Results are in...

MIT Graduate GPA equals MIT Undergraduate GPA.  Somehow that is very satisfying.

Undergraduate total units taken (including 18 units of credit from transferring AP classes): 406
Avg. Units/Semester Undergrad = 50.75
# of All-night-ers: ~6 (didn't keep rigorous count)
# of Diplomas: 1

Graduate total units taken: 262
Avg. Units/Semester Grad = 65.5
# of All-night-ers: 1
# of Diplomas: 2

The details are a bit murky - 18 units of undergrad from AP, some units earned here and there during my graduate internship, but this is roughly how it works out.  Amusingly, while the GPAs were the same, since the units per semester were different, the difficulty of the coursework must have been different.

So, from these data, I can conclude that MIT LGO was easier than MIT Architecture but with twice the payoff.  Or, probably more realistically, more work of LGO was done in teams and so your individual share was less than individual studio assignments and psets which were more common in undergrad.

In between the end of classes and actually getting my diplomas I did my biggest move down to PA, managing to borrow my parents' mini van for an extended weekend.  Like the moves out to MI, and home from there for my internship with GM, a stupidly full car was my standard moving procedure.

This is better though than my moves in the Pontiac and the VW because the front seat was mostly accessible.

Anyway, the real story is that last Friday, in a deluge of rain, the class of 2013 graduated out in Killian Court in front of the Great Dome.  The founder of Dropbox Drew Houston (MIT SB 2005) spoke, there were other elements of higher education pomp and circumstance and then we listened to every graduate's name read out loud.  The ceremony went from about 10AM to 1PM+ (I managed to stick it out in the rain the entire time, but had my doubts multiple times along the way).  My boyfriend and my family - Mom, Dad and my sister all joined me.

For graduation you process from MIT campus on one side of Mass Ave to Killian Court on the other - this makes people actually trying to drive on Mass Ave rather frustrated I would imagine... (The photo may not look wet, but oh, it was)

After commencement had ceased, uh, commencing, both LGO and Sloan had receptions for students and families.  However, still being wet and being kind of people-d out already, we made our attendance at these events brief.

Finally, I spent the rest of the weekend in Boston wrapping up moving, seeing people and...going to reunion at MIT.  Yes, inadvertently, I synced up my undergrad and graduate reunion years so I only need to go once every five.  I attended a couple of 2008 specific events and then a few others, like Toast to Tech, which were open to all MIT reunion attendees.

"...And as we raise our glasses high, tonight shall ever be, a memory that will never die for ye of MIT"

President L. Rafael Reif toasts MIT mascot Tim the Beaver

Reunion ended Saturday night for me and Sunday, once I woke up, was filled with final packing and moving out (since I'd be driving to PA right after, where I'll be living after school).

The final load of stuff (for now, there's still some at Mom and Dad's house)

The views driving to (and in) PA are lovely

Congratulations to all the members of the LGO class of 2013.  Hope your moves go smoothly and your new locations, jobs and pursuits are fulfilling.

Last Day

Today is my last day of classes.  I passed in a group assignment (my last homework to turn in) already and will be taking my final quiz later this afternoon.  Then I am done academically at MIT (though I suppose I'll only know for sure once all my grades come in).

From my internship with GM and the fact that I'm buying a car this summer, I've been looking a lot more closely at cars lately.  This tendency is also heightened because, in a city like Cambridge, there are more open parking lots and fewer cars hidden away in garages.  So, when I came to the Sloan building today and noticed a logo on the front of a car that I did not immediately recognize, I had to investigate.

Does this look familiar to you?

In retrospect, I should have recognized the logo from our domestic plant trek to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.  Turns out it's a Tesla.

A Tesla S in fact - depending on the battery size either ~$62K or ~$72K

That was a fun surprise.  I had never seen one "in the wild" before.  The car had a British aesthetic to me, reminiscent of Jaguar or Aston Martin.  I hope Tesla considers that a compliment.

In between now and graduation, I will be packing, moving and cheering on the Red Wings, however far they make it in the NHL playoffs.  Other students are looking for their new apartments or houses, others still are going to the British Virgin Islands next week.  Either way, we will no longer have homework hanging over our heads.  Yay!

Apologies

It is spring of the second year and with that comes multiple things - thesis writing, senioritis and nicer weather.  You are both busy and in the time that you are not busy, you are less inclined to sit in front of the computer writing blog posts.  Besides that, I am in the process of buying a house, so that adds a whole other level of busy-ness (business? :-) going on in my life.

