What the Wednesday?

We were warned. We were told. "Your Wednesdays are 'free', but they are not 'free'". It's all fine and dandy to hear a current student tell you that at a recruitment info session. It's another thing to watch all your 'free' time quickly vanish. No complaints though. This is what I asked for and what I wanted. But here is a quick run down of what happened today:

8:30 I am a slave to routine. I could sleep in, but the habit of getting up in time for a class at this time of day is hard to break (nor would I want to). It gives me a chance to catch up on emails, review what is happening for the next few days and maybe sign up for upcoming events. It's like our mid-weekend, a good time to prepare for the course work for the upcoming classes. It's a good time to get that MPO or FIT reading out of the way, or review those Econ notes I didn't fully get a chance to appreciate (and write a math blog post about).

10:30 Meeting with my team. Although we have a great group of people, I'm feeling a bit worried about our time constraints. This quarter is evapourating very quickly (a common theme I'm noticing) and I'm concerned that we aren't where we need to be. However, our team (despite a relatively slow start) quickly gets into gear and within minutes we are having very energetic and passionate discussions about ideas for our project. We create a fantastic idea for our Foundations of Integrative Thinking presentation and the momentum requires that Poonam to furiously write the ideas on the blackboard that her team mates are throwing at her. After a whirlwind brainstorming session, our team has finally settled on a great idea and has already moved on to how our model can be used to explain CEO compensation (more details after we present)

12:20 Rotman Ambassador interview. I've applied to be a Rotman Ambassador, which is a position which allows us to participate in the recruitment process by giving potential students an insiders view on Rotman. I've done this before, for both McMaster Engineering and RIM, and feel like it would be natural for me to continue. After all, it was through talking with other "Rotman Ambassadors" (I don't know if they officially held the title, but they certainly acted in that capacity) that I was so attracted to the merits of the program.

1:00 Resume Drop in clinic. This may be one of the few items which I can front load. It appears my resume seems to be in decent shape, but it's nice to get a second pair of eyes.

2:00 Case prep team. Wow. This "little team" has grown quite a bit. We've gone from three (Neesha, Fei and myself) to about nine or ten and I've already heard some whispering in the grape vine that there are more people interested. We did some basic case prep and decided we'll stick to market sizing questions for now until our group normalizes and warms up before we start tackling the more complicated cases. Katie was phenomenal in giving some advice (she clearly has had some experience before) and between all the input in the room, we came up with some great preliminary strategies for how to tackle cases (beyond what is given in the Wetfeet and Vault guides).

3:30 International Study Tour interview. I applied for the study tour in the Middle East (UAE and Jordan). As I mentioned in my Rotman application, I want to get into Private Equity and M&A advisory, but have a particular interest in emerging markets (as the most likely place to find high IRRs for projects and investments). It was probably the most difficult interview I've had in a while and I actually think I didn't perform as well as I could. I am certainly impressed (border lining on intimidated) by the caliber of the questions asked. It would be a fantastic opportunity to go, both in terms of what I would get out of the experience as well as what I think I could potentially offer to the program through my participation.

4:00 Meet up with our financial accounting prof, Franco Wong (no relation), as our Section's Rep. He asked to talk about his mid-quarter review. There are no major issues in our class and the students seem to like him and his style well enough (which is true of all our classes). We did talk about that incessant buzzing noise which seems to only plague our class room, but I've already spoken to the PSO and they'll be talking to us about it in class tomorrow. It's a signal transmission problem caused by... 'phones with data service'. Our room is like a Faraday cage, and gives phones just enough signal to connect, but loses that signal just as quickly. The constant connecting and disconnecting of phones induces a charge in the cables, so even if the speaker system is off, it will still create that insufferable clicking noise.

5:00 Google! This will get it's own post (which still doesn't do the presentation justice).

6:30 The details. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. It's surprising how much time these essentials eat up.

9:00 Go to Rotman to read Stat's (for our upcoming quiz).

10:30 Finish readings, but decide I'm too tired to read ahead and go home. Start blogging.