Monday Jul 27, 2009
Around this time four years ago, I decided that I wanted to seriously pursue a MBA degree. I spent time researching programs and visiting schools. I talked to colleagues about where they went and how they balanced school with a full time+ job. (I always add the + for jobs that are web related b/c the Internet has no business hours.) In the Fall of 2005, I studied for and took the GMAT exam that most MBA programs require for admission. I worked tirelessly on essays to try to somehow properly reflect my experience, skills, and interests on a couple pieces of paper. I applied to one school.
Yes, I said it. I applied to one school.
I trusted my research. Babson College is an extremely well respected business school in the US Northeast and has rankings that compete with the big boy, nationally known schools. I knew it was the place for me. Even though I didn't diversify my grad school applications, it worked out fine. On a business trip out in November 2005, I received a call welcoming me to the school. I immediately had that very-excited-oh-my-now-what-have-I-done feeling.
I attended my first MBA class in January 2006. I decided to kick things off with a Statistics course. While stats was never a favorite of mine, I found that I sorta liked being back in school. It didn't hurt that I somehow managed to get the professor to make some baseball references now and then. (Think Moneyball.) Fast forward 57 more credits to my last class in May/June/July 2009. I took a Mgt Information Systems elective about Networks and Platforms. The class was amazing and included cases on Facebook, Amazon Web Services, how APIs are used in Gaming Platforms, and other brand new topics.
Operation MBA is now complete. It wasn't easy. It didn't kill me. I am still somewhat stupified that I'm sitting here and writing that I'm finally done. (Yes, I feel that it's totally ok to use an urban dictionary word while talking about my MBA.) If this were a Hollywood awards show acceptance speech, the conductor of the orchestra would be playing music right about now to get me off the stage. Just like the overwhelmed tearful actor in this position, I'll quickly conclude with a list of people I'd like to thank for getting me to this point:
- Dan, my husband, who slightly nudged me toward the MBA. When I say nudge, I mean he told me to stop talking about doing it and just do it. Our house didn't clean itself while I was doing school work. No matter how done I thought a paper was, he could always find at least one error. He still makes jokes that he hopes to retire early. (Not in this market, dear.)
- The faculty and incredible evening graduate students at Babson. I learned equally from both these groups. I also took an outstanding leadership course at the Babson Executive Education Center. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in further education.
- My un-PHB manager, Will. I couldn't have had a more supportive manager. He's been there, done that with the MBA + full time+ work operation. My coworkers also deserve credit for putting up with me when I came into work after a great class and was ridiculously overeager to share with them.
- Finally, my parents, three sisters, and friends for putting up with my insane schedule and occasional not-so-cheerful-ness due to lack of sleep. Both of my grandmothers have college degrees, not a common thing for my generation. Both my parents have masters' degrees. I'm honored and proud to be part of that group.
Friday Apr 03, 2009
I work in Sun's web engineering group where we live and breathe the web. The group is based in the Bay Area but also has staff across the US and in England, Czech Republic, and Sweden. About a year and a half ago, folks in our group started to use Twitter at the urging of Rama, Linda, and Will (da boss).
I'm the only person on our team in the US Northeast. I've found that since I started using twitter, I have learned more about my coworkers than I ever could have with other, less instant, online collaboration. I know when a coworker is having a tough day (car issue, sick kid, etc.). Twitter is my water cooler. Believe it or not, Twitter also has work related benefits. I've learned about new technologies and seen tweets about coworkers accomplishments that I wouldn't see in my day to day job. One drawback? This poor blog is lonely.
Wednesday Aug 27, 2008
All political views aside, I was inspired by this video. I'm proud my parents constantly told me that I could be anything I wanted to be. I never bought into the theory that there is a glass ceiling for women until the past few years, when I had more insight into how politics are at play in management of a company. I now agree that there are times when a glass ceiling may exist ... but I still believe that I have the power to transcend it.
