The Summer of Eric Continues

The first of two surfboards I've bought this summer

 
I'm currently over two months removed from finals, and seven weeks into my internship.  The time has been flying by and overall the summer has really enjoyable.

I've been pleased with the internship experience thus far.  For whatever reason 8 am classes were unbearable, but I've quickly adjusted to arriving at the office at 7 am everyday and have actually embraced the schedule because I am usually back on the road by 4 pm.  (This is in sharp contrast to many other MBA interns, particularly those in investment banking that routinely work 120 hour weeks.)  I like the portfolio manager (Mark) that I'm working with, as he's a genuinely good guy who really wants to teach and see me succeed.  I've definitely learned a lot so far between talking to Mark, overhearing him interact with analysts and clients, and from all the reading and research I'm doing every day.  His style is a little different than the more traditional investment managers, so not everything will be transferable when I start doing full-time recruiting, but I know I'll be in a much better place than I was a few months ago.

My new office building in Santa Monica.  Not too shabby.

I think the one negative aspect of the job is that I don't feel like there I'm not really creating much output and its tough to tell how I'm doing.  Mark will casually mention stocks he's interested in, I'll research them, compile notes and data and pass it along.  But two days later he may no longer be interested in that stock, so I'll be looking into a few different ones.  This keeps the work varied, but makes it tougher to become as knowledgeable in any particular area or company.  He always says I'm doing a good job, but knowing what actual impact I'm making is hard to tell.  I guess I'm just used to a more structured work environment at Cambridge where I created specific products and had an easier time evaluating my work.  Overall, it still has been a very positive experience so far, and Mark has asked me to stay on after classes start up in the fall and work part-time, which I plan on doing.

Outside of the work hours, I've managed to stay busy, but in a totally different way from the school year.  This has been the most stress-free I've felt in a really long time, and I've been filling the past few weeks with a bunch of fun activities.  Because of the favorable work schedule, I've been able to fit a regular exercise regiment in right after work, which still gets me home in time for dinner, just as my other classmates are getting off from their jobs.

Some of the summer highlights so far:

- Skydiving weekend: As part of my buddy's 30th birthday celebration, a bunch of us rented a cabin  in the mountains at Big Bear Lake (2 hrs east of LA).  The cabin was nice with a hot tub, pool table, grills, outdoor patio, and large living and sleeping arrangements.  We also rented a boat on the lake one day.  But the highlight was my first ever skydiving experience.  It was something that has always been on "my list" so I couldn't pass up the opportunity, and it was the nerve-wracking, awesome experience I was hoping for.  Here's the video: Skydive Video

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa in Pennsylvania

- 4th of July Weekend:  Went back to the east coast for an extended weekend to celebrate Lindsay's wedding, which was quite lovely.  The weekend served as a nice family reunion, highlighted by a very exciting surprise appearance by Grandma and Grandpa.  While in NY I got to see some of the old crew, eat some authentic NY pizza, go pitch and putting, hit up the LI nightlife, and attend a 4th of July BBQ.

- San Diego weekend: Last week Evan received the honor of being the first person to come out and visit me since I've settled in LA.  It was a pretty jammed packed few days as we made appearances at several local eateries, the San Diego zoo, Mission Brewery, a San Diego Padres game, hiking trails around Griffith Park, and the LA Rising concert (Rise Against, Muse, and Rage Against the Machine).  Good times.  Rock on. 

- Surfing:  I decided to make this my new hobby for the summer after attending a lesson by UCLA Recreation around a month ago.  I currently have purchased two surfboards on Craigslist (one was the wrong size, so I'm trying to resell it now), a wetsuit and various other accessories.  I've gone out twice since then, and am trying to make it at least a weekly routine the rest of the way.

Showing some Mets pride in Dodgers Stadium

- New Apartment: Nothing exciting to report except that it's a lot more spacious than my old one and has a balcony.  I'm subleasing it from a friend over the summer while he's on the east coast, so I need to find a new place for the fall quarter in the next month or so.

