"...I can see aaaaalllllllll obstacles in my way..."
I'm back in NYC and the weather is actually somewhat agreeable for once. It is still a little humid, but it's not as unbearingly hot as it has been in the past few weekends that I've been back. I might actually be able to venture out this weekend without feeling like I'm about to pass out at any given moment.
Last week, I wrote about crunchtime coming up on my project and it is definitely imminent now with the final deliverable being due a week from today. I originally thought that this past week would be hellish for me, but, honestly, it wasn't that bad...I've had much harder weeks earlier on during this project. Things were probably easier than expected this week because I'm waiting for inputs from a couple of teammates to put into my section and there was quite a bit of waiting for stuff from them. While waiting, I was able to get other work done, so it all seemed to go smoother. Also, I left Ohio on Wednesday at lunchtime to come back here for my LASIK surgery and was out of commission until yesterday morning, so that time off also gave me a chance to get some extra rest in. Next week is it though so there is going to be some heavy grindin' to make sure we don't miss our deadline and don't have to work into the latenight hours from our respective home offices next friday. Also, I've goto to make sure that I put my game face on this coming week because it's my last time with my Senior Manager who will be the primary one that decides whether I get a job offer after the internship. I'd better make sure I secure this offer because I'm not trying to go through that stressful interview process with 9-10 companies all over again in the Fall.
As mentioned above, I had my LASIK procedure on Wednesday and I think it went pretty well. I was surprised at how painless the whole thing was and, aside from pressure on my eye when they had to connect the machine that used a laser to cut a flap in my cornea, I didn't feel a thing. After the procedure, they had me go home and gave me a sleeping pill so my eyes would have time to rest. That 11 hours of sleep was the most i've had in I don't know how long. My sight has been much better since waking up yesterday and has gotten progressively better since then. I had a weird white haze in my vision all day yesterday, which has almost completely faded away. My vision isn't perfect yet though, which isn't something I was expecting. My right eye is almost there, but the left one is still hecka blurry and I notice the difference when I'm reading words on my computer screen or try to read things that are some distance away. From what I've heard (from both doctors and my man Travis who had LASIK done back in April), everything will stabilize over the course of the next one to three months, so i'm not worrying about anything. Overall, I'm VERY happy with the results and would recommend the procedure to anyone who has grown tired of having to depend on glasses and contact lenses. Those things cost too daggone much and, if you run the numbers out over several years, LASIK isn't really a bad deal at all.
Well, I’ve reached the end of another week and I’m back “home” in NYC. The past week was a little more intense at work because we’re approaching crunchtime on our project. We’ve got two weeks left before our deliverable is due and it just so happens that my portion of the project is the piece that everyone else’s feeds into. Actually, I should say my “new piece” of the project because I found out last week that my work for first five weeks of the project was a misinterpretation of what was written into the statement of work. What I was really supposed to be doing seems to be less useful than what I’d been working on, but it has to be done, so I’ve switched gears and have been crankin’ like crazy to get it done by the end of the project. As an aside, my manager thinks that there is immense value in what I had been working on, so I’ve got to get that finished so it can be handed over to the client too. It’s going to be a long couple of weeks, but it’ll feel good to know that my input will make up a major part of the final deck.
One consequence of only being at an internship for 10 weeks is that an intern seldom has any vacation or sick leave days. That is about to be an issue for me because I've decided to get LASIK and the procedure is happening next Wednesday here in NYC. I had been considering it for years, but optometrists always told me that my eyes were too bad for the procedure, so I never seriously researched it. Recently, I finally realized that those docs have a vested interest in me coming back a very 12-24 months to spend hundreds of dollars on glasses and contacts, so I decided that it was about time to treat myself to some permanent corrected vision. If I'd made the decision to do it earlier in the summer, it probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but, with crunchtime coming as I described above, my situation is a little more complicated. I would have done it later, but the doctor is going out of town for the first week of August, so I wouldn't have been able to do it until after he got back and that wouldn't have given me enough time to have my one-month check-up before heading back to California.
