Gonna combine a few random things from the past week into this post. Sorry, no pictures right now.
Last week Kevin Plank gave a talk at the business school. I've heard him speak once before (he was the keynote speaker at my undergrad business school graduation), and knew it'd be an interesting talk. For those who are unfamiliar with him, he's a Maryland alum, and the founder and CEO of Under Armour. While playing for the Terps football team in the mid 90's he thought that the cotton t-shirts that athletes wore under their jerseys got too heavy and uncomfortable from sweat, and looked to create a new shirt. He tested out a few prototypes, thought he had something that could work, and then using his grandmother's basement as a 2-man office, he set to start his business. Fourteen years later, Under Armour is responsible for revolutionizing athletic apparel and has become an industry leader, clearing $1 billion in sales this year.
I always enjoy these type of entrepreneurial success stories, and find them pretty inspirational. Entrepreneurship is pretty big in MBA programs, and at Anderson in particular, so I hear people talk about this kind of stuff a decent amount. It really makes me wish I had a brilliant idea. Doesn't have to end up being a billion dollar company, but building up your own idea and turning it into something real, and being your own boss sounds really exciting to me. But alas, I haven't found that idea quite yet. (And I have to add the link for the ultra awesome Under Armour commercial from a few years ago, starring Ralph Friedgen)
So segueing into my current planned career path, I attended a nice little invite-only networking with PIMCO (largest bond manager in the world) on Tuesday. I had attended their company presentation last month, and met with one of their reps for an informational interview a couple weeks ago, which is why I assume I was one of the people picked to attend this event. The event was held in a lounge in the W Hotel here in Westwood and featured an open bar and some nice horsdevours. Those perks are nice, but for two hours it felt like a pre-interview (with beer). For the entire time I had to work the room, rotating around the various PIMCO reps by inserting and removing myself from "circles of death" (our nickname for group of students standing around a company representative at these type of events). Ask intelligent questions, sell myself, sound eager about the position, rotate to the next person. Rinse and repeat. Very draining, and I just don't feel comfortable in this setting quite yet. And after all that, I won't even know if I get invited to the first round interview until next month.
So that's my last career related event of the quarter (it's going to pick up big time in early January though), and I also had my last classes of the quarter last week. Crazy how fast it went by. To celebrate the end of classes, my section's C4C (Challenge For Charity = the big year-long volunteering and fund-raising competition b/w west coast MBA programs) reps organized a happy hour/charity event. An Anderson alum from a few years ago bought a sandwich shop in Westwood and turned it into a sandwich shop/bar, and he agreed to have our section in for the event. Two of my classmates guest-bartended, and all of their tips plus a % of all sales during the evening went to the charity. It was a fun celebratory evening. I shotgunned a beer inside of a bar for the first time, and better yet, sick children are going to be better off because I did. That made me feel good inside. Until I woke up the next morning, and didn't feel that good. But I digress. Also, at the end of the evening after the rest of my classmates had disappeared, I stuck around and chatted it up with the owner of the bar for awhile. By the end of the conversation I really wanted to buy a bar. Finance is quickly sliding down the list of career aspirations.
And finally, I don't think I mentioned the update on the roommate situation on the blog. It turns out since he's getting married in a couple weeks that he'll be moving out over winter break. He's getting out of his housing contract, so I assume Weyburn will try to fill the spot as soon as they can, but not sure if that will happen right away or not since moving in and out of grad housing mid year is unusual. Either way, I'm looking forward to it because it's going on 3 am right now, and I can still hear Call of Duty coming in through the walls. It's been over 15 hours and counting today.
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