Just got out of my MIS final and now I have a break that is much needed for about a week. My only final left in class is my Organizational Behavior one next Wednesday and I have a take home Operations Strategy one. Needless to say – the semester is almost over and I can see the light at the end of the finals week. I started the Operations Strategy final last night and that will take quite a bit of time but it won’t have the pressure of sitting in a class without notes so I can live with that.

The break starts today though – and I am thinking some volleyball around 4 to kick off the long weekend of studying and working on a take home final. We have played a number of the past weekends and have steadily improved if I may say so myself. Volleyball is just the latest in the number of sports we’ve all tried out over the course of the past two semesters. We had basketball as the original (which might be making a comeback on Saturday), an introduction to cricket, a softball team with so much promise that fell apart due to a game rescheduling and now volleyball. The best part about volleyball is no one is really good at it. Sure, some people are more athletic and understand the game a little bit better – but no one has been playing forever like basketball and ends up just dominating the games. On the flip side though – there are usually no Greg Fockers either:

After volleyball it will be a quick shower and change though as we have this semester’s progressive dinner. The progressive dinner is where a professor hosts the program for dinner at their house and we get to interact in a purely social environment with everyone else. Last semester we had more of a progression traveling to three houses but this time we are just going to Ken Buckley’s house out near the lake. Apparently we can hit some golfballs into the lake off of a cliff so even though we didn’t win the golf tournament maybe a long drive title into the lake is in store? This is going to be a good Thursday and great start to the weekend.

At least something will cheer me up from the Patriots inevitably trading both of their first round picks.

Well the waiting game finally ended. (Not completely for class yet but I’m still taking finals so that makes sense). After countless applications, resumes, a number of interviews and a ton of stress – I ended up getting 2 offers for internships within a week’s time. One week I was worried that I wouldn’t get an internship and then the next week I was debating which one was a better fit – not necessarily the worst dilemma but one nonetheless.

I was offered one position in Houston and one in Austin – I am choosing the one in Austin for a number of reasons but I think either place would have been great. Austin offers a lot more to me in exposure and comfort (was not looking forward to humidity in Houston) and I think there might be more of an opportunity to join the company full-time after I graduate. I am very curious to see what the summer brings and what kind of project(s) I work on. I will be doing primarily marketing at this position but I think it should pose some challenges as well. It has been interesting to be exposed to a number of internship possibilities and choose ones that are a bit challenging. One of the main things I have been learning in the MBA program is challenging myself and my comfort levels with certain subjects and areas of business. It makes no sense for me to just do work I am comfortable with and know already. How is that promoting growth? If we want to become the best business leaders we can, that notion of challenging ourselves is vital.

With this waiting game being over though a new one begins. What will I be doing specifically at the internship? Will I like it? Will they like me? There are a ton of questions yet to be answered and I will have to wait to find out. I guess I can say initially they like me because I was offered a position but what will I have to do to keep that?

First things first though – I need a place to live so I am heading back to searching for an apt. in Austin but hopefully can figure that out this weekend.

So usually everyone works FOR the weekend but this one should be very different. Between core 2′s working on focus firm and many of us working on an OB project – the work should continue through Sunday. This isn’t necessarily the worst thing though – after this weekend, most of us will essentially be done with these classes and only have to focus on the other classes for the last week and a half. They are both pretty much semester long projects that have taken countless hours but I know at least for me has paid dividends.

For our OB project we were student consultants for a local Waco business and spent time interviewing employees about the organizational structure, leadership and reactions to change that can be seen on a day to day basis. It was a really interesting opportunity to sit with people and ask them point blank what works and doesn’t work in the organization the work for. It was also really interesting and pleasantly surprising to find out that management and employees didn’t differ much on their perceptions of the company.

With focus firm I am assuming it is a bit more in depth (check back next semester for updates on that from me) but they are working on a project for a international company and doing more of market research and then presenting findings on that. I am just happy I don’t have both of these projects going on simultaneously.

Also this weekend will allow for some time outside of the Hankamer building with the annual golf tournament on Saturday afternoon. There are about 20 of us playing  in the tournament grouped on our differing skill levels. I am definitely looking forward to this as golf is probably my favorite pastime on weekends and Saturday looks to be pretty good weather. We’re playing at Twin Rivers which I played last weekend to get a feel for and it should be a fun time. There is plenty of water too so I can have a Roy McAvoy moment:

Hopefully I will remember to take pictures for once and can upload some on Sunday.

Easter weekend was great and like Spring Break, couldn’t have come at a better time. To start off the long weekend I celebrated the great weather on Thursday playing some beach volleyball at a friend’s apartment complex. I hadn’t played in a long while, since I live in Malibu for college, but it was just as fun and a great way to kick off the “break”. Thursday night I put on a pair of cowboy boots for the first time and learned how to two-step at Wild West with friends from the program. It was the first time I really felt immersed in a stereotypical Texan situation but was fun nonetheless.

Friday and Saturday were scattered with half studying/writing papers and half watching the Masters. (Who am I kidding, it was like 70% watching the Masters and typing parts of a paper every 30 minutes when there was a commercial). On Easter Sunday, which was also the final day for the Masters, I got up and went to St. Peter’s in the morning with a friend from the program for Easter Mass. Although there are a lot of other religions present in Texas it is good to have a strong Catholic base at St. Peters. After church it was time to tune in to Augusta. I had a buddy stop by to watch the final round with me and predict what would happen (not a smart thing when watching golf, it never works) but still had a good time.

Monday was a special treat. Having the Monday after Easter off is something I had never experienced but welcomed with open arms. Its odd, I have been attending Catholic/Christian school as long as I can remember but for some reason Baylor is the only school that gives that Monday as a day off. I treated it like a Friday, sort of. We had a group meeting in the morning where we got a great deal of our Organizational Behavior project done and put a dent, albeit a tiny dent, in the paper. Then came the fun part. I headed out to Twin Rivers to play golf with 3 guys from the program. You could say we were inspired after the Masters or just wanted to gear up for the GBA golf tournament on Saturday. Regardless, we didn’t need much of an excuse to play with how nice it was.

It was a great weekend that was made that way by classmates in the program. I did a ton of different things over the four and a half days and there were people in the program I could do all of them with – definitely makes life easier when you know someone will always be up for one of the activities you’re trying to do. Speaking of which – a bunch of us have an intramural softball game tonight so time to get some work done before that.