But seriously, what an awesome classroom view?  Tons of flowering trees and blue sky

However, it has been over a month...when I used to post multiple times a week.  So let's get to it.

Last week brought the LGO Alumni conference.  Many LGO alumni of the both recent and further past gathered on campus on May 2nd and 3rd to celebrate 25 years of MIT LGO (then LFM) existing.  One of the questions that came up multiple times was what would the next version, LXX, be?  We would be Leaders, but of or for what?  Sustainability and prosperity both came up as possibilities for one of the X's.  I'm not sure yet what my LXX vision is.

There were speeches by alumni and professors, about their work and life and what role MIT and LGO has played.  One alum even brought his son who was in the area touring colleges to the conference.  Professor Arnie Barnett, who has taught many of the LGO/LFM students through the years, gave a talk on his research in aviation safety and added a few key thoughts on leadership.

Arnie's thoughts on leadership - Click on the photo to enlarge it

In addition to alumni and professors, there was a special panel of founding members of the program.  It was very cool to hear them talk about the need for the program, their vision for its mission, how they approached industry for funding and how it worked creating better ties across the institute.  Just like I enjoy speaking to alumni about how their experiences were the same or different from mine, it was extra special to get this glimpse into a specific piece of LGO history.

Founding members - L to R - Kent Bowen, Tom Magnanti, Gary Cowger and Bill Hanson 

Extra fact about one of these founding members - Tom Magnanti has the honor of being named an Insititue Professor.  According to MIT Policies and Procedures:

The title of Institute professor is an honor bestowed by the Faculty and Administration of MIT on a faculty colleague who has demonstrated exceptional distinction by a combination of leadership, accomplishment, and service in the scholarly, educational, and general intellectual life of the Institute or wider academic community.

The number of Institute Professors at MIT is about as small as the number of Nobel Laureates at MIT.

Even though graduation is not until June 7th, I have ten days of classes left.  My thesis is now printed, I have three of the four signatures that I need and the fourth one, along with a celebratory cupcake, is planned for Thursday.  The number of remaining regular assignments is dwindling to what I can count on one hand and I am so excited now to see what the next phase of things will bring.

Job Update

OK, I know it's been a long time since I've last posted, but here's a long post to hopefully make up for it.

Open House is this week so, of course, I'm going to talk about what might come after or, if you prefer, out of the program - your full time job.

I'll give away my ending first - I found and committed to a job!  I am very excited that in July I will be joining Corning Incorporated.

The offer letter and all the other details!
I had to tell them to send it to my MIT address, not my internship address which was on the resume I used to apply to the job.

A view of the Corning HQ building where I did one of my interviews from Market St. in Corning, NY (Yep, same Corning)

For those of you not familiar with Corning, turns out you probably are, you just aren't aware of it.  Corning's specialty is glass and one of their more popular products made it's consumer product debut on the front of the original iPhone.  Gorilla Glass, as it is known, is now protecting over 1 BILLION devices and is itself in it's third generation.  After LGO, I will be working for Corning's Manufacturing Strategy group.

Now, back to job hunt logistics...

When you arrive in June of your first year, the dance of familiarization begins with the partner companies.  They host events; you begin networking.  Networking to find out about internships, but also to begin imagining and understanding who you might want to work for after school.

When the rest of the MBAs arrive in the fall, LGOs attend a MBA class called Career Core.  This can feel over the top sometimes, since you will not need help finding an internship, but you will have to reformat your resume into Sloan format for inclusion in the Sloan Resume Database (which companies can pay to access).  [The main gripe with this class is probably that it's only/always offered on Friday.]  This is when you will begin meeting all the various members of the Career Development Office (CDO), who will be at your disposal throughout your two years at Sloan.

Tip: For job hunting updates and help, try and work consistently with one, at most two people at the CDO.  That way, you don't have to spend part of your appointment time explaining your background or hunt progress and you can jump into what you really need perspective on.  The one exception to this is mock interviews, where the more people you can have give you an opinion of how you present yourself, the better.

In the fall of your first year, off-cycles will find out their internships, interviews will happen for on-cycle internships and pretty much at the same time, the 2nd years will be coming back from their internships and doing the full-time job hunt.

