OK, I know I’m a few days late on finishing up my recap of last week’s trip to NYC, but this has been a busy week. I’ve been trying to get a lot of things finished before flying down to St. Martin for a much needed vacation. I’ll be down there for a week and, when I get back, I’ll only have 1 ½ weeks left before I pack up my car and start that crazy 3000 mile drive to California.
Anyways…now to round out the recap, here’s my rundown of the Goldman Sachs Camp. This was a hell of a trip to NYC.
Thursday and Friday: Goldman Sachs Camp
Going into the GS Camp, I didn’t really have much interest in going into Finance, but I wanted to at least give them a chance to tell me about their business and convince me to look at it as a potential career path. The thing that struck me the most about the camp was the number of people they’d invited to attend…more than 100 minority MBAs came from several top schools to hear what they had to say. GS brought out their best and brightest from all of their divisions to give us presentations about what they did and the type of people that they were looking for. Two areas in particular interested me: Operations & Finance (because my background in technology would position me very well for a spot in that group) and the Urban Investment Group (because that group handles investments in minority-owned businesses and real estate projects). Unfortunately, many of the presenters used finance terms that went totally over my head so I felt like I needed to have a certain amount of knowledge beforehand to catch everything. In the end, I knew enough about the banking industry to know that I wasn’t really interested in doing investment banking or trading, but I could definitely go into a bank’s Operations group…if they offered me enough money to make me turn away from Consulting J I’m just thankful to have gotten the invitation to the camp and the hookup on a hotel room (because hotel rooms in NYC are EXPENSIVE!!!)
That’s about all for now. I hope to have Internet access at my hotel in St. Martin so I can write an entry or two from there. If not, I’ll take a bunch of pictures and post them in here when I get home.
OK, I know I’m late with posting this entry. I had to drive out to the country to visit my mother so I could fix my uncle’s computer. Now that I’m back, I can get to the run-down of these events.
Wednesday: The Bain Pre-MBA Program and Goldman Sachs Welcome Reception
Going into the Bain Program, I already knew that I would apply for an internship there (along with McKinsey and BCG) because I want to go into strategy consulting after school, so I saw this event as a chance to get some insight into the company. Little did I know that the Bain folks would completely win me over that day…their event was off the hook. Basically, the Bain program was one-day event intended to give a set of Black MBAs an introduction to the Consulting industry and Bain as a company. I knew several of the other attendees (including a few members of the MBADiversity.com Forum) so it was like a big reunion of folks I’d grown cool with throughout the application process.
The session started with welcome statements by Modupe Akinola (Bain’s Head of Diversity Recruiting and Professional Development) and James Root (head of the NYC office) followed by an overview of Bain given by Dave Sanderson (a partner in their LA office). This is the point where they got me because Dave explained that Bain was a company that not only worked on devising a strategy for a client, but also worked through the implementation of that strategy. I think that sort of client work will give me the strongest learning experience as I approach my future career as a CEO. Another high point of the day was the Consultant Panel, in which 6 current Black Bain consultants shared their experiences working there. Later, the CFO of Bad Boy Entertainment, Derek Ferguson (a former Bain Manager), gave the keynote address and showed me a glimpse of what could be coming for me and other kids in my position in the future. Toward the end of the day, a Manager named Dave “Coop” Cooper did a presentation on interview skills that will be really helpful when it comes time for all of us to apply for jobs with the company. And, the last part of the day was a case interview workshop, where I learned that I have a LOT of practicing ahead of me if I want to get a job at a place like Bain…case interviews are a different beast than I’ve ever had to face before. After the closing remarks, there was a cocktail hour where a bunch of current consultants interacted with us to share their experiences and give advice…and, best of all, there was free sangria and wine there, so your boy was REALLY happy with that :-). I’ve got to give a huge shout out to Modupe and the other Bain folks who helped throughout the day. They earned a huge fan in me and I will be HURT if I don’t get an internship or full-time job offer from that company. They don’t have a DC office (which sucks because I want to be close to my fam in VA), but I’d be willing to be in NYC or Atlanta so I could work in a Bain office.
At the conclusion of the Bain event, several of the folks in attendance had to make a mad dash down to the Southside Seaport area of NYC to hit up the Goldman Sachs Camp welcome reception. I ended up piling into a cab 5-deep with some of the other kids. Halfway to our destination, the cabbie looked back and realized that we had 5 people in there are gave two of us the boot. In all of the commotion, my cell phone fell out of my pocket and none of the 3 remaining kids in the cab noticed it. I don’t know about any of you, but my cellie is like my second heartbeat, so I thought I was going to pass out when I noticed it was missing.
At any rate, we all eventually got down to the reception and had a great time. Goldman invited over 100 soon-to-be first year minority students and it was wonderful to look around the room and see all of the diversity in there. The crowd at the reception included some of their summer intern and current employees. Best of all, they had a full open bar with top shelf liquor available to all in attendance for free…another reason for me to be grinning ;-). After the loss of my cell phone, a few drinks did a lot to help mellow me out. This session was more of a meet-and-greet thing than a true informational one, so we all just hung out with each other and vibed. At the end of the night, a bunch of us gathered in the hotel bar and did more talking and networking. I didn’t really have much interest in banking going into this event, but it felt good to know that I’d be surrounded by a bunch of cool cats while I was taking in all of the info that GS had to offer.
