Welcome back to Fridays From the Frontline, Clear Admit’s weekly chronicle of recent developments in the MBA blogosphere. Despite balmy summer weather, the last days of classes for current students and the last respite before a whirlwind two years for fall ’07 matriculants, the majority of bloggers were gainfully occupied with serious activities over the past week, or with making serious plans for the future. And surprisingly, neither of these categories seemed to involve serious celebrating! Perhaps one exception here was Mbwana’s Stanford blowout, a well-deserved final week at the GSB characterized by “insane amounts of partying,” as he put it – who would’ve thought?! Let’s see if anyone else surprises us…
The Dirty Canuck stayed in character, summing up her feelings about the end of her Chicago GSB era with recourse to a terse Buffy dialogue, while the DivineMissN was also up to her usual, planning on training for a 10k race, making two or three gallery visits, going on a gourmet cooking expedition, in addition to finishing final projects and coursework, in her last two weeks at LBS. True to her adventurous nature, NoellieBellie has been enjoying her summer break from IESE in Norway, where she’s encountered true adventures from orienteering to whale meat tasting to rabid swan attacks. Back on campus, Domo Domo busied himself evaluating the pitches of seven potential INSEAD graduation speakers, assuring his readers he’ll be casting his vote based on substance, not friendship, popularity or special interests.
On the first-year horizon, there was perhaps even more activity. Back from a blogging breather, Ashwyn fills us in with a fast-paced recap of the projects that have kept him busy at IESE since mid-terms. Also returning from a virtual leave of absence, FromCali shifted into high gear, determined for her summer internship to land her a full-time offer come fall at Ross. Chasing career success from another angle, Nagendra managed to schmooze with not one, not two, but three CEOs over the past week, from the head of the 4,000 person corporation where he’ll be interning to a sprightly, garage-based entrepreneur. Not too far away, Ed Starr looks forward to not one, not two, but three tough exams, and back on an amazing LBS Admit Weekend that he helped organize. In other London News, plugging fellow LBSers’ new Wiki-You Tube venture, Jaycut, Paxti shows off his globally-infused dance moves via a clip he used the groundbreaking online video sharing/editing site to create.
On a more serious note, despite a post ostensibly centered on elective equivocations, Angel Angie ends up celebrating the highs and lows of the human experience through the lens of her tenure at McKinsey, with a little help from Charles Dickens. Leave it to Hallonman to lighten the mood, however, entertaining us with images of his weekend in Barcelona, where some of the locals are apparently not too friendly, while others are perhaps a bit too friendly. Regardless of a broken camera and claims that the Fountainbleu campus’ event trumps the glamor of the equivalent Singaporean bash, Zanat0s also managed to get some pretty noteworthy pictures of the Summer Shanghai Chic Ball at INSEAD in Singapore. And finally for the ‘08ers, while immersed in his high-intensity internship and loving it, Tim K. takes some time out to counsel fall ’07 MBA matriculants on how to make the most of their last few months of (relative) freedom. But are they listening?
HairTwirler certainly took heed of his suggestion to do something memory making and out of the ordinary, waxing eloquent on the evidence and implications of globalization in India, from McDonald’s to Reebok ads, as she surveys the country on a 6-week journey. Also getting good mileage out of her time off, although not quite so literally, has been RusGirl, who synthesizes some pithy and easy-to-incorporate pointers from David Allen’s MBA relevant book, Getting Things Done, which she recommends as must-do reading for all entering MBAs. Perhaps UniqPath could stand to take her advice; lamenting the disorganized state of her Wharton preparations, with so many things yet to get done and no structure with which to approach them, her “wait till the last minute” mantra seems a bit risky… Perhaps she’ll have a change of heart after reading this week’s post by soon-to-be-classmate Rungee, who in her darkest hour of frantic pre-Wharton paperwork, suggests a diametrically opposed plan of action.
It seems Juggler’s found a happy medium between their extremes, quick to appreciate the freedom of formal joblessness, while still noting that what with readying herself for the transition from India to Wharton, she basically has another full-time occupation to attend to. As for crowding onto the matriculation preparation bandwagon, let’s not forget about Necromonger, who in truth got onboard quite early with the lengthy cadre of study aid gadgets he posted on a few weeks ago. In this week’s post he gives an in-depth chronicle of the options and properties of what seems to be a personal favorite device, his new Lenovo X60 Tablet PC.
Well, that pretty much wraps up this week’s edition of FFF. Hope you’ll touch base with us next Friday for the latest day-in-the-life-of-an-MBA material…