My manager was shocked/miffed when i told him that I would be skipping out a day early next week and would be unable to work for a day, but he understood my situation. He just laid down the law and told me that I'd have to make sure I make up for that lost time by working even harder toward getting my deliverables done. Next Monday and Tuesday are going to be some LONG nights because I'll have to grind like crazy to put in work because I'll basically be out of commission after 11:30am on Wednesday. And, then once I get the thumbs up that I'm good to go on Thursday, I'll be grindin' late into that evening from here in NYC and likely doing the same on Friday night. This isn't optimal, but it works out and reduces the potential for problems on my project.
One last update is that some good entries should be coming up in September because I'm going to be heading out to Asia for the first time right before school starts. I'm going to be meeting up with a couple of friends and hitting Thailand and Vietnam. I've never been out there before, so I'm really excited about the chance to do so. I have no clue what kind of things we'll do, but I can tell you that the plane ticket was EXPENSIVE!!! Good lawd! I spent more on that ticket than I do on my monthly rent here in NYC. I'm sure the trip will be worth it, but that didn't make it any easier to cut that check. Y'all better believe that I'm going to make the most out of this trip…don't be surprised if you catch me on TV wyldin' out and causing an international incident. This excursion is going to be off the chain!
"Wanna be a -- baller, shot caller
Twenty inch blades -- on the Impala
A caller gettin laid tonight
Swisher rolled tight, gotta sprayed by Ike
I hit the HIIIGHWAY, making money the FLYYYY WAY
But there's got to be a BETT-ER WAYY!
A better way, better way, YEAH-AHHHH"
I figured I'd start this entry with the hook from "Wanna be a baller" because that topic has been on my mind a lot this week. Making the business school move can be a tough one because you seem to go in the hole for it, but the long-term benefits are usually huge. I knew this all along, but a few conversations I've had recently have made me think a lot about how brght the future can be if you play your cards right. Actually, even if you play your cards wrong, you won't end up doing badly with a good MBA education because your network alone should be able to carry you further than you would go without going back to school (that is, unless you go out like Bernie Ebbers and swindle a bunch of people only to end up getting a 25 year prison sentence). Also, the closing on my condo sale went down on Wednesday, so I've had visions of dollars and future investments dancing around in my head. In my mind, the days of being a broke-ass dude are long gone and I'm trying to use the words of Mannie Fresh as one of my main mottos: "Whoa...whoa...whoa Kemosabe, Big...big...big ballin is my hobby!!!"
By the end of the day (Friday), I will have reached the midpoint of my internship and it's been a hell of a ride so far. I came into this summer wondering if I would be able to provide value as an intern, but the past 5 weeks have shown me that I'd internalized a lot more of the first year's learnings than I thought. It's easy to doubt whether you've been able to learn everything well because the first year of school throws so much information at you that there seems to be no way to get it all. Everyone and their mother threw around the old cliche' of it being like drinking from a firehose and, as tired as I got of hearing it, it is the real-deal truth. I've been surprised at how well I've been able to recall things from as far back as the first month of school when necessary and the way that my mind is starting to shift from a techie's mindset to a businessman's. Although I've enjoyed the internship so far, I'm starting to look forward to getting back to school in September and several of my other MBA friends have told me that they feel the same way. I won't speculate about why they want to go back, but, for me, realizing how much I've learned makes me want to get back to school and keep on learning more to keep developing my business game.