In the fall of your 2nd year, LGO has a week of dedicated recruiting with the partner companies.  Often times students will take a few days to a week before or after this period to participate in additional on-campus recruiting opportunities that the CDO coordinates for all Sloan students.

When I applied to LGO, my impression of the full-time job distribution of students was that students who didn't work for partner companies, did not either because they didn't want to (because of location or role or other specific restrictions they had put on their search) or because they went into consulting or did their own start-ups.  I had the idea that partner companies were happy to have anyone who wanted to join them.

For background, here are some of my employment related stats:
3 years of work experience before LGO (average is five)
2 jobs in those three years (one of which was not engineering/manufacturing)

I knew I was working against the odds to some extent.  I should have also known I was working against the odds when 15 partner companies came to recruit for LGO recruiting week (12 if you don't count the separate divisions of Raytheon and UTC) and each of these companies did not come bearing at least four jobs.  There are 49 LGOs in my class of 2013.  During partner company recruiting, we'd be going head to head with our most direct competition...and hurricane Sandy would hit.  Skype interviews anyone?

Some LGOs would go on to second rounds, others offers, others still, multiple offers.  I would not.  For certain people, this system works very well and you'll know where you're working my Christmas.  I had presumed I would fall into this bucket.

If that answers most of your questions, great.

If you want to get into the nitty gritty of the saga, read on...this is all my personal story and as they say "individual results may differ"

Despite interviewing with seven partner companies (only four other LGOs interviewed with the same number or more companies than I did), nothing panned out.  That week was rough.  I did a couple CDO on-campus interviews as well, but had no bites.  I asked for feedback from a partner company that rejected me but that I thought I was a particularly good match with and they told me that I was the #1 candidate for a position they chose not to fill.  This was a company that had brought a huge list of jobs and only intended to fill a few of them.  Geesch.  That was the biggest combo of compliment and dis I had received in a while.

The most complicated recruiting part of the fall was that I was asked to one second round interview.  However, this fell during the Iceland trek I went on and the company was not willing to be flexible or reschedule my interviews, since they were bringing a bunch of people to campus at once.  So, it's possible that could have been successful, but due to schedule conflicts, I was never able to find out.

I took time to get over all of this.  I did some more applying in November and December, but not much would move on the job front around or especially after the holidays.  Note: as far as job hunting in the new year, no company seemed to really do much with regards to contacting me until around mid-February.  January can and likely will be kind of a wash.  There was one exception - after submitting my resume for a general strategy position Corning posted to the CDO page...in September, they wanted to schedule an on-site interview with me...on December 20th.  So, as part of my move home from my GM internship, I stopped in Corning, NY to get to know them, to learn more about the position and to see how we got along.  The people were friendly and the HR manager said she liked me and my background.  She wasn't sure that this position was the best fit but she said that she'd keep looking.

In the meantime, after the new year, I turned my job hunting into overdrive.  I had decided that I did not want my significant other to move from his job.  For multiple reasons, it would work better that way.  However that left me with a "specific location" restriction (after having gone through the regular LGO recruiting looking more broadly).  I decided I was now only looking within a ~100 mile radius of a 15,000 person town in PA.  AWESOME.

With this new make or break location criteria, I went to partner companies that hadn't brought jobs in November.  I even re-approached a partner company that had rejected me in November.  I went through the database that the CDO had and looked into every big/name brand company I had heard of in that area of PA (as well as parts of NY and NJ) that did manufacturing.  All in all, between soft inquiries, full applications, speaking with alumni and everything else, my whole job hunt from start to finish involved contact with companies about over 30 positions.  I really, Really, REALLY wanted to write about this as it was happening, but A) it would be giving information away during the whole application/interview/negotiation process and B) it was a total emotional rollercoaster (honestly, I'd say I worried about "B" more).

Turns out, what ended up happening is that Corning did get back to me asking about an interview for the manufacturing strategy job rather than the general strategy job.  I then spent weeks jockeying to get on people's calendar's individually, since an on-site with all the interested parties could not be arranged.  I did about three more phone interviews and a Skype interview and then, three months after the original on-site and almost 6 months after I had originally submitted my resume to Corning, I received a phone call saying that an offer letter was in the mail.  HOORAY!

Summary

My process was not standard.  It was not fast.  It required extensive research and work.  I will not be working for a partner company right out of school.  However, I found a company that worked to understand where I could be a best fit in their organization.  The team at Corning I feel really did their due diligence on role compatibility and on me as a person and I look forward to seeing how things go this summer and onward.

