Recently in Personal

Again, it's been a while since my last update. But honestly, who wants to hear about the boring life of a college student, especially one that is married, works alot, and has dogs that take up too much time. So to jump from the last post about three months ago, I am now half way through Winter term here at UC Davis. Classes this term are: French 3, Intermediate MacroEcon, Philosophy of Religion, and Politics and Resistance: the Creation of the Political (Anthro). Classes are progressing well, but not really anything excited to report. Surprisingly I am enjoying the Anthropology and French class the most out of all. Even though we are halfway into the term, economics is still working on pretty basic concepts. I expect it to intensify soon (and thus become more interesting).

I've noticed more SPAM comments on the site recently, I need to setup a CAPTCHA system to block them. However, that's good news, because atleast somebody out there thinks the site is worthy of SPAM! I'll take that as a win.

I still need to start studying for the GMAT.

I need to figure out what I am doing this summer. The option of working in France or London has presented itself and I need to decide what will be best.

I have been reading a book called "The Best Business Schools' Admissions Secrets". It is written by an ex-Harvard B.School admissions board member and discusses how to "brand" yourself when writing your admissions packets. It's pretty interesting and suggest you check it out.

I have been very lucky to maintain one large client while I am living up here in Davis. They have been keeping me very busy maintaining and updating their multiple web domains. It's funny because I was originally trying to run away from performing 'service' work in the web field, but now I am truly greatful to have it as an income source (and as something to distract me from the hum-drum-Davis lifestyle).

The sensation of time has been oddly warped since the beginning of the fall term. Part of me wants to say it's only felt like a few days and part of me feels like it's been years. I guess I'm just not used to be "doing something" practically everyday. Being self-employed, one tends to work when one wants to, which leaves alot of time for, well... not working. But being in school and still managing a few clients, I seem to always be on the go, with little time to myself. The truth of the matter is that it has been seven weeks since my last posting (and the beginning of the fall quarter) and I can't quite figure out if that feels like a long time ago or if it feels just like yesterday. Things seem to be a bit of a blur.

There really hasn't been much to post in terms of progress towards a HBS admission in the last few months. I have just been focusing on classes and getting ready for finals which are coming in a few weeks.

One thing I do need to research is the GMAT test and possible GMAT review courses. I know that the two big ones are The Princeton Review and Kaplan, though I need to figure out which one will be better for me. Anyone who has taken any of these classes please leave a comment with your thoughts.

I have been thinking recently about leadership and what makes a leader. I know this is a major component to the HBS admission process and I want to look into exactly what we look for and expect in leaders, both natural and learned traits.

I am going to start putting together the traits that I notice in leaders around me in order to see if those traits can be emulated and subsequently learned. It will be an interesting character study.

Last week I attended TechCrunch50 in San Francisco, CA. It was a two day conference that gave the top 50 emerging internet companies a chance to pitch their concepts to a panel of experts in order to get feedback and a chance to win $50,000. Overall, it was interesting, but honestly, I didn't really see anything that really made me say "wow". Now, that doesn't mean those companies won't necessarily be highly successful, I just didn't connect to anything they were pitching. It was an interesting couple days, and considering my $195 student ticket price (versus the $2,995 regular price), it was a good investment.

However, one thing that I wasn't ready for was the similarities of this event and that of all Hollywood events I've been too. I was expecting business leaders and tech geeks who were there (like me) to learn about the up and coming businesses and technologies. Instead it was just a bunch of guys (yes, 99.9% guys) all vying for attention from some celebrity status VCs or tech bloggers. It was difficult to have a conversation with anyone without their eyes quickly darting back and forth to see who else might be within a handshakes shot distance.

It was funny how little respect my badge that instead of saying my company said "UC Davis". The badges were basically great ways to segregate people. Different colors indicated if you were Press, VIP, Exhibitor, Attendee etc. So the first thing people did was to scan your badge and see what organization you were with. I was the lowest of the low with my school name on my badge. So low in fact that on multiple occasions when someone would come up to speak to us they would scan my badge, see UC Davis, and not even bother to address me. It was very funny and became a running joke to see who would acknowledge me and who wouldn't.

The crowning moment of "Hollywoodism" was at the very end of the conference where Michael Arrington (the guy who runs Tech Crunch and is the face of the blog and the event) snubbed the conference winners by walking off stage and  boycotting the award ceremony. Apparently he didn't like the winner selected and went off and had a little cry backstage. I would call that pretty darn Hollywood entitlement.

Anyway, I can't say if I will go back next year. It was an interesting experience but not something I really need to do again.

Next week I am heading over the San Francisco for a couple nights to attend the TechCrunch 50 conference. It should be a good opportunity for me to get a first hand look at what's happening in the Silicon Valley world of tech. I am trying to shift my focus more into the field of entrepreneurial business and figure this is a good way to get some first hand knowledge of who is doing what. I have to admit I don't really know what to expect but you've got to start somewhere.

So it's been some time since my last blog. Alot has happened in the past few months and I subsequently became a very bad blogger.

I decided in June to accept the Univ. of CA, Davis offer of acceptance. I really wish I had the money to attend Columbia, but $100,000+  on my undergrad education just seemed ridiculous. So in the first week of June, my wife and I, packed our house into a 17' Uhaul and a 6' trailer and headed north to Davis, CA.

