Fuqua Days – Holy First Year!

I’ve been back in Durham for over a week now, and it’s been a pretty darn good week. I’m unpacked, the apartment is clean, my life is in order, I’m well rested, and I’ve been catching up with everyone as they trickle back into town after their internships.

It’s almost a little too quiet. The calm before the storm.

I know that in about a week, things are going to pick up a lot. As second year students, we will have four days of some additional leadership activities prior to regular term classes starting on Labor Day. Once regular term classes start, it’s going to be a little crazy for a while. I am on the Marketing Club Cabinet this year as the Corporate Workshop Chair, so I am working to organize several corporate-sponsored events for our club members throughout the fall. I am also serving as a Career Fellow, so I will be helping first year students review their resumes and cover letters as they prepare for their internship searches. Lastly, I am serving as a Teaching Assistant for a couple classes this fall, which means I will help to grade exams and evaluate first year students in their Management Communications course. (i.e. Public speaking course.)

Recruiting kicks off almost immediately as a second year student as well, so that will also be a priority for me. And oh yes, there are classes too. I am taking three courses during term 1, which I know will be plenty of work in addition to my other activities. But they’re all classes in which I’m very interested, so I’m really looking forward to them.

I’m finding ways to manage the North Carolina heat and humidity and stick to my running as well. I’m running the Chicago Marathon in October, so I have reason to stick to a specific training schedule! Some may call me crazy for signing up to run a marathon during the school year, but running is actually what keeps me sane. I make time for it each week throughout the year here, no matter how busy I am with other things. It truly is the one thing that allows me to clear me head and work out some of the stress of school.

I’m off to enjoy my last few days of complete freedom…I’ve got a rough day of shopping ahead of me.

Summer is flying by, and I’m down to less than a month at my internship. It has been going really well – I’m crunching numbers, creating graphs, giving presentations, doing competitive research, attending industry tradeshows…in short, I’m getting all of the experience I had hoped for in a summer internship. I’m working on the launch of a new line of gourmet candy, which has been a blast. Who wouldn’t like to spend their summer researching chocolate?!

We are registering for our fall classes this week. It is definitely great to have the flexibility as a second year to pick all of your classes for the year. I appreciate the foundation that Fuqua’s core classes provided me, but it is very nice to design your own schedule for this year. I surprised myself and opted to take additional Finance and Accounting classes. While the core Finance and Accounting classes were not easy for me, I realized I still want to learn more in each area. Don’t get me wrong, I will not be making any career changes to Investment Banking or anything like that – this girl is a Marketer, through and through! But even Marketers need a strong understanding of the financial side of business. Maybe it’s just so we know how much money we have to spend on extravagant ads and promotions??

Another perk of being a second year: a guaranteed parking permit for a lot closer to Fuqua. The parking lot assigned to first year students isn’t really that far away from the building – it can just feel like a long ways when it’s 90 degrees and humid. Or when you’re running late for class. If any of the incoming first year students feel inconvenienced by the Green Lot, feel free to contact me and I will be happy to give you my parking permit for the 751 Lot…with a price, of course. The going rate is rides to school every day with front door drop-off at Fuqua, including a drive-though at Dunkin Donuts on the way for coffee. I think that seems fair. 

See you in one month, Durham.

Three weeks down of the summer internship. My thoughts so far? I learned a lot more in my first year of b-school than I realized. It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day schedule at Fuqua and lose sight of just how much you are taking in from each class. I know I was not the only one this year who completed certain courses and thought, “Well, I’m glad that one is over. I bet I won’t ever really need to know that material for my job, and even if I do, I won’t remember it.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, in so many ways. First of all, in just three weeks of my internship, I have already directly applied material and insights from my classes. Yes, even stuff from those classes that I never thought I would need again. As much as I balked at some of the FY core classes, I am now appreciating how the structure of Fuqua’s curriculum provided me with a strong quantitative and qualitative foundation. As I work on the launch of a new retail line of gourmet candy for my internship project, I have already directly used concepts from my Consumer Behavior, Pricing, Statistics, and Market Intelligence courses.

Secondly – and this is the coolest part – I actually know what I’m doing. Apparently a lot more sunk in this year than I realized, because I’m now tackling data analysis with confidence and spouting off facts from consumer behavior studies like I’m an industry expert. Now, I know I am certainly not an expert; I will always have more to learn. But Fuqua provided me with the solid breadth of business skills needed to effectively work on actual business initiatives.

Lastly, I’m realizing this summer that I’m not necessarily “glad it’s over.” While my internship is only a few months back in the working world, it does remind me that the vast majority of us will have more than enough time in the working world over the next 40 or so years, but Fuqua is only two short years. The first year went by in a flash, and I am now realizing that I don’t want to rush to put any classes behind me, even the ones that I might not initially think will be as relevant to my career. I want to fully embrace and appreciate my second and final year at Fuqua, academically and otherwise.*

* “Otherwise” = Including, but not limited to, ridiculous amount of themed/costume parties, Fuqua Fridays, Around-the-World dinners, Fuqua Prom, and Luau. I can’t wait for second year.

