Salocin

End of the Academic Year

Last exam of the year was today, 1:30 to 3:30, Operations and Information Management: Supply Chain Management. It's all over for year one of the MBA. Now we get a 3-month break to make final decisions about the direction life should go in afterwards. Only we're all working during the break, we have money to earn and experience to add to our resumes!

In retrospect, there's always more you could have done to take advantage of the opportunities you were offered. I look back on the last 9 months and I think that I got a great deal more out of it than I did out of any given year at my University or my Masters College. There's still that nagging suspicion, however, that there's something more you could have done to enhance the experience further.

That's probably something to do with the environment in a place like Wharton. With so many clubs and activities, so many things to do on any given evening, so many people to meet and so little time in which to do it, there's always a feeling that by having had to make trade-offs and decisions about where to focus scarce time and energy, you have been tricked into missing out on a great many things.

The truth of the matter is that regardless of all that, I've still made good use of the opportunities here. I have made many new friendships, met very impressive individuals, learned to deal with new situations and - most importantly of all - breathed new life into my motivation to achieve. There's nothing like an MBA crowd to spur you on to greater things.

Next year is all about electives - I get to pick the courses rather than having the prescribed "core" indelibly impressed upon my mind. Positives are that the courses are mostly twice as long, and therefore will go deeper and teach more durably their concepts and ideas. Better than this, I chose the skills and knowledge that I will subject my mind to next year, and this makes me more enthusiastic as I have already thought about the uses I have for these skills. Slowly but surely, a plan is emerging from the blurry, foggy road ahead.

Now if only the economy would emerge from the toilet bowl, all would be well.