Back to School

I am officially a second year MBA student, and with that comes some nice little perks, the most exciting of which is that I am taking only classes that I chose, so I can actually look forward to all of them. (No more cold calls in finance or accounting! Hooray!!!) Another thing is that I'm not required to be at IESE from 8:30 till 5 every day because we make our own schedules. Yesterday I was tired after my first class so... I went home and took a nap. Awesome!

My schedule is pretty heavy Monday through Wednesday, but Thursday and Friday I have only two classes: Personalidad del Directivo at 9:45 (an Organizational Behavior type class) and Brands & Advertising at 3:30, which is right up my alley. Obviously, the first two days of school have been pretty simple and straightforward. Perso might be tough as it's all in Spanish and my participation will definitely not be what it normally is, but if I'm going to get the bilingual degree I need at least two courses in Spanish, and a class about the executive personality seems as good a place as any to start.

Monday through Wednesday I'll have a pretty full load:

8:15 Entrepreneurship
9:45 Marketing of Experiences, Concepts, and Media
11:15 Applied International Economics
2:00 Logistics (you know, to plan the Bar Crawl and the Olympics)

And I have an additional half-credit class, New Product Development, from time to time at 3:30.

So that's what I'll be doing for the coming three months. And now for what I've been doing for the last week.

Nicole and Evan arrived on Saturday and we spent the weekend checking out the Festival of Merce, which is the big holiday weekend here in Barcelona. Monday we went with Marc to Montserrat and did a four-hour hike to the top for some awesome views (and lots of American tourists.)



We've also had plenty of dinners out with IESE pals, catching up on what everyone has been doing for the summer.

With Madhur and Bertrand

Marcus and Alexandre

Nicole and Evan

Alexandre and Benjamin
And Wednesday night, immediately after standing in the 6 hour residency renewal line and before getting kicked out of Bar Berlin because we were customers, IESE held a reception to welcome back all the 2nd year students and the exchange students, two of whom are living in my apartment this fall.


Muktambar teaching me how to drive a motorcycle
Presenting the Calatrava Guapos, Fall 2006: Brendan (on exchange from Tuck at Dartmouth), Atsh, and Ayako (on exchange from LBS)
Finally, the most interesting thing about being a 2nd year student this week has been the minor celebrity that comes with keeping a blog. I had received comments here from a handful of prospective and incoming students, but now those people (and many other IESE first year readers) are actually here on campus. And they know me! Every day this week I've been approached by another student who has followed the blog and several people have even told me it was influential in their decision to come to IESE. (I guess they didn't read it during the first term... heh heh.) It has been really cool to meet everyone and I hope that what I've experienced in the last year will help others get through it all as well.

So if you are at IESE and you haven't introduced yourself, please do. It will be a pleasure to meet you. Welcome!