One thing that has surprised me so far is how important the Organizational Behavior concepts learned in the first year Core have been. While I was in the middle of those classes, they seemed pretty basic and matter-of-fact to me...basically, I interpreted the OB stuff to be telling me to treat people right at work and they'll do the same...pretty simple, right? I knew there were other lessons, but that seemed to be the big takeaway for me. Now, that I'm on a team with a bunch of people who have different working styles, the importance of the OB concepts are becoming clear. For example, there is a more senior guy on my team that I've been working pretty closely with for the past two weeks and during most of that time, I couldn't help but think that this dude wasn't checkin' for The Kid. He and I were assigned to work together on a single workstream and, no matter how much work i was putting in, I couldn't shake the feeling that this guy didn't believe me to be on point. It took me several days to sort it all out enough to talk to the two managers running the project about it and they explained that it was all likely a matter of different working styles. In addition to reminding me of several basic OB ideas, they told me to focus on "managing upward" to let the guy know that I had the ability to throw down on our work and was ready to prove it. With that advice in mind, I switched up the way that I was interacting with the dude and the past couple of days have been MUCH smoother. I'm leaving a whole lot of details out because I don't know who is reading this joint nowadays, but I'll just leave you with the advice to pay attention in your OB classes because that stuff will come in handy.
Before I close this out, I've got send a "Thank goodness you're in Ohio" shout out to my girl Tamara...she's one of my classmates who i just found out is working in Canton, Ohio (2 hours from Columbus) this summer. you're probably thinking "why is he excited about that?", but I thought I was the only GSB student working in that whole state this summer. I had a long talk with her today and she's in a similar situation...learning a lot and enjoying her internship, but not too crazy about the location. Sometimes you've just got to suck it up to get an experience that will be valuable to your career. Hopefully, we'll get a chance to meet up over the next week or so to have a "GSB in Ohio" bonding session...
I'd planned to take it easy this weekend and chill, but that basically went out the window when one of my friends from college arranged a little reunion of sorts on Friday night. That turned into a really late night and was followed by another late night last night when I went out to go to a birthday gathering for my man Bruce (GSB'05)...not really a good way to have a relaxing weekend, huh? Today, I finally was able to get some rest and I feel great as a result. I just hung around and did not much productive at all...went to see a movie...took a walk around Time Square...hung out and had dinner with one of my friends who'll be starting at the GSB in the Fall (shout out to my girl "Yoda")...and just had a long conversation with my landlord about relationships and parenthood. I have a deliverable that I need to get done early tomorrow morning, but I haven't even sweated it at all today. I guess I just needed a day like this so I could get my mind right before heading back to Ohio in the morning. I need to start taking better advantage of these weekends before I drop from exhaustion.
By now, all of you have heard about the bombings in London earlier this week and although it went down an ocean away from here, it had me really shaken up when it happened. I had a bunch of classmates who were working in London this summer, but they've all been accounted for and are safe. That bombing had me really shaken up though. I don't understand why people think that anything productive can come from all of that violence. All it does is ruin lives and make the powers that be even angrier and make them want to fight even more. None of it is productive. I was really worried about taking the subway while I was here and wondered if one of those trains would blow up. And, even now that I have to fly back to Ohio in the morning, i have to wonder if I'll make it out there safely. This world is full of some really crazy people who don't seem to think through all of the decisions that they make. Also, the natural disasters like the one going on with the hurricane in Florida right now and wonder if this is just a time for the world to wake up and see that things need to change in a major way. One of my closest female friends from Stanford is working in Miami this summer and she didn't answer her phone when I called her to check in earlier so I hope she's alright. Man, this has been a really worry-filled week so far and, to be honest, I feel like some more major ish is going to go down before this summer ends.
In closing out this entry, I thought it'd be useful to post part of another reply to the reader that I mentioned in my last entry. I'm not posting his email to me, but I think the message gets through from the following text that I wrote:
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While there are a lot of people who are thinking of Consulting or IBanking, I wouldn't say that those industries are the goal for the majority of people. There are folks focusing on Marketing, Sales, Entrepreneurship, Product Management, Nonprofits, and Policy, so there is definitely room for you to get into Consulting. One thing I found is that a lot of people say that they are looking at going into Consulting and IBanking in their b-school applications when they really don't know what they want to do because those areas are pretty concrete and would show them to be more decisive than they actually are when writing their apps. Many people don't end up figuring out what they want to do until they are more than halfway finished with their B-school experience.
