Thanks to everyone who has been sending me emails asking about the Darden FY experience and my JD/MBA application process and current thoughts. For those of you who have questions but haven't emailed, I am more than happy to try to answer them via email or to set up a phone call (just email me to set up an appointment). If you email LegalMBAyhem@gmail.com, your email should make it to me at my Darden email account.
NOTE: If you do not get a response to (or at least an acknowledgement of) your email within 72 hours, GMail has deemed you spam and I have not received your email because it was not forwarded to an address that I check. If that is the case, I sincerely apologize and encourage you to try again - typically, putting "Darden" in the subject line will help you avoid the virtual trash can. To those of you who have fallen victim to this already and think I am just ignoring you, I am not! Despite my posting delinquency, I have been trying to respond to emails in a timely fashion. PLEASE try to send me another email if you still have unanswered questions. :-)
Monday, February 22, 2010
Differences between Darden and UVa Law
So, over the last couple months, I've gotten several emails regarding the UVa JD/MBA program (I use the term "program" loosely, since it's not a truly integrated program here). Recently, I got a question from a current 1L at the Law School and potential JD/MBA student who wanted to know what I perceived as the major differences between Darden and UVa Law. I thought that sharing my answers here might be helpful to some of the rest of my readers (to whom I sincerely apologize for my blogging delinquency...again). As a disclaimer, the below represents my current perspectives as someone who hasn't finished the First Year (FY) program at Darden and hasn't yet been at the Law School at all. So feel free to take everything with a grain (or handful) of salt.
Differences between Darden and UVa Law:
Darden structures far more of your daily schedule. You will have class from 8 am-1:10 pm every day. You will have learning team each day from 7-9 or 10 pm. Between 1:30 and 3 or so, there will be speakers, company briefings, club meetings, etc. There will also be occasional meetings in the 6-7 pm time slot. That means that on any given day, you have about 3 hours of “free” time during which you not only need to prep cases before learning team, but you’ll also want to do things like try to go to the gym, schedule networking calls, run errands, try to unwind, etc. It is a really crazy schedule, and you don’t have a lot of freedom to adapt it to your personal preferences. For instance, I much prefer to stay up late to get work done, but Darden has forced me to be a morning person and to do most of my academic preparation for the next day during the middle of the afternoon (when all I really want to do is take a nap). Everyone survives this schedule, but it can be frustrating, and I understand that there is significantly more “unstructured” time at the law school during which you can control the way and order in which you get things done on your own terms. Likewise, there is more personal time vs. group preparation at the law school. I think the group work is essential to the Darden learning experience, but it’s different from the “locking yourself away in the library to read” that I understand goes on in law school generally.
The work is just different. While you do spend time reading cases at Darden (which are different from legal cases), you spend much more time building Excel models, crunching numbers, and generally fighting with spreadsheets. It requires a different part of your brain, and if you aren’t used to using Excel, it will just take some time to make the transition to thinking in terms of linked cells instead of well-substantiated arguments. That being said, as the year goes on, there are some actual writing opportunities, albeit short (think 2-6 page papers).
You may feel like you are constantly taking exams. Darden operates on a quarter system, and you will have five 5-hour, take-home, open book, open notes exams back-to-back for a week approximately every 6-7 weeks. Exam week can be both great (you can’t really study THAT much for these exams, and recruiting activities are slightly curtailed, so you have much more free time) and exhausting (25 hours of exams in 5 days). It usually feels both like exams are right around the corner again and that you just finished them. I know law school exams are typically just at the end of the semester and, at least for 1L’s, are given at school and scheduled for Mondays and Thursdays for two weeks, so there’s more ability to pace yourself and maybe focus on one course at a time in terms of studying. Of course, there are good and bad aspects to both schedules, but my point is just that there’s a pretty significant difference.
You should expect to learn from your classmates, not necessarily the faculty. So much of the Darden experience is based on learning from your peers, not just from cases or the professors (who are still absolutely amazing at leading classes and if you have technical or personal issues that require assistance). I can honestly say that I have learned more from what my classmates have shared from their backgrounds and work experiences than I thought would be possible. Because pretty much everyone has worked for at least a few years, there is a tremendous diversity of perspectives and accumulated knowledge, and Darden classrooms and learning team meetings are full of information-sharing opportunities. With case method discussions, the professor facilitates the learning process and shares some of his/her own experiences, but the prof is not the star of the show the way I understand he/she can be in law school.