- Other fun events: MBA Entertainment Mixer; brunch parties; the Getty; lots of movies; free passes to Paramount lot to see Captain America premiere and tour of the sets; Mets-Dodgers game; dined at several new LA restaurants.

There are still another six weeks until fall classes start up, so I'm hoping the positive momentum from the summer continues until then.

Summer Outlook

Santa Monica Beach

"Out the door just in time, head down the 405, gotta meet the new boss by 8 am... Well, I know what I've been told, you gotta work to feed the soul, but I can't do this all on my own, no I know, I'm no Superman." - Lazlo Bane, Superman (aka the theme song from Scrubs)

Yesterday was the first day of my summer internship and when I met the new boss at 8 am, he told me he would be out for the rest of the day.  He gave me a quick overview of some stocks he was thinking about and showed me some printouts, and then ushered me on to meet with HR and Compliance to go through fun administrative stuff.  Since Mark (the portfolio manager) and I are the only two that work on this specific fund at Dalton, there wasn't anyone else in the office to give me work to do, so needless to say it was a very easy going first day.  Day Two was probably a little more typical.  Mark and I share an office and he loves to talk about stocks, and his philosophies and strategies all day long.  He talks really fast and right now he seems to be way over my head and I find myself nodding and smiling a lot and trying my best not to sound like a clueless intern.  I'm sure eventually it'll click, but right now I'm just trying to keep up with the conversation, let alone do actual work.

Although my main goal for the summer is to do a really awesome job at the internship (dedicate myself, make a good impression, and learn a ton, blah blah blah), there's been a list of other things I want to do. Over the past few weeks, especially after I heard I'd be done with work for the day by 3ish, I've thought of a ton of other things that I want to get done. Things like spending more time exercising, reading, hiking, exploring LA, going to the beach, playing guitar again, catching up on tv/movies, or even trying out some new hobbies (more surfing perhaps?).  I think just because free time was at such a premium the past 9 months during the school year, I seem to think that working 40-50 hour weeks is like a vacation.  I'll find out pretty quickly that isn't true, and I'm not going to be able to do a lot of those things I mentioned with any regularity.  But hopefully once I get my work routine down, I'll get to some of the fun stuff and have a relaxing, but still varied and fun summer.

So far its off to a good start, in my one week in between classes and the internship.  I went to our Section A rooftop party (a little too much fun), the beach, Universal Studios, a random Anderson party, the movies, Man Dinner at Spago (where Flava Flav was two tables away), Reich's new apartment, and had a really fun birthday celebration. (I also just recovered from a weekend of food poisoning, so I guess it hasn't all been perfect).

One little curveball with some of my plans the rest of the way though is that almost all of my hangout crew from the past couple quarters have scattered throughout the country for internships, so I'll probably have to branch out who I spend my time with.  That could end up being fun actually, and I'll probably try to see Reich a little bit more too.  As of now I don't have any huge summer travel/vacation plans, but I do have a confirmed visit from Evan at the end of July, a potential upcoming visit from Hal, and I will be heading to NY and PA for several days over 4th of July weekend to see family and celebrate Lindsay's wedding.  I'd also love to get up to San Francisco at some point this summer since I know a lot of people interning up there, I've never been, and it's on my To-Do list before I leave the west coast permanently.

Post-Finals Section A Rooftop Party

Following my mini-vacation between school and job last week, the start of the "real" part of the summer now reminds me a bit of the start of the school year last September.  It's a new beginning where I feel I have to make a good impression and prove myself again.  My social scene is going to be a little undefined.  I'm moving into a new apartment.  And I have a long list of things I want to get done, but not sure where I'm gonna fit it all in.  I think that makes it all pretty exciting, and right now I'm looking forward to the challenge and seeing what comes from the next three months.

Spring Quarter Recap

Section A Happy Hour at the Huntley Hotel Penthouse in Santa Monica

Just finished up my last two finals of the quarter today, which, aside from the group paper that I'll need to help finalize this weekend, signifies the end of the quarter and of my first full year as an MBA student.  I'll use this post to recap the spring quarter, and do a full-year reflection at a later time.

