Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Quick Update

Over the last two years, I feel like I spent half of this blog talking about how excited I am for the b-school experience and then the other half talking about how I'm sad it's almost over!

It's true that the experience just whizzes by. Even now, I can't believe that next week is our last week of classes! This term, I took a pretty light load of classes so I only had class on one day a week. The other four days, I spent time doing work for my internships, going to my workout class, and traveling. I got to see H a lot this past month which has been a lot of fun and gets me even more excited about moving home after school.

That being said, I still don't know when/where I'll be working for my first rotation for work. One thing that I've really learned over the years is that I'm bad at waiting. I'm a naturally anxious person who loves to plan things out, so having uncertainty about my future (outside the realm of my control) is the ultimate test of patience and will. Hopefully I'll find out soon, but until then, I can just pray for a good outcome and enjoy the present moment.

I have less than a month left in NYC. I'm sad this chapter of my life is coming to an end, but the next chapter is going to be amazing that I'm antsy to get to it. Moving home, starting my job, getting married... it's going to be a fun ride :)

Love,
V

Friday, April 5, 2013

Reflective

Last night I had a nice heart-to-heart with one of my school friends reflecting back on our MBA experience and about what we feel like we got out of the experience. We both agreed that while we learned some technical things in classes, the biggest lessons we learned from the experience were about soft skills and personal development.

The big thing that we hear over and over is that you cannot effectively manage others until you have an understanding of yourself. I really feel like the last two years I've developed a deeper sense of self-awareness and been able to change myself for the better with this new insight. I've realized that I have the ability to innately read the emotions of others, and the ability to take on other perspectives. This has helped me be a caring, trusted colleague/friend and is the root of my agreeable nature. I've also learned that, while I might feel insecure about how I present myself, others perceive me to be more competent, capable and even a little bit competitive than I realize. When I read that report and feedback, I was actually quick shocked because I never thought of myself as competitive!

As I continue in my development and enter the next phase of my career, I really want to work on speaking up. I've been given feedback from so many people that I need to take more ownership of my ideas in meetings (instead of quietly circulating them around afterwards). I'm not really sure where that insecurity stems from, but I need to work on my "blirtatiousness" and learn to just commit to 10-seconds of bravery and share my idea when it comes to me. I inherently edit the things I say, especially in professional settings, but I feel that learning to be more bold in meetings could really take me to the next level.

So here's to looking deeper inside and being okay with what we find!

Cheers,
Vi