One of my best friends came to visit this weekend. In an attempt to free up my weekend, I spent most of the week trying to get ahead in classes so I could spend the weekend with her. Now, “getting ahead” in classes is a pretty difficult task, considering I find it challenging just to stay on track with everything on a day to day basis. Nonetheless, I gave it my best shot throughout the week: I read ahead in my Pricing class and submitted notes to my team for our group case analysis, I met with a teammate and worked through a Pricing exercise, and I met with my Decision Models team to get a head start on our upcoming assignment. While my friend basked in the sun poolside Friday morning at my apartment complex, I headed off to an 8:00am Product Management class and then spent a few more hours with my Decision Models team, getting as much done as possible on our assignment.

By Friday afternoon, I decided I needed to disengage from the class aspect of Fuqua and my never ending “to-do” list and just enjoy the weekend with my friend. We attended a Marketing Club-sponsored session Friday afternoon where a Fuqua alumnus spoke about her experience doing international marketing with Unilever and SABMiller, and we then headed off to Fuqua Friday. After some food and socializing, we grabbed frozen yogurt on our way home and then headed to a birthday party for some of my classmates. Saturday we had a lazy morning with coffee and oatmeal, followed by some shopping at the mall. The sun was out by the afternoon, so we walked through the Duke Gardens and by the Duke Chapel. We headed to LASA’s White Party in Chapel Hill Saturday night, and then Sunday morning was a mad dash to make it to the airport in time for her morning flight.

Somewhere in the midst of strolling through Duke’s picturesque campus, enjoying good food and good conversation at Fuqua Friday, and getting to hear a prominent alumnus give a candid and humorous discussion of her career path, my friend turned to me, smiled, and said, “So THIS is grad school?” My initial reaction was to explain to her that she was only seeing one aspect of grad school, that she wasn’t getting a true picture of the class work and stress and hectic schedules that we all have to manage on an ongoing basis. But then I realized that everything she was seeing and experiencing during the weekend are also very real elements of business school. They are elements that can often be overlooked or taken for granted in the midst of other stressors, but they add just as much to our Fuqua experience as the classroom and professional aspects. And while the stress we feel is very real, let’s face it: business school is a pretty great two years that offers some amazing opportunities to really get to know your classmates, spend some quality time with them, and just have fun. So yes, THIS is grad school, and thanks to the perspective my friend provided, I received a much-needed reminder to enjoy every minute of it.

Beep. Beep. Beep. I switched the alarm off and contemplated crawling back into bed, but instead stuck to my plan of getting in a run before my morning class. Running clothes on, a couple quick bites of a banana, and I was out the door. I ran my usual route around the Duke East Campus trail, which seems to be busy with runners and walkers at all times of the day. Being from the Midwest, I continue to marvel at how conducive the Durham weather is for running, even throughout much of the winter.

After a quick shower and breakfast, I headed to campus – with a stop for coffee along the way, of course. I chatted with several classmates before our 10:30 class about everyone’s plans for break. The topic for today’s Strategy class was international expansion, and we had a great discussion about Procter & Gamble’s decision to introduce a line of high-end skin care products to various global markets. It was particularly interesting to hear from the Japanese students in the class, as Japan was a major focus of the case we studied.

I grabbed my lunch out of the fridge and met with a second year student in the Fox Center to discuss her internship experience. It was one of the many lunch meetings I’ve had recently with second year students to learn which companies will be the best fit for me. After lunch, I headed off to my 1:30 Management Communications course, where my team was giving a presentation about the restaurant industry. I got drilled with a couple of questions from the TAs during my portion of the presentation, but fortunately I knew my material well and was able to give some solid answers. (At least I think so!)

Class wrapped up at 3:45, and I then headed to an interview prep session with the Marketing Club. The second year students in the club have done a great job of helping the first years get ready for the upcoming interview season. After learning about how to approach case interview questions, I spent some time in the Fox Center, reading for tomorrow’s Marketing class and catching up on emails. At 6:30, I headed to an Advertising Evaluation Workshop presented by Johnson & Johnson. Some of the recent Fuqua alumni at J&J showed us what an effective advertisement and why, which will certainly be important for those of us heading into Marketing careers.

I used my drive home to catch up with a friend, and then relaxed in front of the TV for half an hour while eating dinner. The break was short, though, as I had problems to work on for Finance class and some announcements to create and send out for an upcoming Culinary Club event. I wrapped up the evening with some more email catch-up, and then called it a night around midnight. I am more than ready to crawl into bed, especially because I know I have another busy day tomorrow. Good night!