The classes again were a mixed bag.  8 am Strategy class was probably my least favorite of the year, but Organizational Behavior was definitely one of my favorite (entertaining professor, heavy on psychology, and a lot of in-class simulations and interactive activities).  I also took my first two electives: an excel modeling class (Decision Analysis) and Global Macroeconomics.

In the Student Investment Fund, we have moved from the research side to actually having the power to invest the $2 million portfolio how we see fit.  My role as one of the founding board members of the new school organization the Anderson Investment Association (AIA), which will be open for enrollment in the fall, has been pretty time intensive so far.  We're trying to coordinate some big, national events (a stock pitch competition and an investment conference, are our two biggest ideas).  To get it off the ground and make sure it's first year is a success a lot of planning has been necessary, and will continue into next year. 

As a quick follow-up to the Ghana Trip, in a previous post I had mentioned that we would be flying to Denver to meet with possible donors to pitch our business plan.  Supposedly we're still going to do this, but there has been difficulty with scheduling all the investors at once, so it's been postponed until the summer right now. 

So overall the interviewing and recruiting process definitely stands out the most from the past few months, but looking back I realize that I did a decent amount during the spring quarter, and it's been a fun couple of months.  For one, I felt a little more connected to a default group of classmates who have become my normal hang-out crew this quarter.  I felt that was missing a little bit in my first several months in LA as my social schedule was a little more scattered.  Not that one way is necessarily better or worse, but throughout my life (whether it was in NY, college, or at Cambridge) I've always been used to having the smaller, closer group of friends, rather than a larger, but less strong circle of friends.  Some of the social highlights of the quarter:

- My first Dodgers game
- First golf experiences in LA (two trips to driving range, and one 8-man, 9 hole round in Huntington Beach)
- Bunch of outdoorsy stuff.  Went on two hikes (Sandstone Peak, and Pacific Palisades - link to pictures below) and hung out at Griffith Observatory (we saw Saturn through their mega-telescope) with one of my friends from the Ghana trip.
- Attended my first Passover Seder, emceed brilliantly by Mr. Adam Reich
- West Hollywood BBQ/party
- Trip to Arcadia for Taiwanese food and bowling
- Meeting up with former UMD roomie, Adam Storch for mini golf
- Bunch of Anderson events (fashion show, cabaret, IFA mixer, international food festival, Section A happy hour, etc)
- Trip to casino in downtown LA
- Trip to San Diego with SIF to visit companies
- SIF Annual Alumni Banquet
- Volunteered for A-Days (admitted students weekend) at the career fair and a couple of panel discussions about the finance program at Anderson and some of the new initiatives we're trying to start up with the AIA

One final big social event is on deck for this quarter, our quarterly Section A post-finals party.  It's especially significant this quarter because since we've completed all our core courses now, Section A as a group of classmates will be a thing of the past.  Also, with much of our classmates scattering for internships throughout the world over the summer, and then many people studying abroad in the fall quarter, this is the last time we will all be together for a long time.  Should be a fun celebration.

Sandstone Peak Hike
(I have pictures from the other hike too, but they're not posted yet)

The End to the Internship Search

This is what someone with a job looks like.

It took longer than I would have liked, but finally my internship search has come to an end.

They told us on the first day of our ACT Team meeting (our career sessions led by 2nd years who interned in our specific industries the previous summer) way back in September that if we wanted an internship in Investment Management that a good chunk of us would have to sweat the process out.  A lot of 2nd years hadn't gotten their summer jobs until May or June.  Many more bowed out earlier than that to find positions in industries that had more openings.  They told us very frankly that if we didn't have the stomach to wait things out that we could save ourselves plenty of time and stress if we looked elsewhere earlier.  Even now I'm not sure what combination of dedication, stubbornness and overconfidence it was that made me to decide to stick with it from Day 1, but the warnings of my ACT coaches proved true in our class as well.  Our ACT Team of 30+ people was down to single digits by the winter quarter, and even some of those students came out of interest but were looking at other types of jobs too.  Even half of the students who had found a place on the Student Investment Fund, the most prestigious investment management activity at Anderson, had eventually decided to take internships in other financial verticals. 

