December 5, 2014
The hardest part about looking for an apartment through the Internet in a town you’ve only been to once is the part where you are looking for an apartment through the Internet. In a town you’ve only been to once.
I’ve looked at a million postings on Craiglist in the past few weeks, trying to find that perfect apartment or small house where my dog Bella, my Xbox, and I can all hang our respective hats when we settle in Pensacola next month. There’s a million apartment complexes to choose from along with tiny 700 square foot cottages. Some are in expensive, safe parts of town that have all sorts of character. Some are in safe, affordable, boring parts of town that would be no headache but I’d have to drive anywhere cool.
Others are on the fringe, sort of in a good part of town, from what I gather, but close enough to maybe a not so nice part of town to make it interesting. There are even some right on the freaking beach, but the commute to work would be a little longer than I’d like and the beach-going partyers would, I’m guessing, surround me for 8 months of the year.
The political cartoonist at the paper sent me this awesome map of town pointing out all the cool, safe neighborhoods that would be within a 10 minute drive to work. But it’s hard making a living decision without physically visiting the neighborhood to get a feel for what it’s like.
November 10, 2014
One of the things I enjoy about social media, in addition to staying in touch with family and old friends, is the constant stream of motivational messages that are posted by people and organizations. Sure, they can sometimes be annoying. But they can also be exactly what you need to hear on certain days.
I’ve seen a lot lately about “staying true to who you are” and “following your passion.”
With that in mind, I’ve accepted a reporter position with the Pensacola News Journal in Pensacola, Fla.
I’m going back to my roots, since I went to grad school for journalism back at the turn of the century in Boston. My first job was as an editorial assistant at the Boston Herald. Later, I was a general assignment and higher education reporter at the Stevens Point Journal in Stevens Point, Wisc.
I have enjoyed learning about business the last year and a half. But I loved being a reporter. A few years ago, while living in Austin and working as a web content writer at the Texas Department of Transportation, I did a small article for a blog in the area. The process of researching, interviewing, and writing got my blood pumping like it hadn’t since I’d left the paper in Wisconsin. It was an overwhelming feeling that hadn’t completely left me.
Over the last couple of months I’d thought a lot about the abandoned dream I had of being a reporter for a magazine like Esquire or Newsweek some day and it ate at me that I’d given up on that. So when the opportunity in Pensacola presented itself, I decided it was worth it to give journalism another go.
The best part is I’ll be covering business, so I’ll get to use all these things I’ve learned in the past year and a half. I visited Pensacola this past weekend and absolutely fell in love with it. All the people I met at the paper were super cool and I can’t tell you how friendly the people of Pensacola are. I couldn’t be more excited to start there in early January.
Plus, living by the beach is probably not the worst thing in the world.
November 8, 2014
One of my favorite parts of the various classes we take is the real-world advice the professors give us. We get so caught up in assignments and projects that we don’t always take the time to step back and take a look at the big picture.
Our Operations core class professor, Dr. Gray, is great at sharing examples from the many projects he’s taken on over the years. But he’s also great at just giving general advice that can be applied to any field.
On the last day of the Operations module we discussed the value of increasing our “intellectual capital,” since we will be seeking to differentiate ourselves the same way we’ll be working to differentiate the products or services our companies provide.
“It’s not about how you dress, what kind of car you drive, or what kind of home you live in,” Dr. Gray told us. “What really matters is how you think.”
He then told us to spend time continuing to work on our own education plan. I’ve thought a lot about this over the last two months, since you really only scratch the surface of business in an MBA program. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard it described as an exposure that is a mile wide but only a few inches deep. I plan on going to most of my professors to get advice on how to expand on all these concepts we’ve learned in the last year and a half.
“I still spent time every day thinking about what articles I should be looking for,” Dr. Gray continued. “What topic should I be trying to learn more about? What projects am I involved in and what areas should I be reading into to help those people who have engaged me to help them?”
“Stay after it.”
My biggest fear is that the subjects that I won’t use every day, like accounting, for example, will fade without repeated use. Continuing education, even if it is periodic review on my own of the basics of what we learn, is going to be a big priority after graduation next month.
October 27, 2014
Back in June of last year I started IMS. Graduation felt like it was 20 years away, even though it was only technically like 19 months away. And every week and month that passed, as we took more and more turns in front of the firehose of information pointed at us that summer, December 2014 just kept getting further and further in the distance. My brain took on a freshman’s mentality, where graduation was so far away, there was no reason to even worry about it.
Even as this Fall 2014 semester started, graduation was just around the corner but it still felt like a far off distance event. Well now it’s less than two months away, and it’s really hitting me. It’s bitter sweet for so many reasons.
I’ve made some truly amazing friendships in a really short period of time. You bond pretty quickly during high stress situations and the stress-relief activities that follow. I was an English major in college and a journalism student in my first grad school experience. So group projects were few and far between. Business school has been a completely new experience. We formed study groups almost immediately back in IMS, since we were getting so much accounting, finance, economics, and business math concepts thrown at us on a daily basis. I spent countless hours in the break out rooms that summer, by myself and with friends, wrestling with credits and debits, net present value, and with aggregate supply demand curves. It’s a special bond you make when you’re struggling to learn information at breakneck speed and sometimes the professor’s explanation makes no sense whatsoever. I’ve mentioned before how grateful I have been for the generosity of time and patience classmates extended to me that summer and in the semesters that followed.