That post about South Carolina I said I was going to do

So last year, the rest of my family took a trip to Myrtle Beach and Charleston, SC.  They had a great time, raved about the food and how it was great to get away from the snow.  When they decided to go again this February, I got to join them.  Our trip was over the President's Day long weekend.

Hotel right on the beach at Myrtle Beach

The view by night - that's the moon!

We had sun, we had sand, but unfortunately it was not as warm as last year.  I walked barefoot on the beach but wore capri pants, a long sleeve top and a fleece jacket.  My first day in Myrtle Beach was the warmest of the trip - it hit around 60F.

After a day or so in Myrtle Beach we took a weekend road trip to see Charleston.  The part of the city you see first when getting off the highway is not inspiring (looked, to me, like parts of Detroit actually), but we stayed and walked around in the historic area on the peninsula which is filled with nicely kept fancy old homes.

Quite the paint job around this door

I know, fancy, right?  Charleston is famous for it's ornate iron work - railings, gates, etc.

Similar to my family's earlier trip, though, I have to say that the food was delicious.  We made sure to have grits, pralines and sweet tea since we were down south (I've lived only in MA and MI, so forgive me if this is over generalizing), but we also tried less famous southern style food like Tomato Pie (sounds weird, tastes delicious - kind of like quiche, but better).

While it was sunny in Charleston, the weather had turned cooler.  The only jacket I bought was a trench coat, along with my fleece and so, for strolling around outside, looking at all the nice homes, I pretty much resorted to layering like a crazy person (and then, of course, goofing around for the camera).  My jacket in the photo below looks like it's bulging because I was rocking five or six layers on my torso (it was in the mid-30s to low 40s that day).

FIRE!

Overall, while not as warm as I expected and hoped for, it was cool to go down and see Charleston, visit the state where Stephen Colbert is from (one I had not been to until now), and escape Boston for some sunshine and an early hint of spring.

Spring Classes, an overview

Other than my thesis, the class load I have signed up for this semester is pretty darn reasonable compared to previous semesters.  Instead of six classes and two seminars, I've got five classes, one of which is only in the second half of the semester.  Of those five, two specifically are required and two are needed to fill a general credit requirement.  If I needed or wanted to, I could drop the fifth, or turn it into a Pass/Fail class.  Pass/Fail is an option graduate students at MIT can choose once per semester if the class is not needed to fulfill degree requirements.

The two required LGO classes are:

• 15.769 - Operations Strategy

This class is a full semester and is taught by Professor Charles Fine.  Sometimes it has been taught by the LGO co-director Don Rosenfield.  Prof. Fine commented at the beginning of the semester that this was one of the first classes he was asked to teach when he came to MIT over 30 years ago.  Like the way Leaders for Global Operations used to be called Leaders for Manufacturing, Operations Strategy used to be called Manufacturing Strategy.  This is primarily a case and discussion based class.

AND

• 15.317 - Organizational Leadership and Change

This is the half semester one, I have not started it yet, so I can't honestly say much.  I just know that as one of the final assignments for this class, we are supposed to write a 'how do you define leadership and what does it mean to you' type paper.  Too bad you can not define leadership as 'not writing papers.'


The three classes that I have elected to take are:

• 15.068 Statistical Consulting

Between wanting more math and analysis related classes I chose this due to it's heavy...oh wait, I chose it for the professor, Arnie Barnett, first, and then I decided that what he was teaching would also be useful to me.  Seriously, read this previous post.  Even in round two, Arnie does not disappoint.  I am glad to have him bookend my LGO experience.

• 15.398 Corporations at the Crossroads: The CEO Perspective

Described in its own syllabus as one of the 'legendary courses at Sloan', the professors have continued to live up to this attitude.  For the most part they just introduce the beginning of the two hour once a week class and then let a CEO or former CEO take over for an hour and a half or so.  How much I enjoy each class depends more on who's presenting and what the questions from students end up focusing on.

Additionally, a group of about a dozen students from the class gets to have dinner with each CEO.  In April, I, with a few other LGOs in the mix, will be having dinner with Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia.  Nokia is definitely a company that fits the "in the crossroads" description and so I'm interested in what Mr. Elop will have to say.  Previous LGOs had described this as a class they enjoyed, so between recommendations, it meeting when my other classes did and getting a to have dinner with a CEO, I figured it was worth a shot.

