ONE-YEAR AT GOIZUETA: ERIN NUSBAUM REHM – Don’t Even Blink
So now we are on to Block 2. Finals took place last week, though it is hard to even call them finals when it feels like you’ve only begun, and what followed was a 4 day break for America’s Independence Day (which coincidentally felt like MBA14’s day of independence as well!). One would think that all this togetherness time with our classmates would surely lead to some quality alone time, time non-business school friends or even family. What silly thoughts. A group of 20 or so of the One Years traveled to the beaches of Charleston, South Carolina for the long weekend to continue spending time together even when not required. It proved to be a ridiculously fun and somewhat relaxing weekend, preparing me for Block 2.
Some of the Charleston crew, enjoying a night off:
During Block 2, we are taking many of the classes one would associate with the “business school experience”: Marketing, Finance, Accounting and Leadership. We are also continuing our Management Practice (MP) class from Block 1 into Block 2. The MP classes in Block 1 provided the essential framework for the Block 2 project: where we take a real life problem in a real company, and attempt to solve it. More context: a manager at a local corporation, who also happens to be a Goizueta Alum, came to our class with an issue she is currently facing in her role at her company, and it is up to us to present our best solution to her issue. How cool is that?! In a way, MP class is the most relevant to our careers so far because we are tasked with a poignant issue, given framework, context and a few resources, and challenged to solve the issue to the best of our abilities.
Amidst the new classes and the ongoing MP project, we are still working to prepare ourselves for recruiting season (much like spring training, but less physical). Each one of us has had an individual mock interview with our career coaches, and we are preparing for alumni mock interviews and networking sessions taking place in the next couple of weeks.
Another consistency between blocks is our team structure. We are lucky to have the same team all summer, since everyone is getting to the point of efficiency and maximized value with their teams. During the first few days, everyone was polite. Then we discovered our differences. Then we struggled with those differences. Now we are at the point where we know each other’s strengths and urge each other to take risks. We are at the brink of optimization, and it would be a shame to have to start all over again. I will speak more about my team in the next post (because honestly, they deserve their own post) but until then, shout out to Team 2!
Though Block 2 only began today, I know that in four short weeks, or the blink of an eye, I will be at final exams once again, wondering where the time went and how my caffeine dependency got even worse than before. But, in keeping consistent with my previous posts, it will be 100% worth every moment and I look forward to the challenges that will surely be presented.