3.5 hour countdown

ONE MORE FINAL LEFT!!

Pros of finals week:
-no crazy homework assignments
-no classes, lots of free time during the day
-discovering new study areas on campus
-after it's done, completely freeeeee of work till Monday
-difference between public school vs private school is that private schools "care" enough to give you free coffee in the morning (it's all about the little things)
-incredible euphoric feeling after actually balancing t-accounts/balance sheets/income statements/cash flow on the first try

Cons of finals week:
-finals
-studying
-self realization that I have ADD and can't study for a long period of time
-with all this free time, can't find time to clean the apt

in 3.5 hours, i'll be FREEEEE (at least till the next round of finals). I'm really excited about hanging out at Bar after the test; SOM is very kind to reward us with free pizza and beer. The party will continue on today in new haven and tomorrow in NYC as a bunch of SOMers celebrate our proficients in the big apple!!

Breaking Down the Silos

With finals looming next week, a mock interview with my top choice firm on Thursday, an 1,800 word paper due tomorrow (haven't started yet), crew practice tonight, econ case review for tomorrow, and updating my roster for my fantasy football league (I can't believe Arizona choked on MNF), I've decided to pause and enjoy the moment. For someone who has lived in California his whole life, I am amazed at the beautiful fall foliage around campus. Walking around feels like I'm in a scene from Scent of a Woman. Even walking through campus to eat in downtown is a memorable experience because of the gothic architecture and brown/red leaves on the streets. I definitely can't wait till winter comes and I make my first snowball!

As the first years finish up the first 6 weeks of the new curriculum (Orientation to Management), I've started to notice the integration and "breaking down of the silos". In the first few weeks, we learned basic management tools and theories in traditional format (accounting, econ, data). Now, as we discuss cases and problems, we are applying the tools we've learned to address and solve problems. Some concrete examples are:

-In evaluating an econ problem regarding the effects of an auction of public rail, we had to use accounting to measure the present value (PV) of the bid.
-In solving a case in problem framing regarding best strategies of a partnership game, we applied a principle from econ (nash equilibrium) to find best strategies.
-In problem framing, we discussed game theory and used "backward induction" to solve a puzzle, which happens to relate to what we learned about "rolling back" decision trees in Data & Decision

I can't wait to start the Organizational Perspectives part of the new curriculum because it'll be interesting to analyze problems companies face from the different perspectives.

Beautiful Days

One of the benefits of being a student at Yale is getting access to the Yale Golf Club for only $25 per round. This is an amazing golf course and it is really pretty during the fall. It's really peaceful out there and the experience is different from golfing in California because of the leaves changing colors. Surprisingly, the last few days have been warm (in the 70's) and I'm anxiously bracing myself for the temperature dropping anytime soon now.

Yale SOM gossip: Flatpoint did a great job in summarizing the Dean's exciting news. Raising $32.9 million is no joke.

For those interested in seeing the video resume of this "how not to get an i-banking job" Yale undergrad, click here. Click here if you want to read an interesting story on him before attending Yale.

Ok.. that's enough blabber, back to class!

I Heart Art

I think it's really funny that when you go to Yale's MBA homepage, there's a link to the "I Heart Art" t-shirts. Not only is the story on the front homepage, but it's up there between "A New Curriculum" and "The Hybrid Professional." Professor Swersey is one of my favorite professors at SOM, but I don't know if the story is as newsworthy as the new curriculum. He definitely deserves some recognition for being a great teacher. Instead of giving a dry lecture on Data & Decision Analysis, he uses props and stories to keep the class engaged and actually teaches the material effectively because the stories are so memorable. I can't wait till I can take an operations class from him.

Other than the t-shirts, it was a pretty normal week at school. My life was packed with homework/school/club activities/gym/firm events. The best part of the week was scoring free tickets (thanks operations club) to nextfest held in NYC. It has been over a month since I've visited NYC, and it turned out to a gorgeous day. There were a lot of cool tech exhibits and it was fun seeing all the different robots and research projects.

Lastly, every student received an email from the Dean inviting us to a Town Hall meeting on Tuesday. Apparently there's some good news he wants to share with everyone, but we're going to have to wait till Tuesday to hear about it. I hope it relates to a possible improvement in the business week rankings, but I don't want to speculate anything yet.....