Barcelona bound

I'm sitting at the Dulles airport, waiting with several of my classmates to board a flight to London, where we'll hop on another flight to Barcelona. We're going on one of Darden's several Global Business Experiences (GBE's) that are scheduled during the next week, which is Spring Break for the rest of the Darden community. First Years can bid to go to Barcelona, Sao Paulo, Stockholm, Mexico City, or Buenos Aires, while Second Years, who have a longer break, can go on any of the above trips or to India, China, Bahrain, or Egypt. There is also a GBE trip to Israel after Q4 exams in May, some students are heading to Mumbai this week for a project with Danaher, and a few of us will be getting GBE credit for an internship program at the Cannes Film Festival in May, too. The GBEs offer those of us who do not necessarily want to commit to a whole quarter or semester abroad a great short-term opportunity to travel internationally and learn about business issues in a global context, all while earning the equivalent of one quarter-length class' worth of course credit.

I will be trying to blog via BlackBerry this week, so stay tuned!

I hereby declare Winter to be over

I'm playing mind games with Winter. Yes, it did snow today in Charlottesville.  Yes, I know that Spring doesn't officially start for almost three more weeks.  But I have decided to throw my parka in the wash, pack up my hats and scarves, stow the big bad snow shovel, and remove all of my winter pictures from my camera and post some of them here.  Therefore, I announce that Winter is over.  Do you hear that, weather gods?  YOU ARE DONE!!!  Mwhahaha!

When I started planning to move to Virginia after 7 years in Providence, RI and Boston, MA (including above-average snow fall each of the last two years...and the average is ~45 inches), everyone said, "Oh, Virginia.  It only snows once or twice a year, and it snows MAYBE five or six inches, MAX.  Plus, it melts right away."  I should have known they were all lying to me when it actually snowed on the day that I came to interview.  But anyway...I was expecting snowfall like this, which we got during the first weekend of exams in December:

See, it was kinda rainy and gross, barely sticking to the roads.

You could still see the grass peeking through in Flagler Courtyard!

There were still living plants!

...and Darden hadn't even removed the flower pots!

Yes, well, snow like that would have been all well and good.  Then we got 2 feet during the weekend before Christmas.  The city, county, and state shut down.  More than 48 hours after the storm ended, I left to drive home to Delaware, and I didn't see a completely clear lane of roadway until I got two counties north on Rt. 29.  I realized then that Virginians have no idea whatsoever how to deal with snow.  OK, maybe that isn't fair.  Virginians who have previously lived in New England have a vague idea of how one should properly deal with snow.  Most Virginians panic, in the "OH MY GOODNESS!!!  It is going to SNOW!!! I have to run to the grocery store immediately and stock up on bread, milk, cat food, snacks, beer, etc., BECAUSE I MAY NEVER BE ABLE TO LEAVE MY HOUSE AGAIN!!!!" sort of way.  Do Virginians do proactive things, like salt or sand roadways?  No.  They do not.  In fact, they wait to start plowing or shoveling or doing anything to deal with the snow until there is more than a foot on the ground.  I want to start some sort of educational program for the local municipalities.  Furthermore, I want to issue a public service announcement to Virginia drivers:

"Attention, Virginia drivers.  Please consider the following tips for traveling in snow.  First, if you do not have 4-wheel drive and there is more than a foot of snow on the road, DO NOT DRIVE.  Second, if you do not know how to drive in snow, DO NOT DRIVE.  Even if you do have 4-wheel drive, do not drive if you are going to go either 5 mph or 80 mph in the snow.  Neither option is particularly safe.  Third, if it snows, please clear the snow off of the top of your car before it hardens into a rock-solid chunk that will go flying off of the back of your vehicle once you start driving, causing considerable consternation to other drivers behind you.  Fourth, if you see that your female neighbor has spent an houring shoveling out her car, including hauling shovelsfull of snow to the opposite end of the parking lot so that it does not block anyone else in, DO NOT MOVE YOUR SNOW-COVERED CAR TO HER CLEAR SPOT, leaving your snow-covered spot to ice over; that's just rude.  Your adherence to these four tips will make snowy winters far more pleasant for all Virginia residents.  Thank you."

