This August, I will be packing up all of my life here in California and moving to NYC. It's exciting and a little scary all at the same time. I've spent the greater part of my life in California and will be leaving everything I know and love for business school. As sad as I am to leave my beloved home-state, I'm really excited for all the adventures that await in NYC.
I thought it would be a good idea to start blogging again to record the whole experience. Heaven knows my memory is faulty so this seems like a much better bet than having me try to recall people, places and things. I haven't blogged at all since high school, so it's definitely been a while, but I'm hoping to make it a practice, even if I'm just making quick notes and observations in between classes and recruiting events!
My current obsession is figuring out housing during the school year. I've applied for on-campus housing and am hoping that we'll hear back sometime this week (just 2.5 days left!). By nature, I am a control freak and so the uncertainty of waiting for housing and my upcoming international trip leave me a little weary. I'm hoping that everything works out this week, so I can finally put it behind me and convert my nervous energy into excitement for my Thailand trip (which is coming up in two weeks)! Columbia housing is supposedly prioritized by the distance from which the future student lives. Living in SF, I figure I probably have some good odds, in terms of domestic students, because to get much further than me you'd have to live in Alaska or Hawaii! Being the nerd I am, I've scoured the internet to get statistics and to find rumours/personal testimonials to see what information I could find as to how many Californians get housing. The school had made it sound like typically 30% of students are offered school housing, typically covering domestic students up until Texas or so. However, I know a current student from SF who was waitlisted last year, and online the rumour is that only about half of Californian's get housing. It makes me wonder if there is other criteria other than distance that is factored into these assignments. Oh well, best I can do now is pray furiously and wait it out.
My Thailand trip is around the corner and I could not be more excited (wait, that's a lie... I'd be more excited once housing is figured out). H went to Asia last year and keeps telling me horror stories about the heat and humidity. He explains that he's just trying to manage my expectations, but it's starting to freak me out a little bit! In a week, I'm going to dust off my trusty old Victorinox and scrambled around my half-packed room to find light sundresses, tanks and shorts! Good thing June is a "no-shopping" month for me otherwise the temptation to go out and buy "vacation clothes" would be too great. Must stick to student budget!!
The other things weighing on my mind is whether or not to, and which, e-reader I should buy for my trip. I am such a indecisive consumer! I keep reading reviews and going back and forth between the Kindle and the Nook. I've decided to take the Nook Color off my list because of the price and the fact that I don't really need all the frills it comes with, as I already have a net book and don't anticipating need to tap into its tablet capabilities. I'm a really big fan of the Nook's touch capability but the Kindle has been a market leader for so long and Amazon's customer service is legendary (important for me as I tend to break things!). It's kind of funny how much thought I'm putting into this $140 decision, but I'm sure (hopeful??) that I'll figure it out soon.
This week is also my last week of my pre-MBA internship. The last few months I've been working at a former client's medical device firm as a intern, working with the product development, clinical and commercialization guys to help design/create a strategy to get the device to market. It's been a really cool experience and has really opened my eyes to the world of med dev. Going into the whole business school application thing, and even throughout the early part of my career, I've always been stuck thinking about working in biotech, but this experience has helped me realize that med dev may also be an interesting field to go into. I still have time to figure that out though, but I'm glad that I had this experience to broaden my mindset a little bit.
Between the end of my internship and my trip to Thailand, I'm going to try to wrap up the to-do list that Columbia sent me, finish reading all the books I checked out (I've recently rediscovered the library), and try to catch up on Gossip Girl. Next week, CBS has organized a career networking day of sorts and I'm excited to potentially meet up with some of my classmates.
Well, that's about it in terms of a mind dump for now!
Till next time, xoxo
