Reach the Beach!

LGO is all about teamwork and how to create, develop, and lead high-performing teams.  What better way to test this skill than to run a 205-mile overnight relay race with 9 of your classmates?  Well, that's exactly what we did this weekend!

It all started a few months ago when I got the crazy idea to to a Ragnar Relay in upstate New York.  I figured that this would be a great chance to find a team of 11 other co-conspirators who would join me.  Unfortunately, after assembling most of the team we discovered that there were some logistical issues with getting to the Adirondacks without missing some serious class time.  Luckily for us, there was a much-closer but equally-challenging relay: Reach the Beach.

Reach the Beach Course Map: Cannon Mountain to Hampton Beach

Here's how it works:

1. Assemble a team of 12 runners and come up with a team name
2. Rent 2 vans and pack them full of people, running gear, and lots of food
3. Run 205 miles by alternating runners through 36 legs (3 each) over the course of about 30 hours

In practice, it turned out to be a little more complicated than that.

1. One of the scarcest resources during LGO is time, so it's always a challenge to find people willing to sacrifice two days to do anything and even harder when that anything involves running double-digit distances in the middle of the night and sitting in a van for about 24 hours in a 34-hour period.  But then again, this is also an amazing group of students who are always willing to try something new.  So after a bit of recruiting, we were able to assemble a team of 12 to tackle the race.  Our team name started as the "LGO Bandits" aiming for a cops-and-robbers theme, but it morphed into the "Beaver Bandits" in honor of our MIT Mascot.  Unfortunately, some unforeseen circumstances came up last week and took our roster down to 9.  With some last-minute recruiting we got the count up to 10, but ended up having to head to the race down 2 runners.  Oh, and Weng Hong ended up crashing his bike 5 days before the race and may have bruised/broken a rib.  That man is an beast!  
2. The van logistics turned out to be fairly simple (other than the fact that one of the runners we lost at the last minute was renting one of the vans).  After some last-minute shuffling we ended up with 2 stylish Dodge Caravans for our journey.
3. Then it was time to run.  We headed up to Cannon Mountain early on Friday morning, arriving with plenty of time to check-in before our 12:00 noon start.  It had rained hard the night before, but as we approached Cannon the clouds began to part to sunny skies.  That was short-lived though, and soon we were all soaked to the bone while waiting for the race to start.

The runners were divided into the two vans, with the first 5 in one van and the remaining 5 in the other.  That meant that each van had a 3 - 4 hour break between each running set.  So after the first van started, those of us in the second van headed to the town of Lincoln to have some lunch (questionable Chinese food) and do what any 5 guys stuck in a minivan would do: go shopping!  It turns out that there's a Bass shoe outlet in Lincoln and what better way to replace soaked shoes than to get some stylish boat shoes for less than $20!
After our break, it was our turn to run at about 4:00pm.  The first van had a series of awesome runs and by the time it got to us our team was 30 minutes ahead of what we had predicted.  We kept the trend going with great first legs of everyone.  It took us a little time to figure out the logistics of transitions but before long we were transition masters.  Once I started running, I discovered that one of the key motivations was to pass other teams (called a "kill" in relay-speak).  Catching up to and passing people became my focus, and I ended up covering the 7.2 miles at a 7:20 pace with 12 kills.  We handed off to the first van again just before 9:00pm and had a little time to eat and nap.

The second leg for us was the night shift; starting at 12:30am and going till 5:30am, covering 35 miles between the 5 of us.  My leg started at 1:30am and covered 9 miles of rolling hills.  I was actually pleasantly surprised that I didn't feel sore from the first run and was able to push the pace and get more kills.  It didn't take long before I remembered how much I like running hills (something that Boston is missing for the most part), and before long I was racking up the kills.  Final stats were 8.98 miles, 7:34 pace, and 18 kills.  After everyone in our van had finished, we attempted to get some sleep but it was hard to come by.

Our third leg picked up at 10:00am and went through 2:00pm, covering 28 miles.  I was again surprised that my legs weren't feeling the previous runs but I was starting to run out of energy.  I was somehow able to rack up a record number of kills with 24 over the course of 8.6 miles at a 7:35 pace, but by the time I crossed the transition line I was completely spent.

Since we were covering the race with 10 runners instead of 12, 6 people had to run a 4th leg.  This drove the average distance to 20.5 miles but everyone did a spectacular job on their legs and we ended up heading into the finish almost two hours ahead of schedule.  Sunny took on the last leg and we all joined him for the final 100 yards of running on the sand.  In the end, we finished in 29 hours and 29 minutes, placing 200th out of 468 teams.  Not bad for a bunch of nerds from MIT :-).

But that's enough writing.  This race was all about the fun times that we had as a team, and the many adventures that we had along the way.  Thanks Cynthia, David, Adam, Sunny, Guadalupe, Ariel, Karl, Sean, and Weng Hong for an amazing experience!

Here are some shots that capture the fun...

Sean getting ready to start in the pouring rain

Eager Beavers getting ready to start the race

Boat Shoe Shopping Spree!

Studying the course - this was Leg #2 for me

For having ran 205 miles, I have very few shots of actually running.  Here's Cynthia coming into transition after her fourth and final leg!