You take more classes. The required FY curriculum includes the following classes: Operations (3 credits), Marketing (3), Accounting (3), Finance (3), Macroeconomics (3), Decision Analysis (3), Leading Organizations (3), Strategy (1.5), Ethics (1.5), and Managerial Communications (1.5). You also get to pick 3 1.5-credit electives in the 4th quarter, and you can go on a global business experience trip (1.5 credits) over spring break. So you’re trying to absorb a great diversity of subject matter (13+ subjects) over the course of the year, as opposed to the standard Torts, Contracts, Crim Law, Civ Pro, Property, Con Law, and Legal Writing plus a couple electives at the law school. This also means that you’ll have the opportunity to learn from as many as 20 faculty members during your first year at Darden (both cool and unnerving). Also, each quarter (except Q4), you take all your classes in the same room with the same section of ~60 people. Sections get shuffled after Q2. You end up getting really comfortable with the people in your section and the perspectives and backgrounds they bring to the table.
Everything sort of sneakily fits together. Despite the number of classes you take, the First Year curriculum at Darden every now and then really surprises me with how well it fits together. When you learn about hedging against exchange rate exposure in Finance, you also talk about exchange rate and currency risk exposure in GEM (aka Global Economies and Markets, i.e. macroeconomics). You’ll do cases about setting airfare prices in both Decision Analysis and Strategy in the same week. You’ll learn about negotiations in Decision Analysis and then negotiate a merger in Finance. You’ll talk about the connections between sales forecasts in Marketing and production capabilities and defect rates in Operations. You’ll do large “program days” or simulations periodically that enable you to draw together information from various classes in a hands-on way. Darden has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the scheduling of each class and the timing of each assignment so that you can maximize your learning. This interconnectedness is tied to Darden’s focus on the “general management” or “enterprise perspective,” or understanding each aspect of business. Maybe this sort of thing happens at the law school, too, but I’d be surprised if it is as extensive.
Recruiting at Darden is non-stop. I know during the 1L year, everyone is prohibited from contacting firms until the November/December time frame thanks to the ABA. At Darden, recruiting starts before you even arrive on grounds. No joke – you will be encouraged to attend conferences, job fairs, networking events, etc. during the summer. A large chunk of orientation is devoted to Career Discovery Forums, a business etiquette dinner, and networking tips. Companies start showing up on campus in very early September to host briefings and info sessions, and most students will be sucked into the Recruiting cyclone and spit back out (hopefully with an offer). Now, that’s not to say that everyone gets completely caught up in recruiting; some folks have offers to return to their prior employers. If you’ve finished your 1L year and happen to do law school recruiting in August and get an offer that you want to take, you can skip the whole Darden recruiting thing. If you’re focused on business recruiting, on the other hand, expect to spend a lot of time on it. I wish I could say that the JD/MBA degree is hugely appealing to companies, but depending on your background and what you want to do, you may find yourself at a slight disadvantage to your FY peers, who will be available for full-time positions a year or two before us JD/MBA folks.
So, that’s my summary of perceived major differences. There are some other differences, but they are much more minor – e.g., Darden dining options are better, the Darden grounds are slightly more beautiful, the Darden parking is closer to the school but more expensive, I think the Darden faculty offices are easier to find, corporate sponsorship is more apparent at Darden, and you get fewer emails from the Darden Director of Student Affairs every day than you do from the Law School Dean of Students (trust me – I get both sets now).