Also in June, my wife and I spent three weeks traveling through Thailand and Cambodia in Southeast Asia. It was a well deserved reward for making the shift back into school life. We had an incredible time.

I decided to enroll in two summer session classes and they started last week (August 3rd). I am taking 'Women and Development' and 'History of France since 1815', both count towards my major in International Relations. The summer term classes are only five weeks, so it's going to be a quick ride.

So here I am, back at it, working my way towards MBA'dom. Crazy to think that this time next year I will be writing essays yet again for school entrance.

So welcome back me...

I have a few weeks to make a decision on which undergrad I am going to accept. I do not have as many choices as I had hoped, but I am glad that at least I do have choices. It boils down to Columbia University, University of California Davis, and University of California Santa Barbara. I am still waiting on University of Toronto but am growing disgruntled that they refuse to make a decision because I have one outstanding class (even though I have received straight A's in all other eight of my classes). So unless something happens, I think I am ruling them out. I also have the option of appealing the decision at Berkeley, but I am not confident it will change anything and I am not excited about having to wait another six weeks.

Check out my undergraduate voting page, choose your school, and leave me a comment on why you choose that one.

Davis made a mistake, I do not qualify for the Federal Pell Grant. That's what I thought, but it still sucks.

Anyone out there wanna give me $30k?

So it's been almost a week since I got the call from Columbia informing me of my acceptance. I'm still pretty thrilled. Even if I end up not being able to go there (pretty much entirely for economic reasons) I will have a great sense of pride at being accepted.

However, I am trying to be reasonable about the economic issues at hand and what opportunity costs of attending another institution will bring. I have not received the financial aid letter from Columbia yet so that limits my planning somewhat, but I do know that tuition, fees, and living expenses at Columbia is about $55k/year. Not a small number. Where as all in expenses at the University of CA system are only about $25k/year.

Berkeley and Columbia are about on par with each other in terms of academics, though Columbia is ranked higher. However, Davis and Santa Barbara are not ranked as high. The question that I'm fielding from alot of people is, if I had to choose between Columbia and Davis, would saving $60k in student loans be worth it? I would have to say most likely not.

My plan at attending Harvard is going to weigh heavily on these next two years. And while they do say they do not place a huge amount of emphasis on the undergraduate school you attended, I'd be hard pressed to believe a Columbia degree would hurt me.

Either way, I have not received financial aid info from Columbia nor have I received decisions from any other school. I am just running over all the scenarios in my head trying to come up with atleast some beginnings of a plan...

Eight more weeks.

Well, I just completed my first semester of school since taking a ten-year hiatus. And I have to say I think I've made the right decision.

This year of classes is dedicated to not only completing the necessary prerequisite classes for each program I am applying to, but also to proving to myself that I can achieve high marks if I truly put my heart into it. Well, I'm glad to say that I proved myself right, as I finished this term with a 4.0 average.

Granted, these are only community college classes, and most likely do not compare to the intensity of university classes, especially at a school like Columbia, but they are a start. This term I took:

• English 102 - Writing and Composition: I much needed to get back in the swing of writing papers
• Economics 2 - Macroeconomics: I was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy this subject matter, a great mix of math and theory.
• Sociology 1: Needed to make up for the D I got in this class ten years ago
• Music Appreciation: Basically, music history and theory. Needed for core class requirements.

Two classes were in the classroom and two were online. I was expecting the online classes to be much easier, since you have the text book in front of you the entire time, but they actually require more work as you are expected to know everything and learn everything on your own. Luckily, the textbook for Macroeconomics was very good at explaining the theories, because the teacher for that class was non-existent.

I am enrolled for two condensed six-week classes for winter term that starts in two weeks, International Relations and Probability/Statistics. I'm actually pretty excited for both.

But for now, I am very pleased with my grades. They were well worth the extra effort.

This past weekend, while I was up in San Francisco visiting the Berkeley campus, I took the opportunity to meet with the author of Ask the Harvard MBA who I had lent my copy of "Ahead of the Curve" to. A little background: Chris Yeh, who authors Ask the Harvard MBA blog, had responded to statements of Philip Broughton's book, "Ahead of the Curve: Two Years at Harvard Business School" on his blog based purely off the reviews of the critics not off his own reading of it. I disagreed with his comments and suggested he read the book and offered to send him mine. After reading the book he changed his opinion and wrote following in a blog:

"I'm about halfway through the book.  The midway report is that while I still have a number of criticisms of the book, at least based on what I've read to date, it seems like the author, Philip Delves Broughton, got jobbed by the reviewers and press coverage who sensationalized a few small incidents from the book into a expose, rather than portraying it for what it is: A good memoir of one man's experiences at HBS"

Since I was up in the Bay Area, where he is based, we agreed to meet up so I could retrieve the book and we could have a chat. It was a good meeting. He is a very knowledgeable guy and it was fun to hear first hand about the HBS experience. He also told me his secret tips for getting an A in the program, which unfortunately I'm sworn to secrecy over, so I can't divulge any of them.

Berkeley is a nice campus. But then again, everything in California is nice. Not much to report.