We Reached the Beach!!!

Finish-line Celebration

Happy at the Beach :-)

Medals all around, well deserved by an amazing team.

Back to School...The Fall Lineup

We're back into the full swing of things here in Cambridge.  After a full week of Sloan Orientation (see Yalu's post here), we jumped right into the Fall selection of courses.  Steve also has a great post on the emotional impact of leaving the summer and jumping into the fall.

This is when the uniqueness of the LGO experience really come to light.  Although we are all getting MBA's and MS Engineering degrees, we seem to constantly find ourselves doing a delicate dance between the worlds of business and engineering.  Some general observations so far:

1. Sloan is incredibly diverse.  41% of the MBA class this year comes from outside the US and I'm really looking forward to hearing the unique perspectives from all over the world.  On my core team of 6 people, we cover the US, Russia, and Singapore.  In the larger cohort, there seems to be a lot of students from Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe.  We've already had some great discussions and cross-cultural talks and I look forward to many more throughout my time at Sloan.
2. Grocery Shopping is Overrated: If you get on enough club lists and cross-reference them with all the events in Sloan and the engineering colleges, there is essentially FREE FOOD available somewhere on campus at any given time, 7-days a week.  There is even technology available to point you towards the free food (i.e. the "vultures" e-mail list).  Out of the last two weeks, I think I've only cooked 2 or 3 dinners and packed 1 or 2 lunches.  Such is life as a graduate student!
3. I have no interest in being a straight-up MBA student.  We had our first "Career Core" session for the MBA program yesterday and there was absolutely no mention of manufacturing industries, which reflects the views of the class as a whole.  The top target industries were: 1) management consulting, 2) finance/banking, and 3) high-tech.  It was somewhat interesting to gain insight into those industries, but I maintain that my passion and career interest remains in actually building tangible things.
4. I have no interest in being a straight-up engineering student.  We've had several mixers with the various engineering departments in the last few weeks and I've gotten to know several of the MS and PhD graduate students.  The discussions always revolve around what research they are doing, how many years are left in their program (which is usually a lot), and how stressed they are about finding an adviser or prepping for the qualification exams.  This has made me realize that while I really do like engineering, I don't quite have the mindset to jump into a research-based graduate program for an unknown number of years.

The conclusion of all this is that LGO is definitely the program for me.  We are fortunate to experience the best of both worlds and  end up being able to carry on intelligent conversations with engineers and investment bankers alike.  This really is what sets the LGO program apart from any other program out there and I have absolutely no doubt that coming here was the right decision.  It's funny that the LGO lounge has become a clubhouse of sorts now, a place to reunite with our classmates from the summer and some of the 2014's who are back on campus.  It has definitely become a community.

With that said, my fall lineup of classes definitely shows the combination of management and engineering, with a few seminars thrown in for good measure:

• The MBA "Core Four":
• 15.010 (Economics): Case-based studies of econ, focused on management decision-making and general market understanding.  Having already taken econ, I'm looking forward to getting a different perspective in terms of how to use the data in business decisions.
• 15.515 (Financial Accounting): Focuses on the fundumentals of financial accounting, and spends time discussing cases and the trade-off between the many different options for accounting.
• 15.280 (Communication for Leaders): Although this is an independent class, it integrates heavily with 15.311 and the Sloan Career Development Office (CDO) to help us develop our communication skills.  From everything from impromptu Toastmaster-style presentations to formal project report-outs and self-reflection essays, it looks like this will definitely challenge us to work on our communication styles.
• 15.311 (Organizational Processes): An interesting course that dives into the dynamics of teams and organizations and looks at them through three distinct lenses (strategic, political, and cultural).  This class also involves our biggest project of the term, which entails finding a company in Boston undergoing a major change effort and analyzing their organizational dynamics.
• Engineering Electives:
• ESD.260 (Logistics Systems): All about supply chains, and the engineering and numerical work that goes into establishing and optimizing them.  This looks to be a high-paced and somewhat numerical class that covers a lot of topics that are familiar but I don't know much about (i.e. how does Starbucks get fresh bananas to every location in the world on a daily basis?).
• 16.71J (The Airline Industry): This is definitely my favorite class so far, and my first class from the Aero/Astro department.  I knew I had found the right place when I walked into the classroom and noticed a giant mural on one of the walls depicting a 767 in a high-rate climb out of some foreign airport.  The class is essentially a survey-level exploration of the airline industry, covering everything from route planning and revenue management to aviation safety and fleet selection (of course the answer to the last subject should always be: All Boeing!).  As our prof said on day 1, "This class won't teach you enough to run an airline, but you'll understand something about every aspect of the industry".  Sounds like fun!
• Seminars:
• 15.792 (Global Operations Seminar): This is the flagship LGO seminar in which a speaker comes in every week to discuss their business and a particular challenge that they have faced.  The lineup for the fall includes some great speakers from Nike, Apple, Amazon, and many more.  It is one of that many highlights of the LGO program and I'm definitely looking forward to some interesting presentations.
• 15.S25 (Leadership and Ethics Seminar): This is another mostly-LGO seminar, but focused specifically on issues around leadership and ethics in the industry.  Our instructor, LGO's own Vah Erdekian, is a veteran of the electronics industry and was most recently the senior VP of operations for Cisco.  He brings in some great speakers throughout the term, and supplements their presentations with additional wisdom from his own career.  This is another portion of the program that I am really looking forward to.