Differences between Darden and UVa Law:
Darden structures far more of your daily schedule. You will have class from 8 am-1:10 pm every day. You will have learning team each day from 7-9 or 10 pm. Between 1:30 and 3 or so, there will be speakers, company briefings, club meetings, etc. There will also be occasional meetings in the 6-7 pm time slot. That means that on any given day, you have about 3 hours of “free” time during which you not only need to prep cases before learning team, but you’ll also want to do things like try to go to the gym, schedule networking calls, run errands, try to unwind, etc. It is a really crazy schedule, and you don’t have a lot of freedom to adapt it to your personal preferences. For instance, I much prefer to stay up late to get work done, but Darden has forced me to be a morning person and to do most of my academic preparation for the next day during the middle of the afternoon (when all I really want to do is take a nap). Everyone survives this schedule, but it can be frustrating, and I understand that there is significantly more “unstructured” time at the law school during which you can control the way and order in which you get things done on your own terms. Likewise, there is more personal time vs. group preparation at the law school. I think the group work is essential to the Darden learning experience, but it’s different from the “locking yourself away in the library to read” that I understand goes on in law school generally.
The work is just different. While you do spend time reading cases at Darden (which are different from legal cases), you spend much more time building Excel models, crunching numbers, and generally fighting with spreadsheets. It requires a different part of your brain, and if you aren’t used to using Excel, it will just take some time to make the transition to thinking in terms of linked cells instead of well-substantiated arguments. That being said, as the year goes on, there are some actual writing opportunities, albeit short (think 2-6 page papers).
You may feel like you are constantly taking exams. Darden operates on a quarter system, and you will have five 5-hour, take-home, open book, open notes exams back-to-back for a week approximately every 6-7 weeks. Exam week can be both great (you can’t really study THAT much for these exams, and recruiting activities are slightly curtailed, so you have much more free time) and exhausting (25 hours of exams in 5 days). It usually feels both like exams are right around the corner again and that you just finished them. I know law school exams are typically just at the end of the semester and, at least for 1L’s, are given at school and scheduled for Mondays and Thursdays for two weeks, so there’s more ability to pace yourself and maybe focus on one course at a time in terms of studying. Of course, there are good and bad aspects to both schedules, but my point is just that there’s a pretty significant difference.
You should expect to learn from your classmates, not necessarily the faculty. So much of the Darden experience is based on learning from your peers, not just from cases or the professors (who are still absolutely amazing at leading classes and if you have technical or personal issues that require assistance). I can honestly say that I have learned more from what my classmates have shared from their backgrounds and work experiences than I thought would be possible. Because pretty much everyone has worked for at least a few years, there is a tremendous diversity of perspectives and accumulated knowledge, and Darden classrooms and learning team meetings are full of information-sharing opportunities. With case method discussions, the professor facilitates the learning process and shares some of his/her own experiences, but the prof is not the star of the show the way I understand he/she can be in law school.
You take more classes. The required FY curriculum includes the following classes: Operations (3 credits), Marketing (3), Accounting (3), Finance (3), Macroeconomics (3), Decision Analysis (3), Leading Organizations (3), Strategy (1.5), Ethics (1.5), and Managerial Communications (1.5). You also get to pick 3 1.5-credit electives in the 4th quarter, and you can go on a global business experience trip (1.5 credits) over spring break. So you’re trying to absorb a great diversity of subject matter (13+ subjects) over the course of the year, as opposed to the standard Torts, Contracts, Crim Law, Civ Pro, Property, Con Law, and Legal Writing plus a couple electives at the law school. This also means that you’ll have the opportunity to learn from as many as 20 faculty members during your first year at Darden (both cool and unnerving). Also, each quarter (except Q4), you take all your classes in the same room with the same section of ~60 people. Sections get shuffled after Q2. You end up getting really comfortable with the people in your section and the perspectives and backgrounds they bring to the table.
Everything sort of sneakily fits together. Despite the number of classes you take, the First Year curriculum at Darden every now and then really surprises me with how well it fits together. When you learn about hedging against exchange rate exposure in Finance, you also talk about exchange rate and currency risk exposure in GEM (aka Global Economies and Markets, i.e. macroeconomics). You’ll do cases about setting airfare prices in both Decision Analysis and Strategy in the same week. You’ll learn about negotiations in Decision Analysis and then negotiate a merger in Finance. You’ll talk about the connections between sales forecasts in Marketing and production capabilities and defect rates in Operations. You’ll do large “program days” or simulations periodically that enable you to draw together information from various classes in a hands-on way. Darden has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about the scheduling of each class and the timing of each assignment so that you can maximize your learning. This interconnectedness is tied to Darden’s focus on the “general management” or “enterprise perspective,” or understanding each aspect of business. Maybe this sort of thing happens at the law school, too, but I’d be surprised if it is as extensive.
