Tuesday, April 12, 2011

A dozen cupcakes!

For those of you who have been wondering, here are the rest of the Cupcakes for semester 1:

The Week 7 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: My schedule at the law school this year looks pretty crazy, but most of what made me crazy this year was still Darden-related (WACC Oktoberfest, for instance). The Law School did Fall Foxfields, which was a lot of fun, and then it was basically just class, reading, and softball.

The Week 8 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: 2 words: Fall Break.  'Nuff said.

The Week 9 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: It was exam week at Darden, and even though I still believe that was the best week of the quarter, it did involve five days straight of 5-hour exams.  We had a midterm at the Law School in our small section class, but it was an hour long and ungraded.  Not too bad.  Definitely easier than 25 hours of spreadsheets. 

The Week 10 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: This week was really close, and I had a hard time deciding.  However, the fact that we started new classes at Darden (including Finance and Global Economies and Markets (GEM), both of which caused me much consternation at first), makes me think that Darden was harder. 

The Week 11 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: This is another week where my schedule this year looks crazy, but that's because I was trying to do some Darden briefings in addition to my regularly schedule law school commitments.  Nothing big happened at Darden last year, but I still think I was struggling more at this point last year than I was this year. 

The Week 12 Cupcake goes to: Darden
Rationale: I know; you are all shocked.  Darden got a cupcake! Wahoo! This week at the law school, I was prepping for a mock trial tournament and working on rewriting my major memo.  At Darden, we didn't have many "academic" classes because we had Management Communications (MC), Career Management (CarMa), and a field trip.  Yes, a field trip. Clearly, this was a week for rest and recuperation at Darden. 

The Week 13 Cupcake goes to: Darden
Rationale: I spent a weekend in DC with my mock trial team competing in the Georgetown White Collar Crime Tournament and then turned in my major memo, plus I was behind in starting to outline for exams because of mock trial.  Yes, I was doing interview prep at Darden, but we also spent two days doing StratSim, which wasn't nearly as rigorous.

The Week 14 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: By this point, most people at the law school were panicking about exams and spending hours outlining.  I was doing stuff over at Darden instead (yes, that was maybe not the best choice).  But, last year, I was doing a ton of recruiting stuff and writing customized cover letters for hours upon hours, in addition to spending more hours in class.  AND, I was at Darden until 4 AM doing the Deloitte Case Challenge Friday night.  Oy.  It was Black November at its finest.

The Week 15 Cupcake goes to: Darden
Rationale: This was the beginning of the major outlining and exam prep panicking period at the law school.  The Thanksgiving break, if anything, made this worse.

The Week 16 Cupcake goes to: UVa Law
Rationale: We only had three days of class, and then a couple days off to study for law school exams.  I did write over 50 cover letters, but they were mostly form letters.  At Darden, we had five full days of class, and I wrote around 25 very customized cover letters (customizing "I really enjoyed meeting Mr. X at Event Y this Fall.  Our discussion about Z made me realize A, B, and C about Organization D" is a lot harder to write than "As my resume indicates, I have several years of experience working as a paralegal.  I believe this experience will enable me to serve Firm X's clients.").

The Week 17 Cupcake goes to: Darden
Rationale: Exams at Darden are so much more fun than exams at the law school.

The Week 18 Cupcake goes to: Darden
Rationale: Darden was on Winter Break.  The law school was suffering through another week of hellish exams.

FINAL SEMESTER 1 CUPCAKE SCORE
Darden: 5
UVa Law: 13

Even though the end of the semester at the Law School was more rigorous than the end of the semester at Darden, Darden started off a lot more difficult, and the schedule was generally more demanding. 

Stay tuned for the Semester 2 Cupcake awards....

Sorry, sorry, sorry

Yup, I'm the most delinquent Darden blogger ever.  Thank you to everyone who has pointed that out to me (that includes the receptionist at a law firm where I interviewed over winter break and the admitted student at the Law School Admitted Students Open House student life panel!).  But, in positive news, I'm busy working on cupcake-awarding RIGHT NOW.  And, since it's final exam study period and my house is already spotlessly clean, I should be using posting as a procrastination tactic in the coming weeks!  Stay tuned!