• 15.518 Taxes and Business Strategy

I don't know how many other people do this, but each semester, when it comes to choosing my electives, I scour course reviews.  One thing that's interesting is that Sloan has separate grades for both the material and work of the class and for the professor.  This class managed to be highly rated on both.

So, despite my hesitations of jumping into a taxes class, it seems to have paid off.  I know I am learning material that is useful not only in a career but to my own personal finances, the class is taught by a woman, Michelle Hanlon.  Prof. Hanlon has a sense of humor and her mid-western accent is a fun reminder of where I used to live.  I was somewhat sad to see that most of what I knew about taxes was covered in the first couple lectures, but it means I'll learn more.  I am debating whether to use my pass/fail on this one though!

Additionally, for the first half of the semester, I got a spot in a PE class - Intermediate Ice Skating.

This class is taught by a NHL pro scout (no he's not looking to see if I can join the NHL, he is instead hired by a NHL team to keep track of the players on other NHL teams for possible trades).  He's Canadian and the class, for better or worse, is taught like many other MIT classes.  The only prerequisite is being comfortable with skating forwards HOWEVER over the twelve sessions we have or will be covering both forwards and backwards crossovers, pivoting/changing direction while skating, stopping, turning tightly, etc.

I have an OK time with the moves that primarily involve both skates on the ice, but things involving more balance, like crossovers, but especially turning from skating forward to skating backward all in one swoop are a little much for me to handle.  Crossovers I can do, but they're wobbly.  Still trying to figure out the switch the direction you're skating maneuver.  The class began as fun, but is definitely getting more stressful as I angst about trying to do these more challenging moves.  I wish, in many ways, I was more confident at failing or, I guess, failing dramatically.  Sometimes fear paralysis just takes over instead and then I don't make the attempt.


The amazing thing about this particular set of academic courses is that in the first half of the semester, I have classes two days a week and for the second half of the semester I will have classes three days a week.  This is advantageous yes for long weekends, but also for attending conferences (which at Sloan often seem to be all day on a Friday), working on bigger projects or attending to anything else you need to do.

All in all, I'm happy with both my selections and my schedule.  Now to make it through the end of the semester!

February is almost gone

The first draft of our theses is due on March 1st so things have been more quiet and studious around here lately - especially now that it's the end of the month.

In upcoming posts look forward to at least a selection of these topics:

• Photos from Nemo the Blizzard

(We did not end up getting the 3+ feet of snow they at one point predicted, it stayed closer to two feet)

Some remaining snow on an outdoor parked Z06 Corvette (I must protest!)

• A quick trip to South Carolina

(Where, turns out, I took very few useful photos for the blog)

• Comments on my spring classes

-and-

• LGO Job Hunting

In the meantime, enjoy a few tidbits I found from walking around a new part of Cambridge to get our visitor parking permit!

Unusual architecture - modern condos with garages! oriented perpendicular to the street

An amusingly worded reminder to bikes that they should follow car street rules

Click the image to zoom in and see why I should really be living there!

Class of 2015 - contain your anticipatory excitement for a bit longer.

We can't wait to see you in April for Open House though!

First Day of Classes but Really a Set of Comments on Introversion

After having six months of an 8-5 work-type schedule where I was mostly solitary (no other LGOs at GM and no other LGO interns at any company for hundreds of miles), coming back to a more erratic school schedule filled with lots of people and lots of demands on my time has honestly felt a little strange.

A while ago I had been looking at a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.  After speaking with an MIT alumna at the end of January who personally recommended the book, I made the jump to purchase it and have been glad I did.  It covers things that I wish we covered or acknowledged more in B-school leadership classes, beyond leadership capabilities and ethics.

(A side note and my personal soapbox - if you need mandatory classes or workshops on ethics then, to me, it says that many people in the past have been coming out of your program and doing unethical things.  To me, forcing ethics upon students means that you do not trust them or have enough faith in them to act well.  Perhaps this is being idealistic; I hope not though.)

Anyway, a couple sections in reading the book have stuck out to me so far:

• When the author, Susan Cain, interviews students at HBS and asks about whether introverts exist, "the student who wishes me luck in finding an introvert at HBS no doubt believes that there are none to be found."  The author comments on finding and speaking with an introvert who reflects, "students at HBS go out several nights a week ... Participation isn't mandatory, but it feels as if it is to those who don't thrive on group activities."

