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May 29, 2006
New York...
I've been in New York City since Thursday, and I am having a fabulous time. Since the day I arrived, I have had to dive head in to everything that is going on, and only today have I had enough time to sit back and reflect upon it all.
My arrival was a bit rocky. I spent a ridiculous hour-and-a-half in NYC traffic in a SuperShuttle from JFK Airport. Our driver held us captive in the shuttle forever as he inefficiently drove around in circles within a 5-mile radius dropping us off at our destinations in a seemingly random order.
A little frazzled but still excited, I arrived at my Midtown East apartment-style dorm, and dumped my stuff off. Although small, the room I share with my roommate Grace has a nice view and enough room for the both of us. My biggest complaint is that we don't have a full length mirror or a trash can. Anyway, I immediately discovered the 99 cent store across the street and headed there to buy cheap hangers and other first-day purchases. It was there that I experienced/witnessed my first NYC racially charged encounter. Basically, a Latino store employee was pestering a Black woman customer who was knocking things over during her frenzy of 99-cent shopping. Within five minutes, they exchanged a slew of horrendous racial epithets, and no one else in the store seemed to notice or care but me. It honestly reminded me of a scene from Crash. It wasn't pretty.
Saturday was my SEO Orientation and it was intense! Just to give you an idea of the hours, I left my apartment at 5:45 am and didn't get home until 9 pm! However, I can honestly say it was worth every minute. We had lots of phenomenal speakers that talked to us about survival in corporate America, the key to great networking, and the cultivation of outstanding work habits. SEO has extremely high standards, but from what the alumni have told us--and demonstrated through their success--is that the SEO Way definitely works. Some examples of SEO Philosophy is that we are expected to "work harder, faster, and ask for more" than the other employees at our firms. We are to arrive at least 20 minutes early to work and to every SEO engagement. We must make it a habit to be the first in, last out at work, receptions, etc. I was thrilled about getting SEO, but after being here and surrounded with 402 other amazing students of color has made me truly honored to be a part of SEO. I know that the lessons I am learning and the experiences, contacts, and friends I will gain through SEO will tremendously improve my readiness for graduate school.
My roommate Grace and I get along really well. We laugh a lot, have fairly similar socializing habits, and have plenty to talk about. She's doing the Accounting program in SEO, so we'll have a fairly similar work schedule.
I start work tomorrow, and I'm really excited!
Posted by kaneisha at 03:18 AM | Comments (0)
May 19, 2006
The Next Steps--and word from Stanford GSB
Hi, everyone! Since I haven't quite figured out how to include real pictures, I thought I might give you a peek at my oh-so-cute avatar. That's pretty close to what I look like, and once I figure out how to get pictures on here, I will surely start prettying up this blog.
So I graduated! It was wonderful taking a ridiculous amount of pictures with my friends and family, and my dinner--while a bit hectic--was also very nice. Click here to see some pictures! I was also honored to win a number of awards. I received the Black Studies Dept. Prize as well as the prize for the Outstanding Thesis in Black Studies. I was also awarded the Ada May Fitts prize, which is awarded annually to "a woman member of the graduating class for outstanding intellectual leadership and influence on other students at the College". I was really honored because the award comes from a nomination by your peers. Overall, my three graduation prizes ended up being a $1000! This is really great, because I wasn't even expecting this money and now my savings account is replenished from a year of too much shopping. Although it was really hard at times, going to Pomona was a really great choice for me. If anyone has family members in the college admissions process, Pomona College is a great place for them to consider.
Saying goodbye to my boyfriend was hard, but I'll see him in no less than 53 days--not that I'm counting or anything. We've embarked on the dreaded long distance relationship, and it hasn't been easy so far. Kevin's 8-5 work schedule combined with the 2-hour time difference makes talking on the phone a little of a hassle. I need to get in the swing of doing all the romantic activities that the guidebooks to long distance relationships suggest. It'll be like we're courting again. (Yes, I said courting)
The drive home from school with my dad was fun. It seemed to drag on towards the end, but we enjoyed snacking on convenience store food, commenting on the desert scenery, and trying to see who could hover around 10 miles above the speed limit the best. One of my favorite games we played was "Let's try and get wireless internet." Once one of us got connected, we would try and drive near whatever source we thought was transmitting the signal. My main interest in getting internet access was that I was waiting for my decision from Stanford GSB.