So by the time mid-May had rolled around I felt that I was no closer to an internship than when I started looking in the fall.  It's not that I hadn't found opportunities or put in effort.  My resume looks pretty good on paper which helped turn my 30+ applications into 10-15 1st round interviews, a decent conversion rate compared to what I heard from peers.  There were a couple trips to Orange County, multiple 7 am interviews,  countless stock pitch revisions, a timed real estate modeling case study, and lots of close calls (I was down to the final two with both Oaktree Capital and Green Street Advisors and was pretty convinced I had those jobs), but alas nothing had turned into an offer.  As other students continued to solidify their summer plans, I was really starting to feel stressed out more than I had in recent memory and was wondering where exactly I had gone wrong.  Should I have diversified my job search a bit more earlier on?  Should I have put in more legitimate networking efforts in the fall and winter rather than assuming job openings would just materialize?  Or maybe most simply I had just misjudged my skill-set and wasn't actually cut out for this industry.

But whatever the case may be, or whatever mistakes I may have made along the way, the bottom line is that I did finally lock down an internship.  Even during the process, I drew similarities to my job search senior year at Maryland.  I was convinced I wasn't going to find a job then and thought I'd have to move back to Long Island jobless and stay at my parents' home while looking for jobs post-grad.  I ended up getting a late offer at Cambridge, which turned out to be a truly great experience for me and the rest is history.  The point being, that at that time I was very stressed and really doubted myself but looking back I can barely remember it, and it all worked out.  People who I talked to regularly over the past couple months know how down I was about the whole search, but in the grand scheme of things it'll end up being a blip on the map, and hopefully will work out just as well.

My office building this summer

Anyways, enough looking back.  The quick summary on what I will be doing in the future is that I'll be working in a research analyst role for a sub-fund of Dalton Investments, a hedge fund just a couple miles from my apartment in Los Angeles.  The fund itself is a really small long-short domestic equity fund which will have two employees this summer (me and the portfolio manager), although the company/office have several others working on other funds.  I don't know all the details quite yet, but I'll probably be starting up shortly after finals in early or mid June and working around 40 hours a week (getting home by 3:30!) throughout the summer.  Working with just one other guy and sharing an office with him will be a big change of pace from my previous experience at Cambridge, but the portfolio manager seems super knowledgeable about investing and I think it'll be a really good learning experience.  We'll see how things go, but I'm definitely glad to have finally cleared this significant hurdle of my first year of business school.

Spring Break in Ghana - Part 2

Outside the orphanage

The "work" portion of our trip was a key aspect of what made this a rewarding and great spring break overall, but much of our time was actually spent exploring the culture and sites of Ghana and also just relaxing and enjoying ourselves.  Going into all the details of the 10 day trip will take too long, but hopefully this post will give a fuller description of the cultural and recreational activities of our trip to Ghana.

The team left for Ghana at 1 pm on St. Patrick's Day, about 24 hours after our last final of the winter quarter, and arrived in Africa around noon (Ghana time) the following day. Isaac had a lot of Delta points and was able to upgrade us to seats with excellent legroom which would have made for a very pleasant flight, if it wasn't for the arctic-like temperature of the plane.  We landed in the only airport in Ghana, in the capital city of Accra.  We had a pleasant lunch at Frankie's, "the best restaurant in town," which was tasty and had air condition, but was basically a diner.  Afterwards we did a major grocery shopping trip to get food for the week since we didn't want to trust street vendors for most food, and there weren't any grocery stores closer to where we would be staying.  Accra itself seemed more developed than I was expecting, but as we drove towards the orphanage where we would be staying, the environment increasingly felt like a 3rd world country.  There seemed to be more buildings that were partially completed (but no longer being constructed) than finished, and no real businesses to speak of.  The roads were swarming with goats and street vendors selling every item under the sun (ranging from fruit, to sunglasses, to coloring books to action figures).  Traffic was a nightmare (as apparently it always is near Accra), and it took us 3-4 hours to get to the orphanage. 

