Time Flies!

I can’t believe the semester is over! Here is a recap of my final week.

Monday

On Monday was the first half of our marketing plan presentations. My group was scheduled to present on Wednesday, so it was great to watch the other groups. The range of these presentations was fantastic – one group’s stood out because it was hilarious.

Tuesday

Today we had our final accounting exam. After the exam my group met to go over our marketing presentation. Although I thought that it would be difficult to make a refrigerator funny, I hoped we managed to do so. Even though our marketing presentation was not worth any points (our paper was pretty hefty though), I stayed up past 1:00am memorizing my part.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we had our final for MIR which was an open-note exam. Although I brought all of my notes from the entire semester, I barely used them during the exam. I guess I just needed a security blanket.

Next, it was our presentation that I had stayed up all night memorizing. I breathed a sigh of relief once my part was done, and I had completed it with only one minor mistake! Unfortunately, my group’s day was not over after marketing. After grabbing a quick lunch, we went back to Dodge to practice our HR presentation for tomorrow.

We practiced until 4:00pm which only gave me a little bit of time to go home and change for color guard rehearsal. I had a moment of creativity at rehearsal, so I asked to take 2 students and write a dance feature, and the rest of the staff agreed. I am constantly amazed by how quickly these students pick up difficult dance. When the kids did run-throughs it was amazing to see that the dance choreography fit really well with the sabre choreography.

Thursday

Today we had our HR presentations, and it marked the end of the semester. The HR presentations today left us with pain in our ribs from laughing so hard. Finally, we had our last accounting class which brought us full circle. Then, the semester was over!

That night, MBA Connections hosted a party to celebrate the end of the semester. I did not stay as long as I wanted, but I did make an appearance. Later that night, I met up with a friend who is in her last year of law school at BU. For obvious reasons, we haven’t been able to see much of each other this semester, so it was great to see her before she visits her mom in Colorado for Christmas.  This day, or semester, left me exhausted, but it was worth it!

Friday

After sleeping much, much later than I normally allow myself to, Jim and I drove to Northeastern to pick up the Rosie’s Place donations. On the way, we made a stop to a grocery store in order to add to the current donations. We had to bring an extra box because the members of our MBA class were so generous. Here is a photo of one of the Rosie’s Place workers with the donations!

Yup, both boxes are full!

Thanks again for all of your generosity! You all have made the holidays a little brighter for many people! Happy Holidays to all!

*The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Northeastern University, its staff, faculty or affiliates and are solely the opinion of Amy Foley.*

Keep on Truckin'

Now that we are back in the swing of things after Thanksgiving, there are two crazy weeks between us and winter break. Here is the breakdown of my last week.

Monday

I have to thank the professors for going easy on us the first day back after Thanksgiving.  We had lectures in both Econ and Marketing, making the break a little less stressful. After Marketing, I started homework for the week. Later on Monday for the first time all semester I went to the Monday night dance class that I used to frequent when I was working. When the stress starts to get to me I know that I need dance to keep me sane.

Tuesday

As per usual, I got up early so I can double check my answers to the accounting. After accounting I continued working on the capstone marketing case, which touched everything we had learned all semester. That afternoon, I also went to office hours to ask a few questions, and I was pleasantly surprised when there were many other students there as well. After office hours, I traveled home to make final decision for my marketing memo. I had so much trouble keeping the memo to the page limit, so I was up past 2:00AM.

Wednesday

When I got into Dodge today, I realized that people were lined up outside of the admissions office. Then, it hit me – I forgot to fill out the International Field Study form and a deposit. Worst of all, I am interested in going to Brazil and Argentina which is one of the most popular trips. I wrote a reminder to myself to bring my completed form and check.

Wednesdays are for MIR and Marketing, but I could barely pay attention in MIR because I was so anxious about the Marketing assignment. After the discussion of the case in Marketing, I was still anxious because there were so many different directions to choose from.

A case write up for Accounting was due the next day. I went right home after class, so I could get most of my work done before rehearsal. Unfortunately, I only finished the calculations before rehearsal. To add more stress to the situation, rehearsal was difficult because we had to change drill. Drill is stressful because there are so many logistical moving parts. At times like this, I wish we had a supply chain person to help!

When I finally got home, I started the writing portion of the case, but just like Marketing, I was up late trying to cut out anything that wasn’t important.

Thursday

I remembered my check and IFS form! I got it in first thing, so I hope there is still a chance for me to go to South America.

