Quarter Four Insanity

I just got done one of my craziest weeks ever at Wharton. So many things converged at once that I literally couldn't find an extra half hour for a meeting. Quarter four classes are definitely a big work load. There is a ton of reading every week, and professors seem to be a little more intent on doing little things to make sure we read everything before class. And this quarter we have sabre, which is a marketing simulation. Sabre has been really fun. It feels similar, at least theoretically, to what brand management will be like. You have your product portfolio, market segments, market research, and forecasts. And you have to make decisions wisely to try to increase your company's profits in the face of changing tastes, competitors' actions, uncertainty, and a limited budget. Reminiscent of first quarter Marketing cases, my team spent about 14 hours on sabre this week. Supposedly it will get easier in subsequent weeks since we won't have to get ramped up again .. I hope that's the case! At least, as opposed to case write-ups, working on sabre is actually fun :)



Oh yeah, and last night was Wharton 54. Totally insane.

This and That

Man I haven't posted in a while! So, update on recruiting. I ended up with 2 offers, and declined several 2nd round invitations. So DIP was very good to me. In hindsight, I would not have applied to so many places. But I was scared - it's hard to know how successful you will be before you really go do all the interviewing. Most of my friends now have gotten offers. There are some still looking. I'm trying to help them where I can. I think everyone will have something in the end.

In other news, I've started listening to podcasts on my walk to and from school. My favorite is This American Life. Last week's episode (which I didn't listen to until yesterday) was particularly good. It gave a very easy-to-understand explanation for the financial crisis. For me, the discussion of why or why not to have the government take over the banks was really interesting. Check it out here, the title is Bad Bank. Warning - the explanations are pretty basic, so I don't recommend it if you think you already have a pretty good handle on it.

Finally, I'm heading to Japan on Saturday for spring break! So excited.