Monday Jun 30, 2008
Operation MBA continues at a rapid pace this summer. I'm taking 9.5 credits, which translates into two nights a week and some Saturdays in class. In July, I'll even be there two Fridays for an intensive class. This doesn't include the school work I'm supposed to be doing outside of class. They have some out of whack expectation that we should be doing 2-3 hours of preparation for each hour in class. Can the powers-that-be at the business school do basic math? That means we're supposed to be doing 12-18 hours of work outside of classroom time. For evening MBA students who work full time, how is this possible?
In other news, someone thought I was an undergrad today. A small ray of sunshine in a work and school filled day. Note to self: Wear flip flops more to look younger.
Saturday Apr 12, 2008
Congratulations to Linda Skrocki for being named as one of the seven leading Social Media Evangelists!
Some other reasons why I <3 Linda:
- She peer pressured me to blog and got me addicted to Twitter
- We share a love of animals, expensive coffee drinks, and baseball (ok, I'm still working on that third one)
- During business trips, she does her best not to close her eyes or use the imaginary passenger brake when I'm at the wheel of the rental
Monday Mar 10, 2008
I have a giant exam tomorrow night for one of my MBA classes, Financial Accounting & blah blah blah. I need to know how to do some of the standard methods of depreciation, bonds valuation, lease calculations, bad debt estimating, etc. Just when I was about to give up and use the fingers crossed study method, the professor said we could bring in a sheet of paper. In my opinion, any exam for MBA students should be open book/open notes, as that is how the real world is... but I'll certainly settle for a single 8.5x11 piece of paper as a cheat sheet. So, like any good middle school student would do, I spent most of last night taking my 5 pages of critical hand-written notes and putting them into a word processing document. The results: 5 pages hand written notes equals 1/4 of my sheet of paper. On the agenda tonight: Figure out how to do bond and lease problems.
Friday Mar 07, 2008
I was online super early this morning to register for classes. When I checked last night, were 4 seats left in the business negotiations class I wanted to take. I hit the register button the minute that registration opened up. I remember there is no way to browse and select from the open courses. Search is the only option. I search for, "negotiations," in the course field. No luck. I try it in the keyword search. No luck. I'm losing precious time. I finally try searching by the course number. Bingo. I select the class and am met by giant red letters that the class is closed. Errrrrr. I quickly select my backup class and the other class I was planning on taking. Now, I'm sitting here wondering if I should contact the registrar's office to explain to them how unfriendly their course search is.
Monday Feb 18, 2008
My golden retriever, Riley, retired from the Northeast to Florida three years ago. No, he didn't pack up and decide it was too cold up here. When my parents retired, they took him with them. Sometimes, when I called my parents, I'd ask how Riley was doing before I asked how they were. Oops. I missed my dog terribly but Riley really loved Florida. He didn't care that there were more ticks living in my parents lawn than in the entire state of Massachusetts. All that he cared about was how the thick grass would scratch his back every morning. He enjoyed the cool tile floors. He would become excited, yet ticked off, when golfers were on the course just beyond his back yard.
Riley turned ten a month ago. I probably shouldn't admit that I called him to wish him a happy 70th birthday. Even at age 10 (or 70, depending on how you look at dog years), Riley still had his puppy like moments. He'd steal a pillow off the couch or bring you a shoe if you weren't paying enough attention to him. When I saw him this past Fall, he tripped over his own feet in sheer delight when I picked up his leash. (That same FL trip was also when my Dad, who was channeling Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer, told me I was ruining years of doggie training because I was somehow walking the dog incorrectly. Ha.)
Rumor has it that Riley was named by one of my sisters. I thought the name was ok. I actually didn't care. Once I got over the shock of my younger sister unexpectedly bringing home this new puppy (that her short-lived boyfriend had bought her), I was so excited to have a puppy that I didn't care what his name was. I always called him my Yellow Dog. He was a dog and he was yellow. Yellow is the color of sunshine, which is warm and bright and brings happiness. Yellow Dog suited Riley perfectly as a nickname.