We had an interesting case to discuss in HR today, but anyone in the classroom could tell that many of us had stayed up late to finish accounting. Between HR and Accounting, I got a cup of coffee from the Career Center. Only crazy amounts of coffee could have gotten me through these past few days.

Friday

Today was my birthday! I let myself sleep in a little bit as a treat!

In Career Management today we learned about Corporate Residency interviews that will take place next semester, and it sounds like we will all have our work cut out for us. We were also told when the residencies will be posted, January 3^rd. Even when we are not at class we will be working hard!

After class, I went to lunch with a few friends, then home to start to set up for the birthday party my fiancé planned for me! This was one of the few days I allowed myself to not do homework, and I had a wonderful time seeing friends and celebrating.

Most people leave at Malden Center, so we took  a few photos on our way to Oak Grove.

Saturday

You know you’re an MBA student when you stay up until 2:00AM on a Saturday doing homework…

Sunday

After staying up late on Saturday, I allowed myself to sleep until 8:00AM. Then, I had to finish my Econ assignment and research for my team’s Marketing final project. At least rehearsal gave me a little bit of a break. I even got to write some choreography, which allowed me a creative outlet. The coming week looks like it will be more difficult than the previous week. I just have to keep working hard!

Car update: Jim bought a new (to us) car because we deemed the old one too unreliable. Here’s a photo of the new one!

*The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Northeastern University, its staff, faculty or affiliates and are solely the opinion of Amy Foley.*

A Comedy of Errors

Alright, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I swear I haven’t forgotten! Other than school work, I’ll get to that in a bit, I’ve been extremely busy. Among my computer hard drive crashing, taking Jim’s car towed to the mechanic not once but twice, and my sister coming home from Montana, there has just been a lot on my plate right now. But now that I’ve finished my Living Document 1 assignment (45 pages!!!), the accounting annual report group paper, the marketing group presentation, and all of the midterms are over; I finally have a second to write.

It certainly hasn’t been a walk in the park, but I’m enjoying my time as an MBA student. I’m keeping up with the work, but I’m not keeping up with my stress management. It’s getting to be a very stressful time of year – not just the holidays but 4 people in my family have upcoming birthdays (including yours truly), full-force wedding planning, upcoming WMBA events, and starting to stage our color guard show, and I am definitely not doing enough to shake the stress (please read line above about the car again!!!) Anyway, here’s a breakdown of last week and the beginning of this week.

Wednesday

On Wednesdays, I normally have MIR then Marketing; however, this week MIR was cancelled because the professor was sick. Instead of using this time to sleep, I worked on my Living Document, my HR paper which is currently 45 pages long. After I went to marketing where three groups were presenting Coca-Cola’s corporate responsibility programs. All teams showed the depth of their knowledge and came prepared with compelling arguments. 

After Marketing, my team met to work on last minute corrections to our accounting annual report paper. The time went by extremely quickly. I had to leave at 4:00pm in order to get to color guard rehearsal in time, so two of my team members stayed and had the paper bound a reprographics. Thanks again, guys!

Thursday

Today was the big day for our accounting paper! I love the feeling of handing in a paper because it’s no longer on my plate. 

But my work was not done today. In the afternoon, my group met to go over our marketing presentation for the Digital Angel case. Because of the long weekend, we wanted to get this project done before we left on Thursday, so we were at school until 4:30pm. Thanks again to the Career Center for letting us borrow one of their rooms to work on this project.

Friday

The tasting room at the brewery (photo courtesy of Tracey Shields)

 

 

Friday was Veteran’s Day (thank you to all of those who have served!), so we had a day off. After doing some school work in the morning, Jim and I headed up to Merrimack, New Hampshire to take a Brewmaster Tour of the Anheuser Busch brewery.  This was an amazing behind-the-scenes look at the company complete with tour of the bottling facility, the quality assurance room, and a sample straight from the finishing tank. Seriously, it’s a supply chain concentration’s dream land! I’m sure by the end of the tour the tour guide was sick of Jim and I comparing the experience to Willy Wonka’s factory. After the tour, we visited Jim’s brother who lives and Merrimack and ate dinner with his nephews.

Saturday

First, a shout out to the Northeastern MBA team who competed in the MIT case competition on Saturday. I heard you all did a wonderful job of representing Northeastern!

