Hi All,

 

I am sure most of you are frantically scrolling through Amazon to see what weird Valentine gifts you can purchase for your loved one(s) [if the (s) portion of “ones” applies to you please respond with details, I imagine there is a crazy story there].

 

Thank you to everyone who is responding to my electronic mail messages, it warms my heart to hear how everyone is doing!  That being said, let me kick this off:

 

Interviews are Ridiculous – Correction, I am ridiculous in interviews.  I realize my capacity for being mature and professional has a finite limit which is about…90 minutes of interviewing in a day… If that number is exceeded, ridiculous things can happen for instance:

 

Samsung Case Interview:After totally bombing out the basic math portion of the case (by bombing, I mean I failed to successfully multiply 25 by 45) the following conversation took place with the interviewer.

Interviewer:  Nick, out of curiosity, what was your GMAT score?

Nick: It was 7##.

Interviewer: Oh… so you can do math.  Alright, well do you have any questions for me?

Nick: Absolutely, Samsung will or will not provide calculators to its interns…?

Interviewer: Uh… we will.

Nick: Okay, I am pretty much set then!  Thanks!

 

Medtronic Interview (4 of 5):In a marathon, career fair-style session, I had to interview for almost an entire day last Friday.  In the home stretch, the interviewer asked “How would your close friends describe you?”  to which I immediately responded “They would say I have gray hair…”  After realizing that was NOT what she was looking for, I tried to battle back… but it may have been a little moot at that point.

 

Next Planned International Trip (for now) … South Africa – For one of my courses, I (and 3 classmates) am going to be helping the African Management Institute (AMI) develop a strategic marketing plan for how to expand their mission and reach throughout the continent.  Generally, they want to provide managerial education to the middle managers of Africa.

 

While I am incredibly excited about the opportunity and the focus, there was one moment where I realized ‘holy smokes, this is crazy’.  When having our first call, the manager of the program said her goal for the program was to have 1,000,000 managers paid and enrolled by 2023 (10 years …. See, I can do math!).  When I asked how many members they have currently (hoping to hear 990,000), she said… 300 members but 2000 people visit their website a month.  After I picked myself up off the floor after being knocked over in shock by the goal, we continued the conversation.  If we even get close to that number, it will be a huge success…. I’ll keep you all in the loop!

 

Outside of my humorous little anecdotes, things have been going tremendously well.  I love being in school, living in the warm Bay Area, and getting to spend time with fabulous people every day.

 

Good luck trying to convey your love and devotion to your significant others via heart-shaped candies!

 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Nick