Whatever you do, be as honest as possible about what your goals are when you write your essays because you'll have an easier time defending and explaining those goals during admissions interviews and your essays will come off as more genuine. If IT consulting is your goal, you may be one of many people who want to pursue that career track, but that isn't enough to knock you out of contention for acceptance at a school. The Adcomms take so many things into consideration when reading through applications that the relative popularity of your desired career path shouldn't be big concern to them. It's true that the point of your application is to differentiate yourself to show that you are a unique candidate, but I would never recommend stating professional goals/interests in your essays that aren't really what you're looking for. The Adcomms all know the game and I bet they'll be able to tell whether you're being real in your essays.
I checked on Google myself and found the same thing that you did...a bunch of listings of company sites and jobs that they had available. I didn't find much that listed what the responsibilities and job descriptions of technology consultants were, but you can still use the information that we both found. Try taking a look through the job listings at those company sites and they all should have a list of the sorts of things they're looking for in candidates for these jobs. From that, you should be able to get a sense for the sorts of skills that would be required of a successful technology consultant. A couple of links that I found which might be of extra interest were:
http://www.thevault.com/jobs/jobboard/industrySearchResult.jsp?function_id=36,37&hub_id=508&jbname=Technology+(IT)+Consulting
http://www.tech-centric.net/Information-technology-consulting.aspx
This morning, I got an email from one of the readers of this blog (shout out to Forrest G.) who has a background similar to mine (software engineer trying to move into business). He asked about the potential of moving into technology consulting and post-MBA roles in Technology, so, although I am not an expert, I gave him the best information I could think of. After writing the email, I thought that this info might be of interest to others, so here it is...
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Moving from the software industry into technology consulting is a very realistic career path and probably one that many people with in-depth implementation expertise end up pursuing after business school. Unfortunately, I can't think of any sites off the top of my head that will give you a good description of what technology consultants do, but I'm sure that a Google search would give you a lot of links to pages that will descrive what the role entails. I would recommend against using the job description of a technology consultant to determine whether or not you're suited for the job because you have no way of knowing what your skillset will be once you finish B-school. Also, it is true that there are a gang of people who want to go into consulting, I believe that the economy is recovering and, as a result, there will be increased demand for consulting services in the near future. As such, there will be good demand for young MBAs who ave the desire to put in work for clients. So, there will be some stiff competition, but it's likely that there will be a job out there for most of the people who are interested in a career in Consulting.
You've already mentioned business development, product marketing, and technology entrepreneurship as post-MBA technology-related careers and those are usually the first that come into most people's minds. Some others that you might consider are project management, finance roles, and corporate strategy at a technology or IT services company.To find more information, you could look at general purpose job/education sites like WetFeet.com (they've also got some great hard-copy career guides that could help you out) and Vault.com and more technology focused sites like CIO.com and ComputerWorld.com (specifically their IT Management sub-section). A general purpose search on Google might yield some valuable online resources to find more post-MBA technology-focused careers, as well.
The MBA fits very well into a post-MBA career in Consulting and, in fact, it can be argued that the degree enables that career change. One of the problems with starting your career in the implementation side of technology is that it can be almost impossible to get away from the hardcore technology side of the industry. With an MBA, you'll have the business acumen to get away from that and venture into other areas like business development and general management. The MBA will also give you the skills to able to perform successfully in that role. Some people may already have those skills, but I certainly didn't before starting at Stanford and, although, I still have a ways to go in my learning, I'm MUCH better off than when I started. What I think you'd have to do to justify the need for an MBA is to state your desire to move into technology consulting and claim that you already have the technology experience and skills to understand the job but need the business and management skills to actually do the job. This way, you'd be showing that you're not just pursuing an MBA simply to have one...you'd be showing that you've decided that you truly NEED one to meet your career goals, which is vital when stating your case to Admissions people.