Marquis' Weblog

I know that this isn't B-school related, but...

...but I just had to make a post about this topic.

Please check out the picture located at http://photos23.flickr.com/38725768_16c66eb58b.jpg (it is the same photo as above, but I thought the above version was cooler). It was forwarded to me in an email this morning and served as another "Marquis, yo are a black dude living in America" moment. If the picture doesn't load up, here's a description: it's an AP photo of two scenes from New Orleans, one of a black woman and one of a white couple, both wading through water with groceries. The big difference between the two is that the caption on the photo of the white folks says that they "found" the food and the caption for the black woman's photo says that she "looted" to get the groceries.

Damn, this sort of thing pisses me off...not even the Associated press looks at the world from a colorblind eye. I can't wait for the day when i end up on the cover of "Fortune" magazine with the caption saying "Marquis Parker: a success that wasn't made from playing ball, rapping, or selling drugs...who would have thought that a Black man could do that???" Oh yeah and I know what would especially set it off...I'll make sure I wear a hoodie, baggy jeans, and Timberland boots and be taking a bottle of grey Goose vodka to the head in the photo with all of my diplomas posed around me just to add to the surprise of it all. *shaking my head...damn, what kind of world do we live in?*

**Finally, i would like to send my prayers out to everyone who was either directly or indirectly affected by Hurricane Katrina. I have several friends who grew up in that area and it is likely that their homes have been destroyed. I just hope that people all over the country will support those affected and help them get through this trying time.

I've found how I'm going to get rich!!!!

OK, I think I've finally figured out how I'm going to get rich in the future...I'm going to start an insurance or pharmaceutical company because I swear that those joints are the biggest money makers in the entire world. I've had several encounters recently that have me convinced of this...

1) It all started at the beginning of the summer when Stanford announced that they'd be charging something like $600 to extend our academic health insurance through the summer. Since I don't get sick often, I figured that I could pass on it and would be fine with just getting an emergency health plan. I found a decent emergency plan on www.ehealthinsurance.com and thought I'd be good to go for the summer. Well, I just got back from picking up some meds that I was prescribed for my upcoming trip to Asia and I almost cried when the lady at CVS gave me the total. Because I passed on Stanford's summer health insurance plan, I knew I'd have to pay full price for the medicine, but I had no idea of how expensive they'd be. Even worse, I only need to use these meds if I get sick, so I might complete my trip without ever having to use these joints. I know it's always better to be safe than sorry, but GOOD LAWD!!! If I could do it all again, I would have jumped all over Stanford's summer plan because, even thuogh it was expensive, you never know when you'll need to get medicine or have to visit a doctor. I don't know how people get by without insurance nowadays...

2) A couple of weeks ago, my man Travis told me that we'd have to get vaccinations before going out to Thailand, so I made an appointment with a travel doctor in NYC. Once I got to the doctor's office, I was surprised to find out that the doctor included a mandatory $150 consultation where he asks a bunch of questions about the planned trip and gives advice. I was like "WHOA!", but I needed the shots, so I rolled with it. I can't front...the doctor gave me some good advice, so it wasn't all bad. Next, we went through the shots that I should and shouldn't get. He told me that there are several that some doctors would suggest, but that I didn't need them, so I thought he was saving me money on unnecessary vaccinations. In the end, my visit cost me $400 and I left happy thinking that I'd gotten a deal...until I spoke with my man Travis yesterday and told me that he'd gotten all his shots done in LA for $60. I'm sure that I had a shot or two that he didn't get, but I couldn't help feeling like I'd gotten gamed.

In other news, I'm getting started with my fulltime recruiting networking early on with an office visit to McKinsey's DC office tomorrow morning. Since I don't know what's up with Accenture right now, I've got my mind set on a full-fledged job search this Fall. McKinsey has always been at the top of my list of potential employers and I hope to make a good impression with their DC folks. According to their ATL office recruiter, I will get to skip the first round interviews this Fall and will advance directly to the second rounds with their Southern Office, so I'm starting off in a good position, but you never know what can happen. I'll let y'all know how the visit went when I get back here.

Ahhhhhh, only a week left until I fly back to California and it seems like this summer has gone by so quickly. I spent most of the summer in anticipation of geting back to school and jumping back into the classroom, but, now that it's almost here, I wish I had another month to kick it on the East Coast before having to return to Palo Alto.

