6:30am, the alarm on my iphone goes off. I hit snooze and roll over. It goes off again, I repeat the pattern again and then again. 7:00am, I finally roll out of bed, get ready and race out the door for the second day of our Career Management Conference. The day kicks off with a ‘Building your brand online’ seminar presented by Dan Schwabel, author of Me 2.0.
I then have a half hour break before my small group mock interviews so I head into the computer lab to print out my resume. I fire off an email to the VP Social of the European Business Club to request a meeting about the European Mixer event I am organizing in November and another to the co-presidents of the General Management and Strategy club to set up an informational interview, as I am interested in taking over their role for next year.
11:00am, I head over to the recruitment center. The place is full of my colleagues, suited up, resumes in hand and waiting for their interviews. Our interviewer, a second year career coach, brings us into a room and we spend an hour and a half being interviewed with instant feedback – I realize I have a lot of practicing to do in the next few months!
12:30pm – I have a study group meeting. Haas is providing free lunches in the courtyard so I pick one up, go to my suit locker to grab the massive roll of paper that is our final project for our Problem Finding Problem Solving class and meet my team – whom I love! We have 30 minutes to go through our roll and ensure our business model canvas and all our design thinking toolkits are included. There is a flurry of Crayola colored markers as we put on the final touches, laughing and joking as we work.
1:30pm I attend another speaker seminar – ‘Learn How to Sell Yourself’
3:00pm, finally a break! As I head into the library, a classmate stops me, “What are you wearing for the Jersey Shore party this Thursday?” We spend about 15 minutes going over the critical details of our costumes – these things are important!
I then excuse myself as I need to finish my journal, a final deliverable for our Problem Finding Problem Solving class. I quickly scribble out a few more ‘reflections’ about the various steps in the design thinking process we have been doing, draw a couple of pictures and rush off to meet my study team again. Tonight is the big night. After spending all of Fall A analyzing a start-up company, its current business model and then coming up with suggestions for a revised one, we finally get a chance to meet the founders, former Haas alum.
We had just learned that they had received an additional $10 million in their second round of VC funding! The company, which provides video ad analytics and serves as a platform to upload video ads on publisher websites, is now breaking even and expected to have $10million in revenue this year.
Now here we were, in a ballroom at Haas, packed with 250 students and rolls of papers displaying business models everywhere and the founders come in. Standing with the four study group teams of 5 each assigned to this company one of my study group members speaks up, ‘Shannon, you know the business model better than anyone. You should present.’ I am slightly nervous because I knew nothing about online advertising until this class and now I am supposed to explain to the founders all about their company and the market?!
I ended up thoroughly enjoying giving the presentation and the night turned out to be the highlight of my first quarter here at Haas. It was exciting to hear how a lot of the ideas we came up with, they had also thought of. They ended up staying for a couple of hours after the presentation and talking directly with two successful entrepreneurs was incredibly inspiring.
Still on a high, I headed to our local on-campus pub, The Bear’s Lair, where Haas students go every Tuesday. It was jam-packed as our very own, Jean Claude Van Band, were playing. People were already crowding in front of the band before they even began the first song. They were incredibly talented. The place was packed and we danced until 2am. Stumbling out in the cool air, I hear someone shout ‘ After-party at my place!” I am too exhausted and head home. It has been another amazing day at Haas.
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