Yesterday, was one of the best days of my MBA

Yesterday was one of those days where everything just seemed to click into place. If only Butler had beat frickin' Duke, the day would have been perfect. Yesterday's highlights:

• Managed to pull together a financial negotiation with another team in hours after we found out that our results were due a day earlier than what we had scheduled for, stuck to our guns based off of our financial evaluations, and walked away from a pretty good deal (that probably did go down in real life) when the other team wouldn't budge and we thought they were taking advantage of us
• Really started to understand venture capital term sheets after having written our own as an assignment this past weekend, and negotiated with a team representing the entrepreneurs based on a real life deal. On presenting our results to the class, the VC who actually made the deal cut all of us to shreds when we'd done something stupid... I started to get it, and realized how little I had actually understood this entire process - learned more from one assignment and the subsequent class than I had the entire preceding semester
  
• Started to grasp the underlying methodology for alternative investing (PE, Hedge Funds) in a mindset that had never occurred to me in the slightest before in a seminar taught by the guy that started Goldman Sachs' PE practice. As a bonus, he told us how he'd gotten to that position in what ended up being a pretty fascinating life story... Also provided a mantra for a mindset on life:

  "you never know where life will take you, so don't be afraid to go there"

• Went to a meeting with Sloan's IT division to find out that a lot of stuff I'd been pushing for for a year will get done soon, and even more cool things that I couldn't have foreseen
  
• Post-MBA plans got a lot more solid, and in a very good way
  

Profiled

"So, nearly everyone will choose the economic maximizing choice except for a small portion of the population that feels like they're being cheated and values their self-esteem more. These types tend to be young to middle age males, who are slightly aggressive, and have worked in B2B sales."

- Prof. Tucker (said in a British accent).

Pegged. I chose the option she predicted.

Back to Class

I am on to my second semester at MIT Sloan amidst a snowstorm that could drop up to 7 inches on Boston. I'm actually pretty stoked to be back. Class is much more refreshing than consulting internship interviews and interview prep. On that topic, I have to miss my first day of Finance I to go to an interview. When will it end!

Best late night after-class snack

So, after coming back from school at 10:30, like so many days before, I came upon a brownie with chocolate drizzled on it sold by Hershey's. Out of curiosity, I bought it, through it in the microwave, and voila, the best late night after-class snack ever... accompanied by a glass of milk.

A student once again

Yesterday was the first day of class... Exciting.

This also represented the first major homework assignment, which after going through, and seeing that my numbers didn't quite add up how I expected, solicited feedback from my roommates. We ended up drawing and arguing the whole thing through on our recently installed white board until we figured out. Our collective efforts are proudly displayed to the right.

Feeling quite accomplished, I headed out to a barbecue/party near Central Square.