrange your schedule so to get everything done in two days and then leave for a long weekend! Here I\'ll briefly comment the classes I\'ve taken. Most of them looked like pitches to attract students in their spring course and this can be useful to start making up your mind about next semester. Introduction to Strategic Management This class provides some fundamentals of strategy, especially useful for those preparing for the consulting interviews. Structure was good, few frameworks provided but used extensively on real world cases. Nice pick. IT Savvy: Implementing Business Strategy with IT As for Introduction to Strategic Management, also IT Savvy was kind of a repetition for me. In fact I\'ve encountered most of the issues presented there when working in Booz&Co.; however this is a good overview of the related spring class. The Competitive Edge - What You Must Know About the .. .. read more..
Sloan Innovation Period (SIP) Week
Saturday, October 24, 2009 from The Little Things - My life as a mom at MIT LGO
As of this week, we are halfway complete with our fall core semester at MIT Sloan! Yeah! Instead of the usual classes, we get a break in our routine, where all regular Sloan classes are canceled and we instead have a week of different kinds of learning. This is called Sloan Innovation Period , or SIP. SIP is like at work when you balance your on the job development with training classes. Some of the classes are taught by professors, some by guest lecturers or pepole from other schools, and some by professional training people. This is the first year that LGOs are required to participate in SIP, but we only have to do half as many credits as the regular MBAs, since we still have our engineering classes this week. The classes are different lengths and have different credit amounts, but I took two 3-hour classes to fulfill my requirement. My first SIP class was terrible. I was really disappointed. The guy had an interesting bio and experiences, but it didn’t relay to a good class. He started out by talking about how he categorizes employees into stereotypes, basically “good and ambitious”, “okay and stays in the background”, and “bad seeds that pollute others”. That isn’t what I think of as good leadership, and goes against some of my leadership principles. He ended the l.. .. read more..
Who Brings You Here?
Friday, October 23, 2009 from Evening Walk
\"What brings you here?\" is often the first question you get at networking events. It\'s a way to engage, but it\'s hit-and-miss - there are just so many ways to answer. It\'s a hit, and you exchange contacts. It\'s a miss, so you move on. But what if you had an event where it all began with, \" Who brings you here?\" A professional networking event, for example, where people bring their mentor. An event to celebrate and exchange stories about partnerships and goodwill between people. There won\'t be a single one uninteresting or irrelevant conversation at such an event. Instead, you\'d come away full of stories, familiar stories, yet nonetheless ones that never fail to delight and inspire. .. read more..