After multiple failed attempts at driving alongside the FedEx truck to check my email, I finally called my boyfriend and asked him to check for me. It was a no. I figured as much since I hadn't received a phone call from them. Basically, they admitted very few applicants from the waitlist this round. I was disappointed only minutely. It was more of a satisfaction of my curiosity of whether or not I got in. I'd been encouraged to keep my options open, and now I know for sure that Stanford is not an option.
So it's final! I'll be going to HBS for Business School, while also pursuing a joint MPP degree at the Kennedy School of Government. I'm glad to finally have it decided, and now the next step on my B-school journey is to get it paid for! I plan on applying to the Zuckerman Fellowship which is a generous full-tuition scholarship (with a stipend!) for joint degree students between KSG and other graduate schools. I was a semifinalist for this one before I had to withdraw my application. Since you can't defer funding like that, I was applying in the wrong year. I also applying to the Reynolds Fellowship, which is also full-tuition with a stipend for students interested in social entrepreneurship. Since I wrote my thesis on social entrepreneurship and won a prize for it, I'm very hopeful about my candidacy.
So now that I'm home, I've been spending time with my family, my friends, and preparing for NYC. I found out that I will actually be interning at both ABFE (Association of Black Foundation Executives) and HIP (Hispanics in Philanthropy). They're in the same building, so that facilitates collaboration. I contacted Dan, the intern who worked there last year, and he was absolutely in love with the place. He gave me the very good news that I will have great two great bosses, my assignments will be interesting, and that I get free lunch everyday! My housing at the School of Visual Arts is also a mere .4 miles from my internship, so it's really just the best thing ever. I am really excited about this summer. I think it's going to be great.
Shopping for work clothes has been an adventure. Although I consider myself pretty fashionable, I really did not know what was appropriate for work! I bought a whole wardrobe of clothes and had 80% of the items vetoed by my friend Kevin Curry who has been in the work world for a few years, knows my sense of style, and is young enough for me to listen to his advice on work attire. However, yesterday I had a very successful shopping day at Target, Gap, and Old Navy buying high-quality and cute clothes for work. Part of the issue is that I have very full thighs and a fairly small waist, so clothes that fit my waist were stretched thinly (and apparently inappropriately) around my thighs. Thanks to Gap's Curvy line, I found pants that flatter my figure. Now all I need to buy is shoes and belts.
By my next entry, I will be living it up in New York City!
Posted by kaneisha at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)
May 11, 2006
The Final Days before Graduation
Senior Week was fabulous! My house was aptly named Heffa House, and all the seven of us (and our guests) did was eat, drink, scream, and laugh the entire four days. It’s a Pomona College tradition that all the seniors rent beachfront houses for the week before graduation. My friends and I were able to make our Senior Week experience memorable, fun, and affordable. Zack and I opened up a bank account to be as responsible as possible with everyone’s cash, and it worked out really well. Once we get our $500 security deposit back, we will have only spent $200 each for four days of beachfront housing and endless food and drinks.
My boyfriend also came down for one night, and we went to the San Diego Zoo with my friend Martie, who is a “travel agent” and got us a fatty discount on the pricey $32 admission tickets. The three of us had a great time ogling the giant pandas, gorillas, and elephants (Did you know that the way to distinguish African and Asian elephants is that the African elephants have the large, floppy ears and the Asian ones do not?). Now I’m back on campus, and it’s time to pack up my room, spend my last few precious days with my boyfriend, and get ready for my family’s arrival and my college graduation.
Some more exciting news is that I finally received my firm placement for SEO, my summer internship. I’ll be interning at ABFE (Association of Black Foundation Executives) and HIP (Hispanics in Philanthropy). I had to do some investigation to figure out what the acronym ABFE stood for, and in my search, I found an article written by Dan, a junior at Harvard who interned there with SEO last summer. Hopefully, Dan can give me some insider tips on what it was like to intern there, and I especially want to know what the dress code is. For our weekly seminars and any kind of all-intern gathering, the dress code is business formal, meaning suits in no other colors than black, navy blue, or gray. It would be really great to know that I don’t have to go out and buy 5 suits (one for each day and then start all over again) when I will surely not be wearing them in Ghana, and I am really excited about the prospect of going out and buying cute (and professional) business attire.
Another really wonderful thing about my interning at ABFE is that it is a mere .4 miles from my apartment, meaning that I can walk to work, and save loads of money on transportation. It also means that I don’t have to completely free myself of my horrible habit of going back to my room several times for forgotten items. My job is less than half a mile from my job! I am so excited about living in NYC this summer in my air conditioned apartment that is half a mile from my job.