The end of my summer internshiphas arrived

Well, I've made it to the end of my internship and it feels good to have a month of relaxing ahead of me. Going into this summer, people told me that the summer internship would be a breeze, but I definitely had to grind during this one. I'm happy to say that I learned a lot during this summer, but I still don't know what my status is in terms of a job offer. According to the head recruiter for the summer program, they still need to gather feedback from all of our managers and then have some evaluation meetings before they can make the final decisions. I was told that I may not find out anything until the middle of September, which would be tough because I'd have all that uncertainty hanging over me for the next month, including the time I'm kickin' it in Asia. I'm crossing my fingers in hopes of a quick decision on Accenture's part though. Anyways, by this time, i'll be on the train back down to VA for a couple weeks of relaxing and hanging out with my family before heading back to Cali. It was a long 10 weeks of work, but, now that it's just about over, I'm glad that I had such a good experience.

Some perspectives about the GSB

I just sent the following to one of the readers of this blog in response to some questions he had about the GSB. I hope you guys find it helpful if you're planning on applying this year:

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1. Why do you choose Stanford as you are accepted in other schools as well?
- My primary reasons for choosing the GSB were:
a. its strength as a General management program
b. its strength in entrepreneurship, leadership development, and reputation for technology (this reputation is associated with "Stanford University" more than the GSB)
c. its diverse and collaborative culture where people are more focused on helping each other than climbing over each other to reach the top

2. In a single short sentence, what do you remember most from your business school experience? (i.e. boot camp, team work, or case studies)
- The most memorable thing about my B-school experience so far has been the rigor of the first-year Core curriculum. I didn't have any business background before arriving at Stanford, so I had to learn everything from scratch and it damn near killed me.

3. What do you like most from your school?
- There are a million things I could say to answer this question, but the biggest one for me is my fellow classmates. The GSB Admissions office puts a lot of time into putting together a class of kids each year who are incredibly diverse, intelligent, and accomplished and I wonder how I was able to slip through the cracks every day. I've got classmates who are from every part of the world, are every color in the spectrum, and bring somethihng unique to the school. The best part is that the Admissions team focuses on picking nice people to make up each class, so there isn't any of the cutthroat, "it's all about me" behaviors that I've heard stories about at other schools. I'd be lying if I said that I was friends with every person in my class or had even had a conversation with all of them, but I have built great relationships with a lot of my classmates. I don't look at them as my "network"...they're like "family" to me, which is important since my real family is 3000 miles away. The folks at the GSB are simply amazing and I am getting as much of an education from being around them as I am from taking GSB classes.

4. What don't you like most from your school?
- Wow, this is a tough question to answer, but, if I had to choose something, it'd be the on-campus recruiting process. Our Career Management Center does a fantastic job of coordinating company visits and making sure everything runs smoothly, but the GSB has a rule that companies can't make presentation for first-year MBAs until the start of the Winter quarter. The rationale behind this is that the Fall quarter is so tough with all of the quantitative Core classes that the CMC doesn't want the MBA1's to be distracted with all of the company visits. The consequence of that policy is that MBA1's are forced to fit company presentations into the start of the Winter quarter, which is already difficult because students are coming off of Winter break. From what I've heard, companies can make presentations to first-years as early as October and November, which I think provides a lot more flexibility to those students. Also, while doing interviews, people were sometimes scheduled at times that conflicted with their class schedules, forcing some students to have to miss class. The professors were not happy with that at all and many issued unescused absences for those who had to miss class, but I'd argue that the students had no control over the situation and shouldn't have been penalized.

5. If you were not accepted by Stanford but accepted by all other schools, which other school would you have attended and why?
- If Stanford had rejected me, it would have been tough for me to pick another school because I had my heart set on being a GSB student. Out of the other schools that accepted me, I probably would have gone to UVA's Darden School because it has a strong general management program, rigorous first year Core curriculum, is a known commodity (I spent some time using the Darden facilities while getting my first Master's degree at UVA), and would have put me within an hour of my family for the first time since leaving for college.