Recruiting at Darden is non-stop. I know during the 1L year, everyone is prohibited from contacting firms until the November/December time frame thanks to the ABA. At Darden, recruiting starts before you even arrive on grounds. No joke – you will be encouraged to attend conferences, job fairs, networking events, etc. during the summer. A large chunk of orientation is devoted to Career Discovery Forums, a business etiquette dinner, and networking tips. Companies start showing up on campus in very early September to host briefings and info sessions, and most students will be sucked into the Recruiting cyclone and spit back out (hopefully with an offer). Now, that’s not to say that everyone gets completely caught up in recruiting; some folks have offers to return to their prior employers. If you’ve finished your 1L year and happen to do law school recruiting in August and get an offer that you want to take, you can skip the whole Darden recruiting thing. If you’re focused on business recruiting, on the other hand, expect to spend a lot of time on it. I wish I could say that the JD/MBA degree is hugely appealing to companies, but depending on your background and what you want to do, you may find yourself at a slight disadvantage to your FY peers, who will be available for full-time positions a year or two before us JD/MBA folks.
So, that’s my summary of perceived major differences. There are some other differences, but they are much more minor – e.g., Darden dining options are better, the Darden grounds are slightly more beautiful, the Darden parking is closer to the school but more expensive, I think the Darden faculty offices are easier to find, corporate sponsorship is more apparent at Darden, and you get fewer emails from the Darden Director of Student Affairs every day than you do from the Law School Dean of Students (trust me – I get both sets now).
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Winter Break
When I was in college, I never really had the chance to "enjoy" breaks from school. I worked at a law firm in Delaware during each summer and winter break, starting pretty much the day I got home after exams up until the day right before I had to go back to Providence for classes (or mock trial tournament preparation or sorority planning retreats or whatever). When I worked at the Consulting Firm That Shall Not Be Named, I never really took vacation. Even if I did travel somewhere for "vacation," I inevitably worked at least an hour or two each day doing the parts of my job that nobody else either wanted to do or fully understood how to do. This is honestly the first time in my entire life that I have had nothing that I truly needed or was obligated to do for a period longer than a weekend.
Let's just say that I'm truly loving it, more than I ever thought I would or could.
Let's just say that I'm truly loving it, more than I ever thought I would or could.
Friday, December 11, 2009
We survived!
I know I am well overdue for several posts, and I promise those will come later (honestly!)...but, as my Global Economies & Markets exam rolls off my printer, I just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to all my Darden FY classmates. We've survived first semester, and now we can celebrate our survival with 5 weeks of glorious freedom! Oh, yeah, and interview prep.... :-)
I wish everyone safe travels and a happy and healthy holiday season!
I wish everyone safe travels and a happy and healthy holiday season!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Why do you build me up just to let me down and mess me around?
Apologies to The Foundations for borrowing their lyrics ("Build Me Up Buttercup") for the title of this blog post, but....
Dear Darden,
I have a question for you: seriously? Now, I've heard all about "Black November" at Darden. It's like one of those "the school, the myth, the legend" kind of things around here. I know that I'm not supposed to have any free time at all, that I'm supposed to be getting 3.25 hours of sleep each night, that I should be making 5+ networking calls a day, that I should be calculating WACCs and de-levering betas in my dreams. I get it. Really, I do. I was expecting it. And frankly, my November didn't start out too terribly wonderfully. I didn't understand anything in either Finance or Global Economies & Markets. I hated my resume. I was grumpy, for a variety of personal versions. In other words, I was ready for Black November.
