The (Pink) Gloves are On!

A few weeks ago I was having a really rough week.  The stress from challenging classes that are outside of my comfort zone coupled with dealing with friendships had gone south were dragging me down.  Two great friends (K.K. and J.U.) both gave me pep talks, but nothing was improving my mood.  That weekend I decided to set up a couple of workouts with friends to put all my boxing gear to use. 

Last week I was in a much better mood- smiling all day, wanting to be social- and the only thing that changed, was the boxing. 

Best Xmas gift of the year- Thanks Mom!

In Chicago I did boxing once or twice a week for the last three years.  It was a great workout plus a great way to relieve stress by hitting things.  On top of that it was a social activity.  The group of us would get our workout in while chatting about our week.  I didn’t realize how much I was missing all that until this past week. 

So, to keep things going I have sent out a calendar for fellow Darden ladies to sign up for workout times with me. The response has been awesome. I am getting to connect with people in a completely new way.  Boxing has also given me my confidence back.  When working out, I am in charge and teaching others how to do something I love.  The best compliment was when the person I did my first workout with wanted to box again.  Now I am even thinking about how to turn this into something more in my future (could a be a trainer? own a gym? yes I am copying J.G. but I’m sure she won’t mind).

So next time you see the girl in North Grounds with the pink gloves- it’s probably me

Summer Plans: I heart soup

Many of my friends from outside the Darden bubble have been curious about my plans for the summer.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago I received an offer.  This week- after a few more rounds of interviews and some soul-searching about what I want out of the summer- I signed my acceptance letter for an offer. 

This summer I will be at Campbell’s Soup Company!

After visiting the offices and meeting tons of people here at Darden from Campbell I am looking forward to having a great summer.  Not only will I get to work on one of their many well-known brands, but also there is still lots of Godiva at the company store (yum…chocolate).

Campbell is in Camden, NJ.  Which is a small town just across a river from Philadelphia.  So start booking your flights to Philly to come visit.  And for those of you who know the town- send me suggestions of places to live, places to visit and things to do.

 

Lucky Lady

This week I realized that I lead a charmed life.  After a rocky year in 2009 I am now loving life and thankful for all the opportunities i have in front of me.  Here are the highlights from my week:

•  I realized that with a job offer in my back pocket, class seems so much easier.  OK, maybe not easier but at least easier to manage. Suddenly there is time for the gym and to read cases.  And I am looking forward to cooking more.  I  never realized that it was a luxury to have time to cook and clean.

 

•  Financial Times (yes the fancy pink paper that meets my snob of a brother’s high standards) named my strategy professor, Greg Fairchild, as one of the top 5  research professors in the world.  Yep, the WORLD.  So I am truly getting a world class education.

 

• The first Exploring Wine and Spirits Conference was held at Darden on Friday. I learned a lot about the alcohol industry and the passionate people who form it.

 

• This week I participated in a NAWMBA (National Association of Women MBAs) event where we drank wine and discussed topics facing us with our careers and school.  It was a great night and an awesome conversation.  One of the best tidbits I picked up was that when you are your authentic self people are drawn to you.  A fellow student mentioned an exercise she did once on this topic, where you ask people to give you examples of when you are at your best, because when you are being authentic you are usually at your best.  Feel free to leave comments telling me when you have seen me at my best.

 

• Following the women who wine trend, this week is AB  birthday and to celebrate a small group of us went to a local wine bar, Sips, and had a great night and a great conversation. Then last night, an impromptu gathering to escape the snow led to a similar situation.  It has been great to take a step out of the usual Darden scene and reconnect with the lovely ladies I have met.

Wow- it’s been a crazy week.  Now it’s time to get back to the grind. On schedule for this week- a little travel and hopefully signing an offer letter!!

Whew!

After a full semester of new classes, new people,  networking, working on my story, internship hunting, and barely any reading days- I really appreciate a three-day weekend.  I know Darden gives us Friday’s off in Q3 for interviewing purposes, which means I will be busy, but I LOVE it.  So far this weekend I have celebrated with friends, visited one of my fav restaurants from undergrad, napped AND organized the mess a semester with no free time leaves behind. 