Today I had a delightful lunch with Shobha, a second-year here at Pomona who heard about my getting into HBS and wanted to talk about applying to Business School. It’s funny—among all the advice I was giving her, I didn’t tell her to read my blog and follow my journey! It looks like I need to do more to market myself and our website in general. I’ll be sure to let her know to check it out, and then she’ll be really excited when she sees this paragraph all about our lunch! Anyway, I was really excited to hear about her interests and accomplishments, and I am excited about keeping in touch with her throughout her own MBA journey. If she continues to be assertive and as ambitious as she was in finding me and having the talk that we did, she’ll surely seek out and gain the experiences and support needed to get in as an undergrad.
I will receive my grades tomorrow, and that’s when I’ll draft my “I’m still interested! Let me in!” letter to Stanford GSB. I’m not sure if waiting this long to communicate my interest will negatively affect my candidacy, but I will be able to wow them with excellent grades and the fact that I won First Place for the Outstanding Black Studies Thesis award! I was very honored, and the award made me even more proud of my work. I got to present my thesis and read the introduction at a fancy and intimate awards banquet of Black Studies faculty and staff. The ceremony was short and squeezed in a very busy day for me, but it made me feel very special and reminded me of how many people have helped me accomplish my goals and pursue my dreams.
For those of you out there reading, whether it’s today May 10, two months from now, or two years from now when I’m starting my MBA, thanks for following my journey and I’m excited about continuing to share it!
Posted by kaneisha at 06:19 AM | Comments (1)
May 01, 2006
It's all coming together...
So the last time I wrote I was pretty frustrated because there were so many things I didn't know about my future plans. I still don't have all the answers, but I've got some things out of the way which makes everything seem a little easier.
My thesis is done!!! Just to remind you, it is titled "Sisterhood Agenda: Black Women, Feminism, and Social Entrepreneurship." It was really exciting to finally get it bound and to know that I had written a little book. There are lots of things I could do to improve it and to make it just that much better, but it jsut had to end at some point, and I am very satisfied with the end product. I would be very excited to continue working on it in the future.
I mailed off my University of Ghana application. I'm applying to the MA in African Studies, which would be a wonderful complement to my Black Studies undergraduate major. I could finish it in a year, and also take advantage of being in Ghana to learn more about African history, politics, culture, and philosophy. I have a wonderful contact in Accra, Ghana who has been helping me through the application process. She's a Rotary scholar from Japan, who is doing a Masters at UG right now. I'm crossing my fingers that my application will arrive to her apartment in the next few days and she can walk it over to the admissions office and seal the deal for me. I will be supremely disappointed if my application doesn't make it to Ghana by some mailing mishap. I didn't make copies of my materials nor did I get any kind of mail tracking service, so it will be completely on me if the application doesn't get there. Let's just hope it does!
I've gotten my graduation dinner invitations printed and handed out! Now it's time to wait for the RSVPs to trickle in and for me to debut my Wish List, an elaborate PowerPoint presentation that highlights my top choices for graduation presents. I got the idea from my boyfriend, who is even more picky than I am about gifts. Hopefully, it will be well received and useful to my guests. It's been fun making it, and it will be even more fun getting the presents!
Yesterday, I made a whopping $160 selling my junk at the 2nd Annual Senior Sale at my college. It was really fun convincing my fellow classmates that they desperately needed my stuff. My girl Shadiah and I definitely made more money than anyone else, and we also had the tables closest to the free food at the BBQ put on by the RAs. It was fun and very profitable. I know B-school is much more sophisticated than lessons in hustling, but working the yard sale definitely made me excited about learning the ins and outs of Business Administration.
At my college, classes end a week early for the seniors, and the tradition is to rent a house on the beach in San Diego to lounge on the beach and party our last week of college away. I'm really excited about my house, which will house 7 fabulous people and several guest stars who will pop in and out throughout the 4 days we'll be in San Diego. We are definitely a group of people with very strong personalities, so my goal is to try and be as laid back and relaxed as possible so as not to contribute to any potential explosions or showdowns. I was in charge of budgeting our money, so I opened up a checking account with my friend Zack to collect everyone's cash. Zack and I figured that for $350, we'd provide an all-inclusive package for the 4 days which would be all-you-can-eat-and-drink and housing. To be honest, I'm most excited about the food and drinks, the board games, reading on the beach, and screaming at the TV screen while we watch bad movies.
On that note, I need to go study for my Math test and finish up that PowerPoint, so I can be completely carefree by the time Senior Week rolls around and it's time for cocktails and beach BBQs.
Posted by kaneisha at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)