Recently in Undergraduate

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.

So today was the first day of school... sorta. If anyone has been following the California budget crisis you will know it extends to the public school system. The current problem is that without money, the UC system is being forced to cut programs, staff and teacher hours as well as to increase student rates. The teachers and students are not very happy about this and subsequently organized a strike on the first day of classes. I had heard a few rumblings about a proposed strike, but honestly didn't know that it was actually going to happen until I received a group email from the French department last night informing us that there would be no French class on the first day of school. Um, okay, I get to sleep in an extra hour. However, I still had two other classes that day that were supposedly being held.

My second class was Introduction to Wine Making. This should actually turn out to be a really interesting class. It covers everything from vines to crushing to bottling and even includes a section on tasting, though it all has to be hypothetical testing because of age restrictions. None-the-less, this should turn out to be an interesting class.

After wine class it was off to the "Silo" to grab lunch. While I was eating my sandwich a group of coeds started up a random bikini water balloon fight. I think it was to promote the Outdoor Adventures club, but honestly who was paying attention. Only in college....

My last class of the day was Advanced Writing, Business/Legal. The class started normally, but the professor immediately launched into the strike and who in class was going to go and support the rally on the quad that was just about to start. Turns out he has a no strike clause in his contract and would be docked pay if he participated but he was adamant that we skip class that day and go and join our fell teachers and students on the quad. I assume most people just went home, but I went and listened to what the union leaders had to say.



The turn out was really not all that great considering a school of 30,000 people. The speeches were rather repetitive with most anger being directed at the president and his high salary. I didn't hear much of a solution. But I suppose the point was to rally the people behind a cause, hopefully the solutions will come later. I stuck around for about 45 minutes until the heat (it was close to 100 again) was too much to bear and so I headed home.

All in all an interesting first day. Where else do you find a water balloon fight and a campus strike in one day? Only in university...

The official summer session grades were posted online and I took home A's in both. This leaves me seven more classes to complete for my major and five for my minor in Economics.

That's twelve class plus five for French, plus two electives I'm taking this term. Add that all together and you get 19 classes spread of hopefully six terms equals just 3.2 classes a term. Not too bad (only 3.8 a term if I try to get it done in five terms).

Classes start this Thursday, September 24th!

I am half way finished with the Summer Session II at UC Davis. It is a quick six week sprint through classes that are generally done in twelve weeks. This summer I am enrolled in two classes (Women and Development & History of France since 1815) and I am currently getting A's in both. I have two term papers to write this week and one final to study for next week.

I have also solidified my schedule of classes for the Fall 2009 term, they are as follows:

• University Writing Program, Focus on Legal Writing - UC Davis requires each student to take a Upper Division writing class for graduation
• Elementary French - It's sad, but I did not score very well on the French placement exam so I have to start French over from the beginning as International Relations requires students to have completed a series of five language classes by graduation.
• Intermediate Microeconomics - Technically, this class is not required for my major focus, however, I need to complete 20 additional upper division units outside my major concentration for graduation, so I thought I would get a Economics Minor.
• Intro to Wine Making - Exactly what it sounds like. I'm in wine country. There is no way I'm leaving without learning all there is to know about wine. Total elective, but I've heard it is actually a hard class.

So there it is. My fall lineup. I was advised to only take three classes my first term to adjust to the system, but I think I will be okay with four.

Fall term starts September 28th.

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.

I called HBS admissions today to try and ascertain the best path I should take in the coming years to place me at a competitive advantage as an applicant. The gentlemen I spoke to was very friendly, however, could not offer me any specific advice. He answered a few of my program specific questions, mostly about the 2+2 Program, but other than that it was a very brief call.

He did, however, let me know that the "prestige" factor of one's undergraduate school is not viewed that highly in comparison to other criteria, such as leadership (this one is greatly important). In so many words he said that it is far more important to be actively involved in leadership and community activities then it is to pursue high test scores and grades. I found that rather interesting.

Right now I am struggling with whether or not I should drop $116,500 on my undergraduate education at Columbia or less then $40,000 at UC Davis (these amounts include tuition and living expenses). Looking at the numbers it seems Davis is the smart choice.

Well, strike two in my applications. This one I am somewhat upset over. Mostly because I know I didn't take the UC application seriously enough and probably could have been accepted at Berkeley if I had been as persistent with them as I was with Columbia. Berkeley really would have been the best school for me to go to considering its close proximity to San Francisco and its national rank. These next two years are going to be so important not only academically but also professionally that I worry if living in Davis, CA is really the best place for me to be.



I am toying with the idea of writing an appeal letter to Berkeley in hopes that my most recent grades will be reviewed and as a way to reveal more about my background. Though, the process can take six weeks and we were hoping to have moved by then. I don't really know right now, I'm just a little bummed out. Everyone I speak to says that your undergraduate school is not that important but I am really more concerned about being out in the middle of no where with no ability to network and build professional relationships that will be paramount to acceptance at business school.

UCLA has been my first rejection so far. I have to admit I really was not smart about applying to UCLA. When I applied, I knew that Economics was a highly competitive and impacted major so I decided to chose a major that I thought would be less difficult to get accepted into, namely Economics/International Area Studies. However, I did not see this statistics page on the UCLA website:

Profile of Admitted Transfer Students by Major

If you scroll down to Economics/International Area Studies you will see that it has the LOWEST acceptance rate (13.73%) out of any major in the College Letters and Sciences. Given my poor academic performance years ago and the only one semester of CC classes, it is not surprising that I did not get accepted.

But, it is okay. I have been saying for a long time that I have wanted to leave Los Angeles and now that has become a reality. I find out about Berkeley in a few days.