And the best part is- I have an offer! More details to come, since I still have balls in the air with companies I heart.  However, the majority of the stress from the internship hunt has been relieved and 6 months of hard work are paying off.  YAY!

The day I never thought would come

My family and long time friends will be surprised to learn that after this week, and the many interviews it included, a strange thing has happened. 

I am tired of talking about myself.

Yes, I know this is a shock but don’t worry.  I am sure this is just a phase and by next week’s interviews I will be all to ready to tell companies how great I am with all my stories about how I lead strategic change in my job (even though I was a lowly peon).

 

In the meantime- congrats to S.H. and J.E. on being the first marketers to nab internships!!!

Tell me about a time….

The time has finally come.  After 5 weeks of break it is time to get back to the grind.  Not only classes- interviews start this week. 

Interviews are scary.  Not only did you have to work your butt off to get the best resume and cover letter, but if you were lucky enough to be selected to interview (or bid enough to get a spot) then you are expected to have a perfect answer for any possible question. A story about leadership.  A story about creativity.  A story about analytics.  A story about a time you failed.  On top of that you have to be an expert marketer (after only a semester of classes) AND an expert of each  company and there hundreds of products.  My head hurts just typing this.

Needless to say- everyone is stressed.  As should be expected I am stressed to the point of paralysis.  That’s the bad news.  The  good news is that i have interviews and access to the resources to do well in them.  So for the next week or so I will be constantly on the lookout for great brands, bad ads and innovative packaging.  Let’s just hope the professors don’t notice.

A Message from Lulu

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love LuluLemon and their “yoga inspired clothes for healthy living”. I even wrote a paper on the company earlier this year.  I was introduced to Lulu by my trainer in Chicago and took the leap and bought my first pair of $95 workout clothes about 2 years ago.  Since then I have spent way too much money on more pants, tops and jackets- which are all well worth the price for their comfort and ability to make everyone look fabulous. 

Last night around hour 23 of Strat Sim- a marketing simulation where learning teams act as auto execs for two days non-stop- I got a reaffirming message from Lulu.  When you make a purchase at a LuluLemon store you are given a reusable bag.  I use these bags for everything, the small ones are great lunch bags, the large ones perfect totes for groceries.  Usually their bags contain a copy of their mantra which includes nuggets such as “do one thing that scares you everyday” and “friends are more important than money”.  This particular bag was from my last Lulu shopping trip before coming to Darden. Instead of the usual mantra it is filled with people’s answers to the fill in the blank ” I will______by 20__”.

This one caught my eye:  I will get my MBA by 2011.

It provided the perfect boost for me and my team.

Black November Begins

So, in MBA-land November is a scary time.  For the past six months I have heard endless stories of Black November- the point in Q2 when the workload of both class and recruitment reaches its peak.  We are now a full week into November and I am constantly waiting for the bad to begin.

Here’s what’s happened so far.

The Brand Challenge Team

Halloween!!  Ok, it’s not quite part of November, but I can’t NOT talk about it.  Turns out that DA is the best class for Business School theme costumes.  Net present value.  Decision Tree.  And of course the Crystal Ballers.  That’s right folks, even when we get the chance to dress up and pretend, there is still no escaping the Darden bubble.

A brand new machine!!  This week was company visit week -aka field trip week. My group visited a company called Carded Graphics.  It’s a local packaging company that makes printed folding cartons.  Prior to our trip we were encouraged to look at the companies websites.  Carded Graphics website is a total of 2 pages.  One with contact information.  And one proclaiming the news that they bought a brand new machine.  It was like a website out of the stone ages. Needless to say, we were all very interested to see the new machine. 

At the company site we were given a tour of the building and see every aspect of their business- from cutting the cardboard into sheets to recycling scraps.  The tour ended at the new Heidelberg machine- the most sophisticated printing machine in the country.  It was really interesting to see how packaging gets made- especially since i spent so much time working on it in my past life.  And yes, the new machine was impressive.