Then, Darden, you decided to lure me into a false sense of security and complacency. You gave me a light caseload last week. My learning team didn't have to meet after Tuesday. We got to go on a field trip, fifth grade style, complete with busses and a lunch consisting of turkey sandwiches on white bread and chocolate chip cookies. I can't remember the last time I had a sandwich on plain white bread. It was nostalgic. I had time to pay my bills, clear out my DVR, and watch a movie from NetFlix. I went to TNDC for the first time since September, without feeling guilty, because I got to sleep in the next morning since class didn't start until 10:15 for a change. I got to clean my apartment from top to bottom because I actually had time to do it, not because I was using domesticity as a procrastination excuse. In my view, having time to scrub your floors on hands and knees, with Pinesol, at 3 pm on a Thursday afternoon when you don't have company coming is the height of self-indulgence, an activity typically reserved for the unemployed or ladies who lunch. The rest of the world uses Swiffers. This weekend, I had time to make coffee cakes to motivate my Section E-mates to get up and play Darden Cup soccer. I baked bread. I made chicken noodle soup, from an actual raw chicken and a big pot of water and some chopped up vegetables. It felt like exam week, only so much better.
Then this week started. Monday was Black Monday, in my view. I don't know what happened to the stock market, but my levels of joy and satisfaction with life plummeted well below 10,000. I had a paper due that should have taken me 2 hours to write. It took me HOURS, and I finished it 20 minutes before the deadline. It was a 4-page paper. WTF, Darden? You've robbed me of my ability to write papers, and I was a paper-writing fiend before you converted me to a spreadsheet junkie. I realized this week that my resume still stinks. I haven't written any cover letters, and I have three weeks until on-grounds job applications are due. I'm behind on preparing for case interviews. I have several networking calls set up for later this week, but I'm still behind the ball. I REALLY have no idea what's going on in Finance. My class participation has fallen off a cliff. We have a marketing simulation (StratSim) from 1:30 pm-9:30 pm today and 9 am-9:30 pm tomorrow. It's raining today, and it suddenly went from 70 degrees to winter. I feel like I'm drowning. I'd rather go back to working 90+ hour weeks at a law firm.
Darden, I understand that this month is called "Black November" for a reason. I just think it was really mean of you to make me think that everything was peaches and cream last week. If you were a man, I would dump you, because I consider that false advertising, and it's a problem in any relationship. Take that, Buttercup.
Love,
Me
Dear Darden,
I have a question for you: seriously? Now, I've heard all about "Black November" at Darden. It's like one of those "the school, the myth, the legend" kind of things around here. I know that I'm not supposed to have any free time at all, that I'm supposed to be getting 3.25 hours of sleep each night, that I should be making 5+ networking calls a day, that I should be calculating WACCs and de-levering betas in my dreams. I get it. Really, I do. I was expecting it. And frankly, my November didn't start out too terribly wonderfully. I didn't understand anything in either Finance or Global Economies & Markets. I hated my resume. I was grumpy, for a variety of personal versions. In other words, I was ready for Black November.
Then, Darden, you decided to lure me into a false sense of security and complacency. You gave me a light caseload last week. My learning team didn't have to meet after Tuesday. We got to go on a field trip, fifth grade style, complete with busses and a lunch consisting of turkey sandwiches on white bread and chocolate chip cookies. I can't remember the last time I had a sandwich on plain white bread. It was nostalgic. I had time to pay my bills, clear out my DVR, and watch a movie from NetFlix. I went to TNDC for the first time since September, without feeling guilty, because I got to sleep in the next morning since class didn't start until 10:15 for a change. I got to clean my apartment from top to bottom because I actually had time to do it, not because I was using domesticity as a procrastination excuse. In my view, having time to scrub your floors on hands and knees, with Pinesol, at 3 pm on a Thursday afternoon when you don't have company coming is the height of self-indulgence, an activity typically reserved for the unemployed or ladies who lunch. The rest of the world uses Swiffers. This weekend, I had time to make coffee cakes to motivate my Section E-mates to get up and play Darden Cup soccer. I baked bread. I made chicken noodle soup, from an actual raw chicken and a big pot of water and some chopped up vegetables. It felt like exam week, only so much better.
