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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 May 11, 2006 06:19 AM
Comments
Hi Kanneisha,
Congrats on all of your accomplishments. I ran across your blog in my search for information on young women and entrepreneurship. You noted that you finished your thesis on Sisterhood Agenda: Black Women, Feminism, and Social Entrepreneurship.
I would love to dialogue with you more about your research, thesis, etc as I am a Doctoral Student in Education and I am starting my non-profit organization in Chicago where I will be working with African American women in the areas of civic engagement, advocacy, and leadership.
Additionally I won the Albert Schewitzer Fellowship where I will be developing a project to work with African American women who are wards of the child welfare system (DCFS) and implementing a program that identifies the barriers that these women face as they transition into independence and womanhood. I would love to pick your brain and discuss your research as it may assist me in formulating and developing my projects more concretely. Please feel free to contact me. I am truly proud of you.
Sonia
Posted by: Sonia at May 18, 2006 05:29 AM