Summer break

One of the great things about being back in college is getting more time off.  Summer classes ended on August 18th and we don’t have to go back until Sloan orientation starts on the 31st. 

It’s nice to have some time to unwind after the busy summer and Kerin and I have taken the opportunity to do some local touristy stuff.  Yesterday we spent some time exploring the bike path that runs through Somerville (the town next to Cambridge).  Today we walked the Freedom Trail, a Boston tourist must see.  Later this week we plan to visit Newport, Rhode Island.  We’ve been there before but it’s a really cool place to visit.  I especially like the cliff walk, a three mile trail along the ocean with views of some incredible mansions.  Next weekend we’re going up to Sebago Lake in Maine.  A benefit of living in New England is being less than a two hour drive from so many interesting places.

Sloan orientation starts a week from Monday and runs for four days.  We get a long weekend for Labor Day and start class on Wednesday September 9th.  I’m taking seven classes in the Fall so I’ll be busy, but I’ll find time to update the blog. 

Committees

I don’t know how to say this, but committees in LGO are kind of a big deal.

Students in the program are able to influence decisions, shape curriculum, and create change through a variety of committees.  Committees cover topics like new partner company recruiting, social events, leadership,  annual plant trek, and others.  I joined three committees this summer and will give you a general idea about what each of them do:

Leadership – Responsible for a variety of tasks and events relating to the development of leadership skills for the class.  This summer our committee planned the Leadership Reaction Course event, provided advisors to summer teams to improve team skills, and will lead a leadership lab activity next week.  Leadership lab is an opportunity for members of the class to talk about specific experiences in order to teach their peers.  Our session next week will be a discussion of working in union environments.  The members of our class that have worked with unions will answer the questions of those who haven’t.

Professional Seminar – This committee organizes speakers to come to campus and speak to our class.  We look for leaders of various organizations to give us their perspective  and share their experience.  In the next few months we will have a CEO,  a school administrator,  a variety of business leaders, political figures, and others share their message with us. 

Internship – Work with partner companies to identify internships for the class.  This summer we created a survey to poll the class on the types of jobs, locations, and industries we’re interested to work in.  Over the next several months we will work with the partner companies to align their needs with our skills and interests, hopefully resulting in internships that are meaningful and impactful. 

There are many other committees that others in my class are running.  It’s a great way for us to improve the program and give something back.

Meet my summer team

To give you an idea of the people in LGO here’s a brief bio for my summer teammates:

• Manuel – Graduated from Rice University in 2004 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.  He worked for Shell Oil in Houston, TX for five years before coming to LGO. 
• Asvin – Came to Boston from Florida where he was working for a strategy consultant.  He also worked for Anheuser Busch for three years.  Asvin has an Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Florida.  He hopes to work in product strategy after graduation and is especially interested in the medical device industry.
• Steve Wessels – Prior to LGO Steve was working for UPS and living in San Diego, you can read all about him on his blog. 
• Natallia – Is a Nuclear Engineer originally from Belarus.  She was working for GE in their Global Nuclear Fuel division before starting LGO.  After the program Natallia wants to return to the nuclear industry in a project management role. 
• Emily- Was living in Boston prior to the program and had been working for Osram Sylvania since 2005.  She has a Chemical Engineering degree from Bucknell and her hometown is Greensboro, NC.  

Here’s my team during a bonding experience at Outward Bound.

Crunch time

We have less than two weeks to go in the summer semester so things are officially ‘hectic’.  I can’t believe the time has passed so quickly.  It seems like only days since I dusted off my Voltron trapper keeper and my Scooby Doo lunch box and went to my first day of class.  Fast forward eight weeks and this is what’s left for final projects:

• A final systems optimization project including a ten page paper and fifteen minute presentation.
• An operations management presentation based on the experience of one of my team members.  We have to evaluate the scenario on leadership, business process, and feedback mechanism.
• A competition for our statistics class where teams of students have to use design of experiments methods to maximize the hang time and landing accuracy of a paper helicopter. 
• A final exam for statistics class.
• A final team evaluation paper for the performance of our summer team.
• A final process improvement assignment for high velocity organizations class where I have to evaluate a situation at my prior place of work and determine how it could be improved.

That all wraps up on August 18th and you can be sure our class will have some steam to let off.  I’m looking forward to the party but until then I will be finding out how much sleep I really need to function.  If my next blog post includes something like “ahdf;ldsajlfkdasdfhioew” you’ll know I passed out and my head landed on the keyboard.

The social stuff

LGO is not all work, we get to have a good time too.  As part of our summer bonding we have thrown a number of happy hours, picnics, parties, and other excuses to forget about homework. 

Boston and Cambridge both have some great bars and with most of us living in the city getting together after class or on the weekends is easy.  None of the social events are required and people go to the ones they can make. 

Cool things we’ve done this summer:

• Watched the 4th of July fireworks at the MIT sailing pavilion on the river. 
• Small groups of people took weekend trips to New York City and Cape Cod, and other New England spots
• Celebrated a number of birthdays in many different ways
• A handful of Saturday picnics (there’s one today)
• Happy hours with our class, and mixers with people in the SDM program, and people in the MBA program
• Free concerts at the hatch shell on the river
• Variety of different “theme” parties
• Lots of other stuff I’m forgetting

Taking the time to hang out outside of class has helped us get to know each other and keep our sanity.