I was very impressed with the size and quality of the orphanage.  It was a two story building on a 17 acre property and had a multitude of rooms.  There were enough bedrooms that each of us got our own room (except for the two girls, Kate and Daphne, who decided to stay in the same room).  There was a large dining/living room area with several ceiling fans, where we spent most of our time, eating meals, playing games, and getting our work done.  There were no children staying at the orphanage, but 3 young men, who were watching after the building, and served as our hosts and guides for the week.  Still, conditions were far from what we were used to.  Even with the fans, we were hot and sweaty throughout the stay.  There were insects (we had to sleep with mosquito nets over our beds) and the building (less than 10 years old) had lots of structural damage.  Privacy in the group bathrooms was limited in that some of the toilet and shower stalls had only thin curtains that didn't cover the entire stall, but many of them had no privacy at all.  There was no hot water for the showers (although this normally felt pretty refreshing). The electricity was spotty, and went out for around 12 hours one night (which would make the area pitch black if it wasn't for the moon) leading to an especially sweaty sleeping situation.

Overall, we actually ate very well on the trip. Our breakfasts and dinners were all put together ourselves in the orphanage. Isaac whipped together a delicious fish dinner one night which was designated as the best meal of the trip. We had one authentic Ghani dish, Fufu, which took several hours and a lot of pounding to prepare. We ate at Frankie's on our return to trip to Accra, and made two other lunch stops at restaurants during the trip. The fresh fruit was outstanding (we ate a ton of pineapple), and I stand by my claim that the mangos I ate there were the best I've ever had. 

Latenight game of cards

As far as nighttime activities go, we wasted little time in setting the precedent for the trip.  Even on the first night, we realized that since we couldn't leave the premises, we'd have to find ways to entertain ourselves.  Luckily we had several decks of cards and multiple bottles of alcohol.  It became our nightly tradition after dinner to make some cocktails and play some games.  We usually started with a large communal game that all 7 of us could play (occasionally Ben, one of the Ghanaians staying at the orphanage, would join too).  This usually involved games of Mafia, Family Business, or Kings/Queens/Pauper.  Occasionally people would start getting sleepy and when there were 4 of us we would start playing different games (Turnip, a Arab game similar to Spades, was our late-night game of choice), and after that ended a couple of us would just hang out for a bit.  Partially because I struggled to sleep in the heat, but mostly because I found these nights highly entertaining, I was always one of the last to go to bed, usually after 2 am, and as late as 4 on one occasion.  More because of the amount of time spent hanging out than because of aggressive drinking, we managed to average a bottle of whiskey a night, but luckily liquor stores were prevalent in the closest town, Kasoa.  And although these nights had very little to do with Ghana itself, they ended up being some of the more fun, laugh-filled parts of our trip, and wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the conditions we were staying in.  Sometimes you just need to get away from technology and city distractions to get grad students to enjoy the simple pleasures of a night of games with some friends (and a couple glasses of whiskey, of course).   

Some of the children at a local village

On our first full day we stopped at several small villages to visit a couple children that Suzie had worked with on previous visits to Ghana. These communities were a stark contrast to Accra, or even Kasoa. The villages were just as undeveloped as you might imagine when trying to picture a 3rd world country. The shelters are basically just one room huts and there seemed to be way more people in the towns than there seem to be room to house them all. Many villages didn't have electricity or any other amenities. But despite the conditions, the people seem happy, and were especially friendly to us. We played with some of the children in the first village for awhile, and they seemed very receptive to us taking their pictures and hanging around.

This wasn't until later in the trip, but in one community encounter that I found especially interesting, we went to the area chief's village. The chief himself had actually recently passed away, so Suzie wanted to pay respect to the family. We were greeted very warmly when entering the village, and then were ushered into the chief's house where we met his wife, brother, and other family members. The chief's family were all clothed in extravagant robes and walked with large staffs. It's really tough to explain, but it was a fascinating experience that was partially ceremonial in nature, and seemed almost otherworldly.