A week ago, Riley was diagnosed with cancer. Today, he went to the big doggie park in the sky. I'm engulfed with sadness and my heart aches. I don't know what it is that a dog can do to you. Their unconditional love. Their desire to please their owner. Riley did that to me. He brought light, happiness, and yellow to my world.
Friday Nov 30, 2007
When someone finds out that I'm going to school to get my MBA, I tend to get three distinct reactions:
A. "You are getting your MBA? That's great!"
This usually comes from a person who is either just plain nice or has completed their graduate degree a long time ago and is secretly thinking, "Better you than me." Hence, the enthusiasm.
B. "Oh, that is nice."
This is from the person who has no idea what an MBA is.
C. "That sucks."
This is typically said by another student who is also pursuing their MBA.
Lately, I have been listening to music while I'm doing work work or school work (and not in a meeting for one of those). My recent favorite is this.
Thursday Sep 06, 2007
Typical conference call. Typical Thursday afternoon.
Me: Blah blah blah. John Doe, do you agree?
John Doe: [silence]
Me: John Doe?
John Doe: [silence]
Me: John Doe is on mute.
John Doe: Sorry about that. I was on mute.
Me: No problem.
John Doe: What were you asking me?
Tuesday Jul 24, 2007
Would you share your bike?
Yes, I think it's a cool idea.
Yes, it brings me back to a traumatic part of my childhood where there was a big ole orange flag on my bike, similar to the pink ones in the photo. My parents finally stopped replacing it when they got the hint that I mysteriously kept "accidentally" breaking it.
Tuesday Apr 10, 2007
Doodle is a tool that can aid in finding a good meeting time for multiple people. I just heard of it and I'm sure others exist. I like this one b/c no registration/authentication is required.
Don't forget to take time zones into account. Nobody wants to work outside their business hours, right?
Thursday Mar 22, 2007
Puma sent me an email that my new sneakers shipped. They will arrive today. I can't wait to get home and see my bundle of joy on the front steps. (Actually, I'm going to get an automated email from the shipper the moment they touch down at my address.) Just a couple years ago, we'd order something and "just wait" until it showed up. Now, I can watch my sneakers' journey home to me. Ah, the miracle of life.
Wednesday Mar 14, 2007
I had a break through tonight in my never ending struggle to balance work and school. No, I'm not (well, no longer) an intern. I'm about a third into my MBA. Most nights, I end up sitting at the computer asking myself work or school? Yeah, there's really no need for me to do a full day of work and then come home and do more work, right? Not with the current workload we're all pushing out. Typically, both work and school each have an important and semi-urgent item that I really *should* do that night and I normally try to do both. Since I'm currently taking two classes, school is screaming louder tonight. the solution? Close all work applications. Email, IM, browsers with wiki pages, etc. You would think hitting that red x in the upper, right hand corner would be easy. Not so much.
Tuesday Jan 23, 2007
Nobody ever submits a ticket or calls a help desk b/c they are happy. They have an issue. Sometimes (most of the time?) they are ticked off. Who always answers the phone on the other end? Your help desk technician.
People who man help desks have a rough job, one that I don't think I could have the patience for. Those folks are also completely unappreciated. I spent an hour this morning with a Sun internal help desk technician, who worked with me to resolve my printing issues. This guy was so incredibly patient with me, especially as I trekked back and forth to the printer. He was also very friendly. I wondered how he could have such a positive attitude. I need to start drinking whatever he drinks.
On a good note, I probably don't have to work out today because of this printer issue and all the running back and forth. We recently had a printer consolidation across Sun and my new printer is no longer right outside of my office. It's for the best. I sit at this screen far too much anyway.
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Awesome job Liz! Congrats!
We are all very proud of you for your accomplishme...
T...
That's my Girl... Lizzy [A.K.A....proud Daddy]
Liz,
You are amazing.....I am so proud of you and...