Clearly, as a snow-hardened, grizzled New Englander, I was frustrated by the local response.  But again, I thought, "Hey, this must be the odd one-off situation that happens once in a blue moon.  I've dealt with it, and now I should be able to get through the rest of the winter snow-free."  Right?  WRONG.

It seemed to snow every single weekend through late January and February (and only on weekends!).  I had to cancel numerous trips to DC to visit friends, which meant that I felt snowbound every single weekend, and the cabin fever became ridiculous.  My #1 way to spend free time was shoveling out/off my snow-covered car (yeah, with that much snow, those little snow brushes are worthless - see below). 

Grocery stores constantly had 30-40 minute check-out lines as every Charlottesvillian panicked, storm after storm.  (Seriously, if it snows on Tuesday and you go to the grocery store on Monday to prepare for Snowmageddon, do you really need more food on Thursday in preparation for the Friday storm?  How much do you eat?) As my friends and younger sister in DC got day after day off from work, I didn't even get a single stinkin' snow day (the University cancelled classes on one Friday because there was a state of emergency, but Darden had a Reading Day anyway, so there was no incremental benefit to me)!  The outrageousness of it all!

However, during the second 2-foot storm, I decided to take the camera out and get some nice pictures of Darden and the central UVa grounds, because I do actually like snow (but I like it more when there is public transportation, when people know how to deal with it, etc.).  I thought some of you might enjoy!

The Darden sign.

Saunders Hall.

Close-up of Saunders.

The tree-lined driveway to the faculty parking lot.

Kind of hard to sit on the benches, huh?

Our man, Thomas Jefferson. 

Flagler Courtyard and the fountain, looking towards Saunders.

A very, very snowy little courtyard alcove.

I love the contrast of green leaves and snow.

Anyone for lunch outside?

Treacherous stairs.

Abbott Center and Wilkinson Courtyard.

I LOVE snow-covered trees.

Central Grounds, view from Newcomb Hall.

Walking towards the Lawn.

The Rotunda, from the Lawn.

The Episcopal church near the Lawn (St. John's, maybe?).

View of the Rotunda from University Ave.  Clearly the undegrads had been sledding.  I miss "borrowing" dining hall trays to sled down College Hill in Providence.

The University chapel.

See, wasn't that pretty?  Unfortunately, now that I have decreed that winter is over, all we are left with is the big heap of parking lot snow we have dubbed Mt. Barracks:

The Barracks Road Shopping Center people covered it in sand so people would stop sledding.  Killjoys.  Darden students, ever-inventive and very good at monetizing anything they can, have a bet going as to the day that Mt. Barracks finally melts, and if you are actually still reading this blog post, you must have time to kill, and you should check out the Cold Call Chronicle article about climbing Mt. Barracks. 

You know Spring is just around the corner when...

...LACROSSE SEASON STARTS!!!  Yes, I know most people do not get this excited about lacrosse season.  However, I am my father's daughter.  For those of you who do not know my father, he played lacrosse growing up in Baltimore and all throughout high school and college.  He subsequently officiated high school and college games up until having two knee replacement surgeries in the last several years.  When my father officiated, my younger sister and I came along to games.  During our younger years, we were bored out of our little minds.  We used to pray that the high school to which we were dragged also had an affiliated grade school so that there would be a swingset or something to occupy us (shout out to Tatnall, which had by far the most entertaining facilities).  But by the time we were older, we actually enjoyed watching the games.  We also owned pee-wee sized lacrosse sticks as kids.  We played in grade school.  I started playing in high school and then ended up with the world's most evil lacrosse coach (long story, but if I had continued to play for her, I am fairly sure I would have ended up in the hospital and my high school would have had a very unpleasant legal situation on their hands), so I quit, and I think my father and I had the single largest fight we've ever had about my quitting.  I then "managed" the mens' team.  Anyway, my history aside, I like watching lacrosse, and I am particularly excited now that I go to a university with the No. 2 ranked men's lax team and the No. 12 women's team!  It doesn't hurt that the lax stadium is a mere 5 minute walk from Darden. 