Our second day featured a trip to a local beach.  It took us close to 2 hours to get there (our hired driver kept getting lost), but eventually we arrived.  We had to walk through a village of gawking locals to get there, but the beach itself was fairly nice.  There were some solid waves, and a lot of area to walk around.  We played Frisbee with some local kids, and just relaxed and soaked up the lovely weather throughout the afternoon.  The walk back to our van was a little more interesting.  The tide had come in, so we needed to pay the locals to take us back on their canoe to get us back to town.  We also may or may not have walked past lots of human waste products throughout the village, which made us question how clean the water had been that we'd just spent the day swimming in.

Boti Falls

Our business plan work started on the third day, but other recreational/sightseeing activities during the week included a canopy walk over a rain forest, feeding crocodiles at a restaurant, touring an old slave fort, browsing a food market and a craft market, a trip to Boti Falls (this was an 11 hour excursion in all, and we only spent 15 minutes at the waterfalls before a monsoon-like storm came through and forced us back to the van), and a final relaxing afternoon swimming and hanging out at the nicest hotel in Accra. 

There are plenty of more details and stories that can be said about the trip, but I think I've captured my main thoughts and impressions.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves to fill in the blanks of the rest of the stories and activities.  The link below is the condensed album for the trip (I took 300 pictures, and Isaac, with his new SLR camera, took 1,500).  Enjoy:  https://picasaweb.google.com/eric.schaaf/Ghana2011#

Spring Break in Ghana - Part 1

Overlooking the land owned by the orphanage we stayed at

Going into my spring break trip to Ghana I really had no idea what to expect.  Admittedly it's an odd vacation destination for what will probably be the second-to-last true spring break trip of my life.  There was plenty of uncertainty with the plans and logistical details, possibilities of health and safety risks, and a high chance of discomfort from sweating through humid 95 degree days. But I felt like this was a unique, can't-miss opportunity to spend some time in Africa (a continent I had never previously entered) for a fair price (the organization would be funding most expenses besides airfare) while trying to do something productive.  So although it may not be as relaxing as a beach trip to Costa Rica, or as cultural as the Anderson-wide trip to China, I knew 9 days in Ghana would be instantly memorable.  And with a solid group of classmates already signed up, I knew we'd make the most of it and have a good time.  This all proved to be true and then some.

(Sidenote: The only other alternative trip I had seriously been considering was the annual Anderson trip to Japan, which I'm obviously glad I didn't choose since it ended up being canceled following the tragic natural disasters a week before spring break).

Exploring the land

So the premise behind the trip was that my classmate Isaac's mom (Suzie) had founded orphanages in many 3rd world countries.  They had all been successful except for the one in Ghana, which was facing staffing issues, funding shortfalls, and many additional operational problems.  The main issue that Suzie wanted us to tackle was to decide if there was a way that the orphanage could generate income on its own, to supplement the sporadic funding from the organization's donors.  The orphanage was on 17 acres of land, and since Ghana is largely an agricultural country, the obvious choice seemed to be to convert some of this land into a farm.

To gather our research while in Ghana, we spoke with a number of local consumers, interviewed the manager of a large pineapple planter and exporter, visited food markets, and explored the property.  Over the course of several days we collected a plethora of data and information on every aspect of the processes and risks involved in farming, and became mini-experts in the surprisingly complex world of pineapple farming in undeveloped countries.  We then used all this data to put together some really groovy looking financial models, cash flow projections, and sensitivity analysis in Excel to determine if this was a feasible plan and if it could actually be profitable.  Finally we presented our full short and long term business plan for this endeavor to Suzie.  Having met a lot of the natives and gotten to know some locals pretty well, we even made staffing recommendations.  Suzie loved what we put together, and asked if we would be willing to put together a full Power Point presentation and accompanying report, fly out to Denver and meet with her biggest donors to make a pitch to them asking for the start-up capital to get this project off the ground.