I think this 'all on all the time' idea is still true but to a somewhat less extent at MIT Sloan.  I pick the HBS example because HBS was the business school the author visited and it is at least parallel, if not entirely equivalent, to experiences here at Sloan.

Earlier in the book Susan discusses how the US evolved from a culture of character to a culture of personality.

• The "word personality didn't exist in the English language until the eighteenth century and the idea of 'having a good personality' was not widespread until the twentieth."

• Character traits such as Duty, Honor, Manners were things that "anyone could work at improving." "But new self-help guides [of the 1920s] celebrated qualities [...] that were trickier to acquire.  Either you embodied these qualities or you didn't: Fascinating, Energetic, Forceful, etc."

Finally, the section I've most recently been reading is one about how creativity and innovative work are not necessarily best fostered by teams, group brainstorming and open floor plans, often it is best done in a more solitary manner.  Once I got to this part in the book, I began to wonder if the mini breakouts of various classes, when we spend time talking though a question or idea in groups of 3-4, are always as helpful as they could be.  I wonder how the class would react if a professor had students take the same amount of time in class as normal to analyze a problem, but with the condition that they silently think about the solution to themselves.

Even though it's awesome that LGO got new study carols for the office, the walls are shorter between desks that face each other than they used to be, and some of the desks next to each other side to side don't have any walls between them at all now.  At first I was happy to have new shiny desks, but, when I finally thought it through, I realized I missed the more private library cubby hole style rather than the more open "collaborative" arrangement.

Yes, I am the first to admit I'm an introvert and yes, I'll be the first to admit that it's an uncommon at business school.  Maybe it's more common though and people just aren't admitting it.  I want to clarify that it's not that introverts always want to hide away and not talk to anyone - not true - instead it's that all the socializing, though it's nice to see people, can be tiring rather than energizing.  So please, when it comes to leaders and thinkers, remember us quiet ones; just because we're not "Magnetic" doesn't mean we don't have a lot to offer.

New apartment!

Hello!

This weekend, I finally moved into the new apartment here in Cambridge.  I've got my stuff into my room and am maybe 75% set-up, but the big things coming up will be actually doing things like getting groceries.

My bed here has proved to be an amalgam of sorts.  My previous apartment was furnished and so I did not own a bed.  The person moving out of this apartment was moving back to Europe and so was willing to sell some of their furniture.  So, I got an IKEA mattress from them (no box spring).  I already had a sheet of memory foam and a headboard from when I had previously lived in Michigan.  That's it.

Since I didn't want to sleep on just the mattress on the floor, I wanted to get a frame of some sort.  However, since I didn't have a box spring, I knew I needed to get a platform bed or something with slats on it that would support the mattress.

The cheapest thing I found on Craigslist was a simple bed frame and some slats to put on top.  I thought this would work fine, until I put it together.  I had been warned by the seller that the mattress was longer than the frame (which would be OK if you had a box spring).  But, since I didn't have a box spring, I hadn't put two and two together, that the mattress would be sagging at the end.

It was so bad that the mattress looked like it was on a hill or something, it was so slanted.
I couldn't sit on the end of the bed.
I couldn't tuck in my sheets.
Nothing.

However, with some planning, some angle "iron" from my parents' basement (they live right in MA, it's great), and <$10 in materials from Home Depot, this solution was hacked:

Simple and functional!

Thanks to the work around, my bed now has six legs.  It is an insect.  The last pair consists of an upside-down "U" shape of 2x4 connected to the rest of the frame with angle iron extends the frame and supports that slats.  The mattress sag and sheet tuck in have both been solved - yay!

Now that I'm back in Cambridge, as a break from moving, I took the initiative to walk down to campus and go to the open skate at MIT's athletic center.  It was nicely attended and actually had way more parents and kids than I expected.  Many of the kids knew how to skate pretty well which was even more impressive!  I put just over 45 min at the rink on the books and will consider it prep for spring IM Hockey games.

Look out '14s!

Since my internship was with GM...

I cannot help but be excited about the reveal of the newest generation of Corvette at a special pre-auto show presentation last night.  I was not there; I watched it broadcast on YouTube, but I have to say that the new Corvette Stingray not only looks fantastic (see below):

Image from: http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/01/2014-chevrolet-corvette-stingray-worthy-of-the-name/

Image from the Gallery section of: http://www.chevrolet.com/new-2014-corvette/

But it is going to be full of all kinds of other high tech amazing-ness to make the experience of driving the car be even better - it's not just superficial.

