Sunday, September 27, 2009

Life Outside of School...If I Could Only Remember What That Is...

Darden has a reputation for having a very rigorous First Year program. Do not underestimate the implications of that reputation. I have class for five hours a day, starting at 8 AM, then I go to company briefings, then I prep my cases, go to club meetings, meet with my learning team, and come home to work on my resume or finish prepping cases. I get maybe, if I'm lucky, 6 hours of sleep. I can survive on that, but if you knew me in high school, you know what a lack of sleep does to me after a while. To head off those effects, I try to get a lot of sleep on weekends, but there are always tons of social events, more cases to prep, more job search stuff to be done....and a new town to explore!

While I haven't had a ton of time to really explore, when S came down to visit before classes started, we did go to Monticello (very cool!). J and A and I also drove over to the Williamsburg Outlets during Orientation (to stock up on lightweight business casual attire at discount prices). Beyond that, I've been spending most of my free time entertaining (I love having people over for dinner/drinks/apps/whatever), hanging out watching movies or playing Cranium, or just trying to find some time to catch up on everything I've got stored on my DVR (darn learning team meetings during prime time!). I'm hoping that now that I sort of know what's going on with school, I'll have a little bit more time to go do things like hike, drive Skyline Drive, etc. We also start getting random Reading Days (like last Friday, this coming Wednesday, and October 9!). Unfortunately, Reading Days are usually claimed by such fun school-related activities as company briefings, case prep, Career Coach meetings, conferences, etc., so I'm not sure how much of a respite they'll be. There's some talk of getting in a round of golf on Wednesday morning before company briefings, but we'll see if that plays out...(haha...punny!).

On that note, it's off to bed for me. Gotta get in that 6 hours of sleep, you know!

2 comments:

  1. As I continue to read up on schools - and Darden is near the top of my list, it seems like Darden really lives up to its reputation of having school stuff to do all the time. Do you feel like it leaves enough time for significant others and relaxation time?

    It's not a lazy factor, I just don't want the busy life of a CEO too soon (like Jacqueline reflected on in her Oct. 8 post).

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  2. David - there's actual, mandatory school stuff like classwork, and then there is pseudo-"school" stuff like recruiting, social events, etc. And then there's your personal life (family, friends, gym, exploring C-ville...). Everyone chooses to balance their lives differently. I think there is a little bit of a fear of missing out, whether it be missing out on getting the most out of the classroom experience, missing out on the social stuff by deciding to stay in rather than go out on a weekend, missing out on the chance to snag a prime internship, or missing out on being able to stay in shape, but the fact is, there just isn't enough time in the day to do everything. Whether or not someone is a CEO, they are going to have to figure out how to balance their lives. I think Darden just forces you to start doing that in a way that may be dramatically different from the way you had to do that before Darden.

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