The dreaded Finance and Econ!!! Part of the reason I am getting my MBA is to learn about the hard stuff that I know nothing about.  The quant stuff.  Based on Q1 exams I am quantier than I thought.  However, I am still intimidated by finance and econ.   These are the classes I barely remember from the first time around in undergrad.  And these are the classes that even now, when I truly have a desire to learn more

ARGH!!

about them, that I cannot pay attention to.  We have these classes back to back on Monday’s and Tuesday’s.  It’s rough.  To date I think I have spoken once in Econ, and we are halfway through the quarter.  The goal for this week- to speak everyday in both classes.  I’ll report back next week and let you know if that happened.

Til next week….

Out of Hiding

Sierra and I rockin' 80's gear

So….it’s been a while since i’ve updated.  Oops!!   Turns out things get a little crazy around here before exams.  Here’s a brief update of what’s transpired the last few weeks.  Promise not to be MIA as much in the future.

- exams: bleh!

- 100 case party (aka an 80′s themed birthday party for me)  

- Quick trip to Maryland to see Jenn, Court and Nat.   Lots of fun, but lots of cold rain.

Court and me trying to stay dry

 

- start of Q2:  we got rid of the touchy, feely class and the MBA quant class but added Finance and Econ.  Still not sure it was a fair trade

Stay tuned for more of my adventure’s in MBA-land.  The dreaded Black November is just around the corner.  things are about to get good…

Snack Foods, Ketchup and Baby Powder

This week was another busy one in MBA-land, hence my post being a few days late.  Besides the classwork, there was a ton of recruiting events.  Here’s the rundown on what I learned this week.

1. Artists can be Accountants.  This week our usual accounting prof Mr. B took a seat and let our Q2 accounting prof lead a class.  She started off by telling us about her background, which included being an artist and only ever taking accounting to help with running her own business one day.  Fast forward and here she is as an accounting professor.  It is well known that I am NOT a lover of accounting (though is anyone really?).  But this week, I think things started to click.  The prof drew a visual representation of the accounting process from transactions to all the statements and things started to click for me.  I guess all I needed was for someone to draw me a map (literally).

2. I am an example for my class.  But not always in a good way.  This week we had to give a 2 minute speech to our class.  I was one of the first students to go.  I brought a folded sheet with notes partially as a safety blanket and partially to have something to hold onto and keep me from fidgeting.  I was two sentences away from finishing without any major debacles when I lost my train of thought a took a look at my notes.  Of course the line I needed to see was on the fold of the paper which threw me off my game.  It took a bit to recover, but I finished and quickly sat down.  One speech after me the prof asked the class to discuss how the first few speeches went.  A few minutes into the discussion he looked at me and asked “Renee, what happened?”.   To which I illustrated for the class the issue with the notes being in the fold.  Let’s just say no one else in the class brought up their notes after that discussion.

3. Networking is Work.  This week I have had 2 networking dinners, a networking reception and the marketing forum.  That means lots and lots of talking to recruiters.  Telling my story several times.  And asking lots of questions that seem thoughtful but not too prepared or scripted.  While many of the events have been fun, they definitely feel like work.  This upcoming week I have a break from briefings and recruiting so there will be a chance to recover.

4. Going back to school was the best decision ever!  This week was the Marketing Forum, an eventthe Marketing Club puts on that brings representatives from companies to give presentations and meet with us.   As I was listening to a VP from Frito-Lay talk about their latest marketing campaign (which is awesome) I realized how much I love marketing.  I also realized what a great opportunity I have at Darden. I knew going back to school was going to expose me to companies and experiences I would never get otherwise.  But on Friday, as I was talking to reps from Heinz, Frito-Lay, General Mills, Johnson and Johnson, DuPont and MarketBridge it finally hit home.  I have a great chance here to take my life in an exciting new direction.  Now I just have to do the work to get there.

 

Til next week….