But, before I get into that, I'm obviously very excited for football season. And, since I am from California, my teams of choice are not highly followed here in Boston so, I'm making sure everyone knows where my loyalties lie. This weekend is the big USC vs. Ohio State game and in order to be as supportive (aka - obnoxious) as possible, I'm going to start wearing USC shirts to school tomorrow for 4 days straight. (Don't worry, I have plenty of USC shirts to wear and not have to re-wear a dirty one!) Also, in the NFL realm, some of us LFM Xers (10s) are in a Fantasy Football league and I'm excited that I won the first game of the season. Off to a good start, which is better than the Chargers did.
Ok, enough football, I could go on for pages.
Classes!
So, if I could offer you one piece of advice (besides wearing sunscreen) for those who are here next summer, it would be to take time in the summer to learn about the classes you can take for your engineering degree. I chose my engineering major as Engineering Systems because I thought it'd offer me the best opportunity to take classes that interested me, and aligned with my career plans. Once I got here, however, I realized that I had really strong interests in Logistics & Transportation and the ESD program didn't give me exactly what I was looking for. The great thing about LFM & ESD is that I've been able to take the initiative to shape my own program with this focus. While it's definitely a good thing, it's also bad because I've had to meet with various people to negotiate classes that would form a good course plan for my engineering degree. I unfortunately, have been scrambling and doing this for the past week and a half since Registration Day. It would have been time VERY well spent if I'd done a lot more due diligence before classes started. While it's intimidating to look at all of the options out there, it's much better to do it when you're not being e-mailed daily asking how things are coming. :) Fortunately, tomorrow, I should be able to get all the signatures needed to finalize things. Phew!
So, what am I taking?
Well, all first year MBA students at MIT participate in the Core Curriculum, as LFMs we take Accounting, Economics, Communication for Managers & Organizational Processes with our core. Non LFM students are also required to take Finance or Marketing and Data Model Decisions in their first semester, we take DMD in the summer, and can take Finance/Marketing at a later date if we want, depending on our schedule. On top of those 4 courses I am taking 1 Sloan Elective - Power & Negotiation and 2 Engineering Electives - Logistics Systems and Logistsics & Transportation Planning Methods. It's a bit of a heavy course load and I think I'm going to regret it at many times this semester, but the nice thing is that the classes do actually feel very practical and a lot of the professors seem like they'll be very engaging (which also helps!).
Another highlight of the first semester of the MBA program is the Core Teams. Just like in the summer, we are put in study groups with other individuals in our cohort that we're to work with on group projects and help each other learn the core material. The LFM students are separated so you are the only LFM on your team. It's always a nerve racking experience meeting the group, but I'm really pleased! My group, the Caribbean Cranes, has been productive in all our meetings and are working together real well up to this point.
On that note, I'll leave you with a photo from one of our team building events during orientation week.
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