Then this week started. Monday was Black Monday, in my view. I don't know what happened to the stock market, but my levels of joy and satisfaction with life plummeted well below 10,000. I had a paper due that should have taken me 2 hours to write. It took me HOURS, and I finished it 20 minutes before the deadline. It was a 4-page paper. WTF, Darden? You've robbed me of my ability to write papers, and I was a paper-writing fiend before you converted me to a spreadsheet junkie. I realized this week that my resume still stinks. I haven't written any cover letters, and I have three weeks until on-grounds job applications are due. I'm behind on preparing for case interviews. I have several networking calls set up for later this week, but I'm still behind the ball. I REALLY have no idea what's going on in Finance. My class participation has fallen off a cliff. We have a marketing simulation (StratSim) from 1:30 pm-9:30 pm today and 9 am-9:30 pm tomorrow. It's raining today, and it suddenly went from 70 degrees to winter. I feel like I'm drowning. I'd rather go back to working 90+ hour weeks at a law firm.
Darden, I understand that this month is called "Black November" for a reason. I just think it was really mean of you to make me think that everything was peaches and cream last week. If you were a man, I would dump you, because I consider that false advertising, and it's a problem in any relationship. Take that, Buttercup.
Love,
Me
Friday, November 6, 2009
Old friends
Since moving to Virginia, I have been truly awful at keeping in touch with my friends from back home. There just isn't enough time in the day to feed myself, let alone make phone calls or send personal emails. However, due to some apparent oversight in the FY schedule this week (guess someone in the administration missed the "Black November" memo, but more on that later), I have had the luxury of enough free time to spend quality time on the phone with friends from college, exchange emails with a friend from work, and see a friend from home this afternoon (totally impromptu!). Being able to catch up with these friends was exactly what I needed from a mental health perspective at this point in the semester. The new friends I've made at Darden are great, but sometimes nothing beats being able to talk to someone who has known you for 5+ years.
And now I'm off for a potluck with some new friends... :-)
And now I'm off for a potluck with some new friends... :-)
Monday, November 2, 2009
Exam week is the best week of the quarter
Imagine being able to sleep later than 7 am, to watch prime-time television, to spend the whole day in pajamas, to have time to go grocery shopping, to have time to cook (not just heat) dinner…
For Darden FY students, the above activities are just figments of the imagination during the first quarter. During typical school weeks, I wake up at 7 am, shower, dress, do hair and makeup so that I look presentable for company briefings later in the day, grab my first cup of coffee at 7:45 (thank goodness for timers on coffee makers!), hop in the car, get to Darden by 8 am, spend the next 5 hours in class (refilling coffee every 85 minutes), grab a quick lunch, attend a company briefing or two, meet with a career coach/attend a club function/hit up another networking event, run home, pound a diet coke, prep the three cases for the next day, zap my dinner in the microwave while I change my clothes, then head back to Darden for learning team at 8 pm, get home around 10 pm, and spend some time unwinding, paying bills, trying to keep in touch with friends (which I am really bad at doing lately), and then fall into bed exhausted around midnight or 1 am. I frequently grocery shop at 10 pm, on my way home from learning team (there are four grocery stores between Darden and my apartment, 3 miles away). I don’t have time to cook dinner unless it’s a weekend (fortunately, I made a bunch of meals in August and froze them, and between those, lean cuisines, and free food at briefings or networking events, I manage to avoid dinners consisting of chips, cookies, or other unhealthy but quick foods). It’s a brutal schedule. I thought I’d have time for naps, like I did in college, but I do not. I am literally on the go doing Darden-related activities for 14+ hours a day.
However, once exam week rolled around, I found that I actually had some time to unwind and act like a normal human being. I had time to clean my apartment. I had time to go to both dinner and brunch with friends during the weekend before exams. I woke up each day at 8 am, grabbed some coffee and a granola bar, worked on the day’s exam for 5 hours, printed it out, drove to school and dropped it off, and by no later than 3 pm each day, I was a free woman. I caught up on the shows stored on my DVR. I painted my toe nails. I cooked. I ironed a huge stack of business casual attire. I spent a lot of time on Facebook. I took naps. I read books for fun. It was amazing.
Then second quarter started….and by day 2 I found myself counting down the days until Q2 exam week.