Team Ghana hard at work

All in all, it felt really good seeing how much quality work we got done in such a short time, how much Suzie appreciated our efforts, and how, if everything works according to plan, this could make a difference for the future of the orphanage.  I've said it plenty of times before, but I'm continuously impressed with the quality level of students at Anderson, and this was certainly a prime example of that. It was a team effort, but in such a unique situation with cultural and language barriers, the way certain members of the team seemed to naturally know who to talk to, what to ask, the proper way to analyze and synthesize the information, and then put it all together into a coherent and convicing presentation was very impressive.

In a weird way (probably because we're business students), we enjoyed putting all that stuff together and was getting caught up in the experience.  But don't worry, this spring break trip wasn't all work.  I'll leave the details of our other activities during our 10 day trip for the next post.

Winter Quarter Recap

Anderson crowd getting ready to watch some turtles race

Another quarter just about in the books.  We had our final class yesterday, and three finals coming up next week before spring break starts.  My workload wasn't as bad as it could have been since I didn't take any electives and only had three main classes (Corporate Finance, Operations, and Marketing 2).  We also had the continuation of the Communications class and Career Center class, but those each only met a few times during the quarter.  My professors were a night and day improvement over last quarter, so that was encouraging.

One of the reasons I didn't take an elective this quarter was because I wanted to focus on recruiting.  It was definitely a busy few months in that regard, but unfortunately no luck yet.  I believe my final stats are around 10-15 applications, 7 first round interviews, 1 second round interview, and no offers thus far.  I haven't heard back yet from the 2nd round interview, my interview yesterday, or a few of the applications I sent in, so there are still some possibilities before I come back for the spring.  A lot of the students recruiting for investment management haven't found an internship yet, and historically more people lock down an IM internship in the spring quarter than the winter, so its not panic mode yet.

And here's an action shot of the race.  Fear The Turtle!

One theme of the quarter seemed to be some more group Section A events.  Our section kinda got the rep during the fall quarter of being the more anti-social, dorky section, which is a pretty fair assessment.  Our class consistently has the highest grades in each class and it's become a common trend for our professors to comment "this is honestly the best overall work I've seen in my time teaching here" after any random assignment or project our class completes.  This all is a bit unfortunate because the curve is individual for each section rather than the entire school, so most of us would have a higher GPA if we were in a different section.  The good grades might be partially correlated to the anti-social rep too as it seems our class attends relatively less Anderson-wide social events, and nights out at the bars. So some people in the class have been making more of an effort to get the rest of our classmates out more often.  We still seem to avoid the larger Anderson events, but there have been a lot more Section A social outings this quarter including a number of group meals featuring food from someone's cultural background (we've done dim dun, southern Indian, and Korean BBQ), a karaoke night, Super Bowl party, a wine bar birthday outing, and a turtle race (Yes, we went to a bar to watch turtles race.  It was even worse than it sounds).  Some other smaller group events included a comedy show in Hollywood, poker nights, the UCLA games, an Anderson dance show and after-party, and plenty of Anderson Afternoons.

Riding a coaster at Six Flags with one of my learning teammates

My learning team for the quarter turned out to be a pretty good, fun group.  It couldn't match the team I had in the fall, but we all got along well, did a good job with our assignments and it was definitely an entertaining bunch. The highlight was our quarter-long marketing project, where we had to pick a company and devise a marketing plan.  We chose Six Flags, and to gather some "market research" we went to the park one Saturday afternoon.  Although we interviewed random people on lines, it was mostly a fun day of roller coastering, and definitely one of the highlights of the quarter.

Finally, the housing situation has been much improved since winter break.  My former gun-toting, video game obsessed roommate moved out in December after getting married, and the housing department didn't find a replacement, so I've been paying the same rent but have had the whole two bedroom townhouse to myself.  Definitely been able to get a lot more work done in the apartment the past couple months, and as an added bonus there was a lot of frozen chicken left in the freezer, so I've had plenty of free dinners.

So that's the winter quarter summary.  There's still five busy days ahead of me until I'm completely done.  I still need to finish a bunch of stock write-ups for SIF and study for three finals, but after that it's post-finals section party and then immediately off to Ghana for spring break.  I'll be getting back from my trip the day before the spring quarter starts, so it'll be right back into the grind again.