Near the end of my internship, I went to talk with Diana Tramblay, former Cheif Manufacturing Officer at GM, now its head of Manufacturing for North America.  Both she and her husband work at GM.  In their garage currently are two company cars and a Pontiac Solstice.

The Pontiac Solstice, Image from: http://www.autobytel.com/pontiac/solstice/reviews/

After seeing this car, probably riding in it, too, Diana revealed to me that it was going to be fantastic and that she and her husband would have to add one to their set of vehicles.  The question will just be what to do about garage space!

Besides being an awesome, down-to-earth person, I also approve of her taste in cars.  Nice job GM!

Wrapping Up and Starting All Over

I wanted to write something today saying that I look forward to meeting the prospective members of the class of 2015 who are now one step closer to acceptance!  Word has gotten around that interview invites are out and so I wish to share in the excitement of those of you who received an interview invitation via email and say that to those of you who did not make it this year, life has a strange way of working itself out.  One of the things that helped me find that LGO even existed was getting laid off, so you never know what will come your way next.

I am still in Pennsylvania and will be making my way back to Cambridge sometime around next weekend.  I have been able to do lots of things digitally from afar, but putting the finishing touches on moving and seeing everyone again certainly cannot be done without being there.

My January HQ in PA

Second year of LGO in some ways is crazier than the first, because you have the addition of the job hunt and the thesis.  However, I still think the first year of LGO was the busiest because, unless you go off-cycle (and do your internship Feb-Aug which it seems like many of the '14s are doing), You basically have 12 straight jam-packed months:

• Summer Semester - June to August
• Fall Semester - September to Dec
• Domestic Plant Trek - two weeks of January is taken up
• InternshipFest (when you're interviewing for and ranking projects) and Knowledge Review (when you're hearing what the class about you has done) take up another week of January...
• Spring Semester - February to May (during which you might use spring break to go on International Plant Trek!)

First year just doesn't stop!  From June to June you have, at most 2.5 weeks off in a row.  I know 2.5 weeks off straight is a glorious extended vacation in the working world, but it's a pretty short time for 12 months of an academic calendar.  Definitely not what I was used to from undergrad at MIT!

During my internship, I enjoyed having more of a non-homework work schedule and, this January, I have also enjoyed being able to make whatever plans I like.  I hope this one last semester will prove to be relatively smooth sailing (though you never know), but either way, we made it past the Mayan Apocalypse and through the NHL lockout, so in the words of Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson - "How hard can it be?"

How hard you ask?  I'll keep you posted.

Happy New Year!

Since I last wrote, a lot has happened.  I finished my internship at GM, moved back to MA (via an incredibly stuffed car again) and, on the way back, stopped for a job interview.  I stayed with my parents outside of Boston for about a week and then moved again, right after Christmas, into my final LGO apartment, the one I will be working from this spring through graduation.

This time I'm rooming with another LGO.  Without grand plans that we HAD to pick something by the end of LGO recruiting week in November, we managed to tour a few apartments and make a final decision.  Having that all set for when I came back was SO handy and made the housing process much less stressful.  First years - I would recommend doing something like this - do not wait until you're almost back at MIT to find housing!  We'll be living just north of Central square in a 2-bed, 2-bath and I'm excited to see how things go.

Before Christmas, but to get in the spirit, I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra play at the TD Garden in Boston.  They were performing a new Christmas album and so the story that flowed through the first half of the concert was different than the one I had heard before.  As always their playing, as well as their lights and stage set-up, was fantastic!

Two of the players ran out along the audience in the floor seats and then were raised directly up, while two others were on these crane type pieces of the mainstage and were raised out over the audience!

Now that the holidays are over, besides enjoying the time off and the fact that I bid correctly to get all the classes I wanted this spring, it's time to get back to (or start) things again.  Things like thesis writing and preparing for knowledge review (when all the LGO 2nd years, now done with their internships, talk about what they've done and learned in that six month period).  All in all, January's schedule is more flexible than last year, though Domestic Plant Trek, was certainly a good time.

Finally, when visiting a friend in PA, I managed to make it onto a local TV station's report.  Check it out!