Then the Fall 2013 semester started, and we were presented with a bunch of new people at orientation. And you better believe us IMS folks were a tightly wound clique. But then that new batch of people were all awesome and good, smart people. And we went through that semester, which was one of the most stressful I’ve ever been through. Every class felt like an oral exam. Regurgitating facts was never going to be enough. And then all the presentations we gave in our classes and in our Management Communication class. And we welcomed the “new” people into our circles of friends, camaraderie developed in the classroom, in late evening study sessions, and over laughs on the weekends.
I’ve grown so much over the last year and a half and made friendships that I know will last the rest of my life. From the summer IMS trip to the Cleveland Correction Center for the Prison Entrepreneurship Program to the Spring 2014 trip to Nike HQ in Beaverton, Oregon for Focus Firm, I’ve had some amazing experiences with some amazing people. And I’m really, really going to miss them all.
But at the same time I’m ready for the next chapter of life. I’m ready to use all these newly acquired skills and newly forged confidence. I’m looking forward to hearing about how successful my classmates are going to be. I’ve no doubt there a spattering of CEOs and chief financial officers in the bunch.
I can’t wait to cheer their successes, even if sometimes only through virtual fist pumps brokered by Facebook or text message.
July 21, 2014
I spent the weekend in Austin and it was nice to get away from Waco for a little bit. I got to see a lot of friends and eat a lot of good food, so it was a lot of fun. It has gotten me really thinking about how to focus my job search geographically, since graduation in December is just 5 months away.
I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to go where ever the best job I can find is. The kicker is, I’m realizing how important family is to me and I don’t want to be far away from them. It’s bad enough I’m away from a lot of my relatives, most of whom live in the Northeast. If I get a job outside of Texas, say in California or the Pacific Northwest, I’ll be far away from everybody. My parents are in the middle of trying to sell my childhood home in upstate New York so they can settle full time in their house in McDade, just 30 miles east of Austin.
Meanwhile, over the last seven years I’ve grown super close to my cousin and his family, who live in Southlake, which is in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
So unless the coolest job in the coolest city presents itself somewhere else, I’m aiming to settle down in DFW or Austin. I’ve ruled out anything that’s not in a warm weather state, since I’ve spent a good chunk of my life shoveling snow, thank you very much.
I feel like I’m a senior in college all over again, feeling a little overwhelmed by all the possibilities that are just around the corner at graduation.
July 2, 2014
So I’ve got six months to get a job. This realization hit me a couple of weeks ago, and was quickly repressed. But that time will fly by and if the internship search taught me anything, it’s that waiting until the last minute to begin a serious search is not the way to do it. I need to start hitting up my network like now.
In the spring career and professional development class, we read a book called “The Power of WHO,” by Bob Beaudine. The gist of the book is that you already know everyone you need to know to progress with your career. The biggest challenge is the “what” of the equation. Your friends and family are there to help you, just like you are there to help them. Asking for help is not insincere. That single bit of knowledge was a major world view shift for me, since I always shied away from asking for help because I felt like I would be using people by doing so.
I learned how awesome my network is as the people in my life are doing some pretty awesome things and have some pretty awesome connections, not to mention great advice. And I also learned people you care about will bend over backwards to help you. It sounds simple, but that lesson will probably be one of the greatest things I’ll take away from my time at Baylor.
That being said, I need to start bothering my friends, because I’ve got a busy Fall semester ahead of me and need to start setting the job search ground work early.
March 17, 2014
Until now, I’ve focused my career on being an “individual contributor.” I learned that term over Spring Break during a conversation I had with my cousin, who is a director of sales for Canada and the US for a Fortune 500 biotech corporation. It’s another way of saying “no one reports to you,” he told me, in a conversation we had about being a manager. We discussed the things he likes about being a manager, when he can develop the sales reps that work for him. We also discussed the hard conversations that need to take place between him and his team.
When I was a reporter, I was given the opportunity to apply for the city editor position at the paper I worked at. I shadowed my boss, the exiting city editor, for a day and quickly decided I liked reporting more than editing. At my previous job at a state agency website, my leaving for the MBA program at Baylor coincided with a re-organization that would have seen me supervise a team of writers.
So in short, I’ve come pretty close to having the opportunity to be a supervisor a couple of times. I wasn’t mentally prepared for the city editor gig, because I was more interested in the hands-on work of a reporter than with the higher level strategizing, coaching and managing work of being an editor, although I really enjoyed filling that role to some extent for our interns. At my last job, I think I was finally ready, but I was also ready for something new, altogether, so that one wasn’t in the cards, either.
A big reason I wanted to get an MBA was because of what I’m now learning in my organizational behavior class, which is all about management, leadership, and coaching. The more I talk about management and read about it in my classes, the more I’m convinced that I’m ready, whenever the opportunity presents itself, to take more of a leadership role. Don’t get me wrong, I like getting my hands dirty, but I’d like more of a say in strategy and I’d also like to take on the challenge of coaching and mentorship. I’ve trained a lot of people in my past two jobs, and really enjoy being the go-to guy when questions come up about handling different situations, whether at the newspaper or at the state agency website.
And so that’s been a meandering, rambling introduction to the topic I really wanted to write about in this blog, which is a regular feature in the New York Times called “Corner Office.” Every week or so, the CEO or president of a different company is interviewed about different aspects of management and leadership. I always find it fascinating to read about the different ways these successful leaders tackle hiring, how their management style has progressed, and what they’ve learned from bosses they’ve had.
As I search for a summer internship and ultimately prepare for graduation in December, it’s great to hear about what these leaders listen for in interviews and look for when hiring new employees. It’s also fun to hear the different managerial approaches they take and to see the commonalities that arise.
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