For Darden FY students, the above activities are just figments of the imagination during the first quarter. During typical school weeks, I wake up at 7 am, shower, dress, do hair and makeup so that I look presentable for company briefings later in the day, grab my first cup of coffee at 7:45 (thank goodness for timers on coffee makers!), hop in the car, get to Darden by 8 am, spend the next 5 hours in class (refilling coffee every 85 minutes), grab a quick lunch, attend a company briefing or two, meet with a career coach/attend a club function/hit up another networking event, run home, pound a diet coke, prep the three cases for the next day, zap my dinner in the microwave while I change my clothes, then head back to Darden for learning team at 8 pm, get home around 10 pm, and spend some time unwinding, paying bills, trying to keep in touch with friends (which I am really bad at doing lately), and then fall into bed exhausted around midnight or 1 am. I frequently grocery shop at 10 pm, on my way home from learning team (there are four grocery stores between Darden and my apartment, 3 miles away). I don’t have time to cook dinner unless it’s a weekend (fortunately, I made a bunch of meals in August and froze them, and between those, lean cuisines, and free food at briefings or networking events, I manage to avoid dinners consisting of chips, cookies, or other unhealthy but quick foods). It’s a brutal schedule. I thought I’d have time for naps, like I did in college, but I do not. I am literally on the go doing Darden-related activities for 14+ hours a day.
However, once exam week rolled around, I found that I actually had some time to unwind and act like a normal human being. I had time to clean my apartment. I had time to go to both dinner and brunch with friends during the weekend before exams. I woke up each day at 8 am, grabbed some coffee and a granola bar, worked on the day’s exam for 5 hours, printed it out, drove to school and dropped it off, and by no later than 3 pm each day, I was a free woman. I caught up on the shows stored on my DVR. I painted my toe nails. I cooked. I ironed a huge stack of business casual attire. I spent a lot of time on Facebook. I took naps. I read books for fun. It was amazing.
Then second quarter started….and by day 2 I found myself counting down the days until Q2 exam week.
Smörgåsbord
I have always been a huge fan of buffets. When I was a kid, one of my cousins and I used to be brunch buffet masters – we’d load up our plates with Belgian waffles, made-to-order omelets, fresh fruit, salads, freshly-carved meats, etc. And then we’d take a second, third, or fourth trip to the buffet line. I have no idea how we managed to eat so much, because I certainly cannot eat that much anymore; I just don’t have the stomach capacity for it (yes, for all you operations fans out there, my stomach is the Herbie when it comes to buffets). Now, that’s not to say that I didn’t try to relive my youth at the Darden International Food Fest…
The International Food Fest (IFF) is an annual Darden event sponsored by the International Business Society. Students form teams to represent countries or regions, and then they prepare traditional delicacies to serve from a decorated table/booth to the whole Darden community (you pay a flat fee for a wristband, and then when you show up, you get a plate and a fork and can eat all you want). After everyone has eaten themselves into food comas, many of the teams put together a performance of some sort.
Although Team Italia didn’t end up winning any awards, this year’s IFF was a great chance to meet some new people, taste some new foods from around the world, and reminisce about how I used to be able to eat soooo much more food when I was younger. *sigh*
The International Food Fest (IFF) is an annual Darden event sponsored by the International Business Society. Students form teams to represent countries or regions, and then they prepare traditional delicacies to serve from a decorated table/booth to the whole Darden community (you pay a flat fee for a wristband, and then when you show up, you get a plate and a fork and can eat all you want). After everyone has eaten themselves into food comas, many of the teams put together a performance of some sort.
While my heritage is German, there was, sadly, no Germany table at the IFF this year. Instead, I was recruited (during Orientation) by Team Italia. (Apparently, if you invite people over for a lasagna dinner during International Orientation, they will tell Irene , who will promptly recruit you.) We made a whole host of tasty food, including lasagna, tiramisu (I need to get that recipe from Irene!), polpette, bruschetta, insalata caprese, etc. My house and hands smelled like garlic for a week after my sub-team met to make the insalata and bruschetta….but it was delicious! Team Italia also sang some apparently traditional Italian songs during the performance section. Yes, even I sang, though I have a horrible signing voice and don’t speak a word of Italian. It was certainly interesting!
Although Team Italia didn’t end up winning any awards, this year’s IFF was a great chance to meet some new people, taste some new foods from around the world, and reminisce about how I used to be able to eat soooo much more food when I was younger. *sigh*
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