As part of my exam procrastination - er, I mean, studying - regimen this weekend, I went to the men's game against Stoneybrook on Saturday.  It was a little chilly, and the fact that there were four-foot mounds of snow surrounding the turf field seemed moderately odd, but it was fun!  It was clearly early in the season, so play was a little bit sloppy, but we won, and hopefully I'll have a chance to attend more games this season.  I'm very sad that I'll be missing the Syracuse game next week, but I think I'll be able to get over it since I'll be in BARCELONA (more to come on that).  In the meantime, I thought I'd share some of my attempts to be a sports photographer (here my father also puts me to shame - since he no longer officiates, he's moved on to photographing high school and college games.  He has a fancy schmancy camera and stands on the sidelines.  I am technologically challenged, so this is the best I could do from up in the stands with a tiny little Nikon Coolpix.):

Oh, rural life

Today, after our Decision Analysis exam, Julie and I decided to go see a movie. We figured, hey, we deserve a treat, and how much can you really study for a strategy exam anyway? So...we determined that Valentine's Day was playing at the Carmike, Charlottesville's least glamorous theatre. The movie was scheduled to start at 4:05. We walked in at 4, and there was not a single light on. Thank goodness for Blackberry flashlights. Then, we had numerous false alarms with previews. And the ticket guy came in to accuse me of stealing his pen when I signed my credit card receipt. Maybe now we will actually be able to watch the movie...but not before they blast my eardrums to smithereens. Oy.

Multi-tasking

Since August, many of the the Second Years have said that Q3 marks a turning point in the first year. By that point, First Years have survived half of the mandatory curriculum, we've ostensibly hit our stride in terms of case preparation, and we allegedy have much more free time. Well, with Q3 classes over and exams starting tomorrow, I'd like to say this: we don't necessarily have more free time; we've just become better b-school multi-taskers. Consider the following evidence:

Yes, that would be my Darden classmates (and co-Section E'ers) at the UVa vs. Duke basketball game studying technical notes for our Decision Analysis exam tomorrow.  Wow.  There are no words...

...except maybe to say that this somehow represents an equilibrium point of sorts in the self-negotiation between fun and work.  It certainly isn't the Pareto Optimal solution. 

Those of my classmates who spent the evening studying (whether at the game or at home) will understand my lame joke.  To those of you who are coming to Darden next year, be warned that this is what stands ahead of you.  To the rest of you, I apologize. 

Why I love/miss Brown

I'm sure most of us at Darden have very fond memories of our undergrad experiences (hey, many of us seem to be trying to relive them on a regular basis every Thursday-Saturday!), but I have to say that I truly loved my time at Brown. This week, I have been constantly reminded of the amazing relationships I was able to form there and the great times I had. In the last 48 hours:
1.) My girlfriends from Brown, who are always there for me no matter how busy they are or how obnoxious I am when in the throes of my "let's complain about how stressful FY is" rants, have come through yet again, telling me exactly what I needed to hear, precisely when I needed to hear it.
2.) A former mock trial teammate was critically injured in a hit-and-run in Brooklyn early Sunday morning. Within hours, friends with whom I haven't spoken in months (and sometimes years) had sent out emails letting everyone know, offering each other support, and planning hospital visits (for those of you who are in any habit of praying, please keep my friend and her family in your prayers).
3.) This morning in the hallway after First Coffee, I ran into a fellow Brown alum who is also a prospective JD/MBA student and we caught up over coffee this afternoon.
4.) Another good friend posted this on Facebook.(For those of you who are confused, see here for the inspiration and here to understand why the video was made.)

Suffice it to say, I'm more than a little nostalgic (and successfully procrastinating when it comes to working on my group's Strategy paper).

If you feel ignored...

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. :-)

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).