Saturday morning was my time to work on the rest of my Living Document paper; however, it was also when Jim’s friend came back to finish our retaining wall. So amid the sound of power tools, I managed to finish the rest of my Living Document in 3 hours. I’m not going to say it was easy, but now I have a completed Living Document and retaining wall.

Matt playing drums for The Tree

 

That night, Jim and I went to see one of our friend’s band. His band, The Tree, was performing at Precinct in Somerville, so we drove out to see him. Driving turned out to be a really bad idea. After the show, Jim’s car wouldn’t start, and we had to get it towed. Luckily, two of our friends stayed with us and waited. Thank goodness they did because it took the tow truck two hours to get there. We finally managed to get home at 2:30am. Thus started the “comedy of errors” week.

Sunday

On Sunday my parents brought us my father’s extra car for us to use while Jim’s was in the shop. This is a giant SUV that neither of us is used to driving. Naturally, I wanted to drive the monster to rehearsal.

Our rehearsal was extra-long this week (6-9) because we started staging for our competitive season. This can often be tedious for both the students and staff alike, but everyone was cooperative, which made the process easier. We were able to stage about half of the show! And when I got home, the Patriots beat the Jets!

Monday

Today my group presented for the Digital Angel case. We were assigned TV advertisement, while two other groups were assigned web 1.0 and web 2.0 advertising. It was interesting to see what everyone came up with.

Monday night continued our comedy of errors. The mechanics told Jim that his car was fine other than some corrosion around the battery that they were able to clean up. So we picked up the car and drove my father’s car back to my parent’s house. We visited Jim’s mother who lives 5 minutes down the street from my parents, and as we were leaving, Jim’s car would not go in reverse. So we had to get the car towed again, and this time we took Jim’s mother’s car home. Not a great way to end a Monday.

Tuesday

Today was the Harvest Festival at Northeastern! The MBA program hosted a Thanksgiving dinner compete with turkey and all the fixings. Many people brought deserts, and Roopsi brought an amazing Indian dish. This was a wonderful opportunity to relax with my fellow MBA candidates.

*The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Northeastern University, its staff, faculty or affiliates and are solely the opinion of Amy Foley.*

In Midnights, In Cups of Coffee

The middle of the semester is upon us, and I have to say I’m starting to feel the time crunch. Already we’ve submitted graded deliverables for Marketing, a “numbers” case and a case email, and Human Resources Management, a recommendation paper for a case. On top of that we’ve had interim deliverables for our huge annual report project in Accounting. My team is analyzing the annual reports for Anheuser Busch and Boston Beer Company -  do what you love, that’s what I say! This is of course on top of many cases, averaging about 1 per class each day, and countless readings.

Which brings me to the title of the blog post; lately I have been measuring my life in free cups of coffee from the Career Center (they are seriously so awesome!) and how many days I stay up past midnight. Although it may sound like it, I am not complaining. This is exactly the rigor I wanted from my MBA program.

On top of all the course work, the Women’s MBA club has also started planning events for the semester and thinking about events for next semester. So far we will be hosting a self-defense class, hopefully getting a speaker, and having one fun event! I keep reminding myself to be realistic, but I can’t stop myself from thinking of all the wonderful events that we could host.  We’ve even reached out to the Simmons MBA Leadership Club to start networking with them!

And the students are not the only ones working this hard. The Career Center has planned an Executive Luncheon series, so we may meet executives from various companies in the area. They stress networking and honestly, they don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk. This is definitely one of the benefits of being a Northeastern MBA. Each of these events, which everyone gets to sign up for up to 8, a small group of students meets an executive for lunch at the Alumni Center. This intimate setting allows students to ask many questions, not to mention the food is delicious! So far, I’ve attended three Executive Luncheons and each have been extremely interesting. I feel as though I come back from each saying I will do my Corporate Residency at that company, but only time will tell where I will actually end up.

On a personal note, my fiancé and I built a retaining wall this weekend with a couple of his friends. This is something we have been dying to do since we bought the house a year ago.  This is the sweet before and after photo.

Ok, so it’s not quite done, but it’s so much better than the chain-link eye-sore that was originally there! I have to say it’s amazing to see the result because we spent a large part of the summer digging the ditch for the wall to be set in. Throughout the entire building process, Jim’s friend reminded us, “Don’t work yourself too hard”; he also forced us to take breaks. Perhaps the time to take a break is something I need to better adopt into my schedule.  Until next time!

*The views expressed in this blog are not necessarily those of Northeastern University, its staff, faculty or affiliates and are solely the opinion of Amy Foley.*