6. In your opinion, which business schools is the most similar to Stanford?
- I don't think there are any business schools similar to Stanford. That's the best thing about the GSB...I believe that we have a unique academic experience and our culture is second to none in my opinion. Please take what I say with a grain of salt though because I'm a GSB student and it is likely that a student from any other school will have similar things to say about their own school.

T-minus one week until the end of my internship...

...and it's been a long 9 weeks so far. Actually, I should say taht it was a long first 8 weeks followed by a relatively easy 9th one. For the first time this summer, I've been able to spend all week here in NYC working on a thought leadership presentation about the increased M&A activity in the Communications space over the past couple of years. This topic is something that I'd been noticing, but I never realized how many issues and concerns these mergers have created for customers of merging companies, so it's been insightful to look into this area. Plus, this work was coordinated by the partner in charge of my practice area's East region and, since he has a direct say as to whether I get a job offer, I want to make sure I impress him. I finished the first draft of my deliverable yesterday and I'm still waiting for feedback, so I have no clue of how I did on it. Hopefully, the partner will hit me back soon to let me know if I need to make wholesale changes because I've only got another day (or less) left of staffing on this initiative and I'd like to see it to completion.

One hot topic in discussions with rising 2nd year MBAs is the elusive job offer from summer internships. Until last week, I didn't know that interviewers for full-time positions would ask candidates about whether or not they got a full-time offer. Now, I'm starting to understand why some of my friends are freaking out over the subject. Apparently, if you don't get an offer and get asked why, you have to have a damn good reason for it or else companies will write you off immediately. I have friends who either didn't get the offer or see no chance at getting one, which has been shocking but it goes to show that being a student at a top school doesn't necessarily mean that these companies will bow at your feet. Also, I've got several friends who are not feeling their internships, but are working their butts off to get an offer just to avoid the problem of having to address the issue in job interviews. This internship game is no joke.

Until recently, I wasn't really sweating my offer status because I figured that I'd get one if it was meant to be, but now I'm buggin' out about it. I've found myself looking back at all of the "slip-ups" I've had this summer and I'm wondering if any of them were severe enough to cause Accenture to give me the "gas face". I don't know if any of them were super-extreme, but, in the consulting industry where everyone is very conservative, I might have let a little bit of the "real Marquis" come out from behind my professional mask. I've got my fingers crossed in hopes that the good work I've put in will win out in the end, but, after hearing some stories from my classmates, I'm hecka worried and will stay that way until I get a "yes" or "no". Unfortunately, I've been told that we won't find out our fate until 4-6 weeks after our last day of work, so I've got a long time to sit around and wonder about this.

At the suggestion of my man Shawn, I'll likely start the networking process with companies soon just to get a head start and, fortunately, the companies are making it pretty easy. There have been several information/recruiting sessions here in NYC held by investment banks and financial services companies and I've heard that more will be coming in the next week or two. I even got an email from the McKinsey Atlanta recruiter inviting me to meet with one of their ATL-based consultants (they mistakenly thought i was down there this summer), but I'm hoping to get her to facilitate a meeting with folks from either their NYC or DC office since those are the areas where I'll be before going back to Cali. This full-time job process is starting up waaaaaay earlier than I anticipated.

One last thing...gotta put in some shout-outs:

- a "Good luck" shout out goes to Sean C., a really experienced guy who is about to apply to the GSB in round 1. I had a long chat with him yesterday about my experiences so far and he seems really excited about the prospect of getting his application in.

- another "Good luck" shout out goes to my girl Aaliyah a.k.a. "Shaffie-Loc" as she makes her big move from ATL up to Cambridge where she'll be starting at HBS next week. She had the choice between there and the GSB and, although I wish she'd have chosen to come out west, I know that she's going to do big things up there in the frozen north. Shaffie-Loc, if you're reading this, make sure you represent that good ol' "ATL SHAWTY!!!!" in this second stint up there.

- a "Welcome back to the States" shout goes to my girl "Yoda" who just made it back to the US safely after going out to the Middle East to visit her family. She's a brave young woman to have gone out there with all that wildness going on right now.

- a "Good luck" shout out goes to all of my fellow summer MBA interns who are finishing up their internships and are waiting on that offer. I hope it works out for all of you...we're all working hard, so I'm sure that everything will work out for the best, no matter what happens.