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It's past 1:00AM, so I'm going to catch some Z's. I'll try to get the overview of the GS Camp written up tomorrow.
It is now almost 2am and I just got back home from a trip to NYC a couple of hours ago…I am EXHAUSTED!!! I went up there on Tuesday morning in order to attend Bain & Company’s Pre-MBA Summer Program for Black first-year students on Wednesday and Goldman Sachs’ Camp for Minority Students on Thursday and Friday. Like I’ve done after my earlier trips, I’ll break everything down based on each day and what went down...
Tuesday:
I took the bus from DC to NYC on Tuesday morning with my friend Maya and we immediately ran into problems when the bus company had to ask the stand-by passengers to leave the bus at our second stop so reserved customers could board. Apparently, there were 2 or 3 cats on the front of the bus who lied over and over about having reservations and wouldn’t leave the bus. It took the driver and another guy from the bus company over an hour to get those guys to get off the bus and fill in the rest of the open seats with reserved folks. By the time we got going, we were 90 minutes behind schedule, but the driver was able to make up some time during his drive and only got us there an hour late.
After checking into my hotel in Times Square, I met up with one of my NYC peoples (Nakisha) to hang out for the evening. I had gotten word the night before that Puffy Combs is producing a new “Def Comedy Jam”-like comedy show and was doing tapings all week long, so I got on the list for tickets for one of the Wednesday night tapings and we went out to Brooklyn for it. The line was looooooong and it was hellafied, lazing hot and muggy outside, but the show was worth the wait. I haven’t laughed that hard in I don’t know how long. And, the host of the show is Doug E. Fresh, which, like any other true hip-hop fan, had me amped up by default. It was a great show and, best of all, it was free and that made me smile because I’ve been trying to save money everywhere I can. I believe the show is going to be called “P. Diddy Presents The Bad Boys of Comedy” and will be released straight to DVD. If you have a chance to check it out, it would be worth the time to do so.
Following the show, we caught the subway back into Manhattan and grabbed dinner…at 11:30pm. I hate eating that late, but that’s the way things go in NYC and there were a million and one restaurants open at that time. New York is a city that never shuts down. By the time I got back to my hotel, it was around 2am and I was beat-down tired. It’s a good thing I had no trouble getting to sleep because I had to check out of the hotel at 7:30am on Wednesday so I could meet Maya and walk over to the Bain event at their Times Square office.
OK, I’m tired, so I’m going to hit the sack. I’ll continue with my recap of the Bain Camp that went down on Wednesday sometime in the morning.
What's up, y'all. I know it's been a while since I wrote an entry, but that's because I wanted to make sure I had something worth writing...and, after this past Friday, I do. That day was my final day at FGM Inc and I'm officially unemployed and I'm probably the most happy unemployed mofo in the world right about now :-D
My last month at work was brutal because I was given almost no tasking during that time. I guess my managers didn't want to give me anything that I wouldn't be able to finish in my last weeks, so I spent most of that time at my desk trying to look busy. Basically, I spent 4-5 weeks chatting on IM, surfing the Web, catching up on emails, and calling people to pass the time. I know that sounds like it would be fun, but it is torture to have to drive 35 miles every morning to sit at work and let your brain atrophy. Also, I think I wrote about how I'd heard that people were talking trash about me because of my impending departure, so that made it tough as I approached my last day.
On my last day, I knew that my deputy program manager (He isn't the one that was talking junk about me earlier...he's the guy directly below the program manager who had been talking ish) had planned a going away lunch for me, but I didn't expect to see more than 4 or 5 people there. Boy did I have that wrong...a whole gang of folks came out to show love for The Kid. We started off with 9 people, but people just kept showing up and, when it was all said and done, there were 25 people in attendance. That may not seem like much, but the company only has about 220 people, so I had over 10% of the company come out to send me off. When i left the office that day, I really felt like most of the people I'd come in contact with there appreciated me and, despite the few haters, I think I will be able to look back at my time at FGM Inc. with many good memories. I'm going to miss a lot of the folks I worked with, but I know that the ones I care about will be pulling for me as I make this next step in my career development. Now, I have to get used to life without a paycheck...and I'm terrified of going back to being a broke mofo for a couple of years :-(
What's going on, y'all. I know it's been a while since i've done an entry, bt that's because I've been super busy recently preparing to end my job (Next friday is my last day) and make my move out to Cali.
Now that I an nearing the light at the end of the tunnel for my job, it has started hitting me that I am going to be super broke with no paycheck coming for the scond half of July and all of August. So, I've been trying to curtail my spending and put some money to the side to take care of myself until I get my loan funds in September...but I've been failing miserably. I've had car issues that I've had to pay for recently, moving expenses that I've been covering (boxes, tape, etc), and going out with friends of mine in the DC/VA/MD area that I'm trying to catch up with before I go.
This weekend is giving me the biggest financial hit of all because I'm in Philly for one of my boys' wedding, in which I'm a groomsman. I'm writing to you from my hotel room and I'm so hung over that I can barely see straight. my boy's bachelor party was last night and it was off the chain...I won't give details about what went down, but I can say that I spent waaaaaaaaaay too much money. I dropped $200 last night and I've still got to cover my tux that i'm picking up today and my hotel expenseswhen I check out tomorrow. By the time this weekend is over, I will likely drop $500-600 on it all.
If I would have known how expensive it would be to be a good friend before going to school, I would have made sure to have a falling out with all of my peoples so I could save $$$ :-)