Let the Tests Begin

It's that time of the semester again when tests start showing up.  This semester is going by fast, I can't believe midterms have arrived already.  I had one test yesterday for Dr. Kali's Emerging Markets class.  The test was a normal Dr. Kali test, several short essay questions.  If you are interested in international anything, I would definitely encourage taking this class along with International Management.  These two classes pair together nicely.

I have another midterm on Monday for Accounting, very exciting.  The following week I have a couple more and then things settle down for a bit.  Next Wednesday is the annual Center for Retail Excellence Conference.  There will be some good speakers at this all-day event, including Walmart US CEO Bill Simon and Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald.  Most of the MBA class will be attending this event, so if you're there look out for us.

Exciting Busy Week

This week has been pretty interesting and it's only Wednesday.  The Razorback football team is 3-0 after beating Georgia in an exciting game that came down to the last 15 seconds.  This moved them up to #10 in the AP Poll.  This Saturday they will be hosting the #1 team in the country, Alabama.  This is the first time since 1979 that to top 10 teams have played in Fayetteville.  The game will be nationally televised by CBS.  Kickoff is at 2:30 CDT.  As you can see, the week holds still more excitement.

Monday night we had our annual internship poster networking event.  Each MBA Candidate prepared a poster of their summer internship and stood by them as employers and others walked around to examine each poster.  The event is hosted by the Walton College Career Center (W3C), they did a great job putting it all together.

Tuesday was the College of Business Career Fair which was held in Willard J. Walker Hall.  The building was packed.  Prospective employers were stationed on the first two floors of the building.  There were around 70 companies represented at the event.  This was one of my best career fairs.  Usually I just walk around mingle with the company representatives and grab a few goodies from their tables and move on.  However, this year I went a little more proactive, pushing my own agenda.  I had resumes in hand and a nice elevator pitch to boot.  Many of the companies there were looking for interns and undergrad students graduating in May.  As I went around pitching my spiel, I told them what I was looking for and they stood there thinking where I would fit into their companies instead of vice versa.  I think made some good contacts.  I am hoping to have standing offers before the end of the semester.  That may be optimistic with the current economy, but you gotta stay positive.

Friday I am headed over to check out JB Hunt.  They are interested in hiring up to five MBA students to bring into their managerial development program.  This could be a great opportunity for our class. 

From my perspective it appears the job market may be improving.  We have many talented folks in our MBA Class, and I'm sure we'll all have offers by graduation.  Again I am being optimistic.  I do believe that some people in the current MBA Class will go on to do great things.  Only time will tell.

4th Week of Fall

This semester seems to be flying by.  It's already the beginning of the fourth week of the semester.  We're almost a fourth of the way through the semester and mid-terms are just around the corner.  Classes are going alright so far.  Leadership and Ethics are taught by the same professor and are both very interesting.  Accounting is accounting.  Nothing fascinating but necessary in the world of business.  We're starting our first group project in that class this week.  Emerging Markets is also interesting especially since I took International Management this past summer.  The two classes provide unique perspectives.  Consumer Marketing Research is very hands on.  We have to design a research project and execute it this fall.  The big class I have for this fall is New Venture Development.  We are still exploring ideas for that class, but we have a very capable team.  All-in-all the semester is coming along as expected.

As far as work goes, it's been busy.  Working part-time makes it difficult to get things done.  I've also taken on more responsibility lately.  The experience will only help in the future as graduation gets closer.  The job hunt is also starting to hit full stride.  We have a couple networking events coming up, and recruiters are coming on campus.  We'll see if the job market is recovering first hand.