Big Red Thoughts

I went to my first Cornell hockey game yesterday. This was also my first ice hockey game ever and what an experience it was! From the sea of red chanting fans to the sounds in unison of Cornell glory, it was two hours of total fun.

We played (and dominated, might I add) Harvard and won 3-0. Cornell and Harvard have a long history of hockey rivalry, and games between the two are referred to as "The Game". True to tradition, fish was thrown on the ice to welcome the Harvard players prior to the game.

It was great to get away from the pressures of school and sit back and enjoy a great game. I might get season tickets next year.

Toastmasters!

I believe that public speaking is a key skill for us wannabe MBAs. We're all going to go into jobs in industry or government or whatever, and then one fine day have to stand in front of a crowd of hundreds or maybe even thousands of people and give a speech! And that's not a good time to be nervous!

Public speaking is an art that can be perfected with practice. I was recently elected President of the Toastmasters club here at the Johnson School. I'm not a great public speaker but I seem to get better every time. My friend Vidya was also elected to the board . We have big plans for the club and we are going to accomplish a lot in the next year. We all have a great orator within us. We all need to leave the Johnson School with excellent public speaking skills. Toastmasters is going to help us get there!

What a hectic semester this has been!

We're at the verge of getting our case for the Integrative Case competition. The next 2 days are going to be intense but like much of this semester, hopefully a lot of fun. Our Professors have assured us that it's an interesting albeit challenging case and that we'll be putting into practice much of what we've learnt in the past few months.

Staring next Wednesday, we have a well deserved 5 holidays for Thankgiving. I promise more regular blog postings once the case is done!

Update (Monday 11/23) - The Competition was hard work but a lot of fun. And yes, we did put into practice a lot of what we learnt!

First half of the core done!

Exams for the first half of the core are done we are one-eighth MBAs!

If I had to summarize the first quarter I'd say it has been a wonderful learning experience thus far. Here are some of the highlights of my first 2 months at JGSM.

The SC Johnson Case Competition:

If I had to pick one activity which taught me the most it would be this. It was a wonderful experience working with my core team - Yong and Sandy, a shout-out for putting up with me! SCJ required us to analyze a comprehensive case and present it in front of judges. "Vistakon" and "Acuvue" were the basis for several jokes at Sage in the days following SCJ.

Learning golf at the Robert Trent Jones golf course:

So I finally got my swing right! Golf is much more difficult than it seems on TV but Matt the instructor at Cornell's beautiful golf course http://bigred2.athletics.cornell.edu/golf/ is a great teacher. We made good use of the beautiful fall weather we've had at Ithaca this year.

My birthday:

I turned an undisclosed age on Sept 22. The highlight of my birthday was a wonderful evening at our local hangout Ruloff's. At midnight, my friends literally dragged me out of the place. Apparently my roommate had brought a cake and he wasn't being let into Ruloff's because he didn't have his ID on him! So for the first time I cut my birthday cake on a sidewalk of a busy street. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience!

FOMO! (Fear of Missing Out)

One of the first things you realize as an MBA student at the Johnson School is that life is very busy and exciting. The flip side is sadly acknowledging that you only can be one place at a time and that means missing out on some (many!) of the fun things happening on campus.

For example, yesterday evening was the end of a thrilling and very challenging week here at school. Packed with 2 mid-terms, numerous company briefings and the preliminary SCJ case competition presentation (more about SCJ in a later blog post) on Friday PM - sleep could only take a back seat! To kick back and relax once the busy week was done - I had a host of options -sleep excluded of course!. I ended up packing as many things as possible yesterday evening - attending an SABC kick-off meeting, followed by a volleyball game (Cornell put up a brave fight but lost in 4 sets to Colgate), followed by downing pitchers at Ruloff's ( http://www.rulloffs.com/ ), then dancing the night away with many of my buddies to a techno mix at Pixel ( http://www.pixelithaca.com/ ) and hip-hop at Level-B( http://www.levelbbar.com/ ) I used to be a terrible dancer but I actually got a couple of compliments on my dancing yesterday so these hotspots might have something to do with it!

The flip side to my fun night out was that I missed 2 wonderful house parties hosted by my classmates - oh well, I have to work on getting rid of my FOMO and enjoy each day to the fullest.

Back to studying for my Marketing quiz now!

Welcome, Vivek Pai

Thanks, I'm originally from Bangalore, India but have spent the last eight years in New Jersey first studying and subsequently working. I call both Bangalore and New Jersey home and am proud of both these places! I completed my undergraduate degree at Manipal Institute of Technology and then received my Masters in Chemical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. My work experience is mostly in business development focused on the pharmaceutical industry - I worked at South Plainfield, NJ based Radiant Systems for five years - culminating in the role of Practice Manager for their Pharmaceutical Division. Like many of my first year MBA classmates, I'm here at the Johnson School to find myself, my passions and in the process pursue a new career while making lifelong friends! My first month at the Johnson School has been amazing and incredibly busy. I look forward to my time in Ithaca which is one of the most beautiful places I've been to - I feel lucky to call Ithaca home for the next two years. Writing a blog should prove therapeutic for me - and I hope my blog helps prospective students and anyone who wants an insight into the life of a Cornell MBA student.