The project's ending and my internship won't be far behind it...

Ahhhhh, I'm back in NYC from my last trip out to Columbus, OH and it feels good to know that I'm not going to have to catch that Monday 7:40am flight anymore. I didn't mind the traveling itself, but it wasn't exactly fun to spend most days of the past 7 weeks in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Ohio with nothing to do after long days at work. As the senior manager on my project has said many times, "that's the life of a consultant." Although it was a surprise to not spend as much time in NYC as I expected, it has been valuable to see what it's really going to be like on the road and regularly away from home after graduation. I can see myself working in Consulting for several years after school because it'll be good to see places like the middle of Ohio that I'd have no reason to check out on my own.

Tomorrow (Friday) is the due date for my team's final deck, so this past week was all about working and working and working until the late hours of the night. Five members of the project team are staying on to work on the follow on Product management and Go-to-market stages, but the strategy portion is clsing out. Three straight 11:30pm-midnight nights followed by an evening in which my flight back here was delayed by 2.5 hours has me about ready to pass out. At times during those late nights, i was wondering why we were having to work so late, but, now that we're right at the end, i see that every minute of that time was needed. I came into the week thinking that my parts of the deck were almost finished, but there were a million and one 11th hour changes that had me buggin' out. I've learned more out of the past 2 months on this project than I did in the last 1-2 years that I was at my last pre-MBA employer...a short strategy consulting project definitely trumps several years of plugging away at the same Java code in my eyes. My one regret about this project is that I didn't get a chance to do anything quant-related. I was hoping to be able to crunch some numbers this summer, but my role on the team didn't require any of that. I've still got two weeks left, but my next assignment won't have any number crunching (see next paragraph) and I have no clue of what I'll be doing after that.

Earlier this week, it looked like I was going to be sent down to ATl to work on a project for the last two weeks of my internship, but that got changed at the last minute and now I'm going to get to stay in NYC for the next week. I will be working directly with the partner in charge of the Communication and High Tech group's East region on putting together a thought leadership presentation about M&A in the industry. At first, I thought it would be a waste to work on one or two week-long joints at the end of the internship, but I've changed my opinion on that point. It'll be cool to get additional work experiences this summer and learn something new before heading back to school. In addition to getting a little M&A know-how from this short project, a large benefit of the assignment is that I'll be working with the guy who will help determine whether I get an offer at the end of the summer. I probably already have a good shot at getting one, but you never know...I just need to make sure I don't slip up and ruin my chances this late in the game.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to act a fool in NYC this weekend because I've got to head down to VA tomorrow night to visit one of my sisters in the hospital. She and her husband are expecting their first child in October and she was admitted to the hospital last week because her baby was trying to come out early. She's been on bedrest ever since and the doctors were medicating her to stop her contractions, but they took her off the medicine a couple of days ago, so she'll likely be giving birth soon. With all that she's gone through, i thought I should go down and offer some support. I've known that this baby was coming for all these months, but I'm still getting used to having one of my younger sisters on the verge of motherhood. I feel so daggone old that i can't even put it into words..whew!

Before I end this entry, I have to send some shout outs:

- a "Nice working with you and good luck" shout out to my project team members Andy, Chris, Rohit, Brendan, Michael, Dave, Keith, and Mike. It was good working with y'all, fellas *dap*

- a "Stay safe and enjoy your trip" shout out goes to my girl "Yoda" who is spending her month before starting the MBA1 year at Stanford in the Middle east traveling and visiting her fam. Normally, summer travel present no need to worry, but folks in the middle east are just plain wildin' out, so you never know what can happen out there. As i told her a couple of days ago, she'd better not get blown up over there because the fellas of the GSB need her to make it to school :-)

- I'd like to send a HUGE "thank you" shoutout to Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston for keeping me so entertained this summer. If you haven't checked out Bobby Brown's reality show on Bravo, you need to get on that quickly. I knew that Bobby was a knucklehead from everything I'd seen on the news, but this show just puts up on a legendary level. And, Whitney...GOOD LAWD!!!! I don't know what she's let happen to herself, but she's looking crackish, acting cranky, and has me ROLLIN' every week. The show is so bad that it's good and it makes me feel SO normal :-)