Preterm & Orientation

Preterm (optional) was last week. I have been so busy trying to settle in that I have not time to blog. It seems as if there are one and a million things to get done. I had signed up for Data, Model & Decisions, Accounting, Economics and Finance preterm classes. After the 1st 2 days, I confirmed that I didn't need to attend the DMD class. The work I had done previously in Statistics was more than enough. This I would have found out if I had done the diagnostics like the MBA Office had advised us to. But I had my hands full over the summer and had decided I would just attend the class to find out. One thing that really impressed me was that MIT had the preterm classes broadcast on one of their cable channels which is available for free if you live on campus. I actually watched one of my classes at home when I had to stay back to take delivery of my furniture. That was so cool. Even though most people know MIT as a quant school, I also think that they have a very strong ability to pass that knowledge to less quant people.
By the end of the week I was exhausted. Its hard being a student again.

This week was more fun. We started off on Monday with a welcome speech by the President of MIT which was really great and straight to the point. We were then divided into our cohorts and I must say that my cohort is the most fun group. My MIT Sloan colleagues are really down-to-earth, diverse, funny and unpretentious. They are also not afraid of trying out new things. Some really have great accomplishments but they don't brag about it. We played so many games this week and I must say I had a lot of fun and even tried stuff outside my comfort zone. Even though the Career Development Office have started working on us already, its being done in a seamless fashion with our core curriculum. I must say that I am impressed by the collaborative nature of the faculty and MBA office to ensure that we all succeed.

As part of the orientation week, we also had some case studies sessions, one of which was on Nike and globalization. The next day, we had a session with the Head of Compliance at Nike to discuss the issue as well as answer some of our questions.

Two sessions that stuck out in my mind were the Law & Leadership sessions. We were given a couple of real life scenarios and the opportunity to brainstorm about what we would have done in those situations and then we were given possible solutions. The sessions were very informative especially if you are an international student and you are not familiar with US laws.Bottom line: make sure you walk the line of integrity so you don't end up in jail and be careful about the company you keep. When in doubt, ask a lawyer.

One other thing I learnt this week was that no-one was taken off the waitlist this year because the yield was much higher than expected.