In case you're thinking "geez, that's a lot of classes", it is.  This is MIT, such is life!  It actually isn't too bad.  Essentially I have class/recitations on Monday - Thursday from 8:30 to 11:30 and  1:00 - 5:30, with any spare time filled in with group meetings or individual homework.  Then the evenings are filled with more reading and prep-work for the next day.  As I've said before, it's not that the work is hard; there's just a lot of it.  The key is to stay ahead of the curve but leave time for all the other adventures that Sloan and MIT offer.  More to come on that topic in a few weeks.

A departing pic...

Food!

Summer "Break"

Throughout the summer, I kept getting the same advice from the 2014's about what to do in the week between the Summer and Fall terms: RELAX.  Rent a house somewhere outside of Boston, catch up on sleep, and re-charge.  Well, this last week has proven once again that I am not very good at relaxing.  What started out with the best intentions of down-time ended up as a week packed full of activities and adventures spanning 4 states and 2 coasts.  It was a blast, but I think the 14s were on to something with the idea of making it into a true break.

It all started on Saturday morning, when I woke up early to meet up with the Cambridge Running Club for their weekly long-run.  I'm still getting used to being one of the shortest-distance and slowest-pace runners of the pack with a 12-mile loop at a "moderate" 7:50 pace, but it was fun as usual and very well supported.  After a quick shower, I linked up with Karl to head out to the airport to ride in the backseat of a Cessna 172 as he completed his check-ride for one of the local FBOs.  We flew a quick hop down to Rhode Island (State #2) before heading back to the airport for a couple touch-and-goes.  It was absolutely wonderful to get back in the air after a 3-year hiatus and I'm looking forward to more flying adventures in the Fall.

On Final Approach to the North Central State Airport in Rhode Island

Another quick turnaround at home found me heading to Logan Airport for the next adventure.  My "Mystery Trip" for Cynthia, which was a well-guarded secret until she guessed the destination a week before the trip, was to San Diego (State #3) to visit her good friends Shannon and Rebecca.  We took the new direct flight on Alaska from BOS to SAN and within 6 hours we were on the other side of the country.

The trip to San Diego was short (2.5 days), but packed with lots of fun times.  We spent a day at the beach, including my first experience surfing.  I got up long enough to get a picture but didn't last much longer than that.  Definitely something to work on next time I get a chance!  Then we had a great feast on the waterfront of Coronado Island looking towards downtown San Diego.  The next day we did a running tour of the city, including Little Italy, the various parks along the waterfront, and the gas lamp district.  Shannon works at the Museum of Natural History in Balboa Park, so we spent some time walking around the park and exploring all the neat things that there are to see.  Then we had a wonderful feast of Mexican food before crashing for the night and heading back to Boston in the morning.

Ok, so maybe there was some relaxation to be had this last week!

Freeze-frame that looks like I'm actually surfing!

Balboa Park in San Diego

We got back to Boston in time to meet up with my mom, who had flown up in the middle of a visit to my brother in Maryland to explore Boston for a few days.  Over the course of two days, we managed to cover the entire Freedom Trail, including a tour of Paul Reveere's House, the USS Constitution, and climbing the Bunker Hill monument.  There was also time for exploring the MIT campus and eating some wonderful food around town.

We finally got the "Classic MIT Shot" in front of the dome

USS Constitution ("Old Iron-side")

Faneuil Hall (Along the Freedom Trail)

Friday was spent getting organized for the fall semester, including ordering course packs and looking at textbooks (though I'm waiting to buy those until the first week of class when I can figure out which one's are actually necessary).  I also may have purchased a new toy in the form of a Samsung Galaxy Note tablet.  After the massive paper pile-up last semester, my goal is to use the tablet for case study readings this Fall instead.  I'm still figuring out how to use the tablet, but it looks promising.

To round off the break, we filled the last weekend with a 10-mile hike in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (State #4) to cover our 4th and 5th of the 48 4,000ft+ peaks (Flume and Liberty).  Then yesterday we headed to Salisbury Beach in northern MA for some more surfing and exploring.

On top of Mt. Liberty, NH

It's been a busy week for sure, but it definitely fit my mantra of "Work Hard, Play Hard".  Perhaps the 14s were on to something when they recommended a week of relaxation, but I've had a blast and wouldn't really change anything if I could do it over again.  Next up is the Sloan MBA orientation this week followed by Fall classes starting after Labor Day.  Back to work!

That's a Wrap!

With an unceremonious click of a mouse, our summer term of LGO has come to an end.  That click was the last step in submitting the last of 6 papers that were due this week and it was somewhat anti-climactic considering everything that we have done over the last 11 weeks.  The truth is, we've been celebrating the term for a couple days now, but this paper was the last hurdle before the true break could begin.

The entirety of our LGO learning can be summed up by the 13" tall stack of papers sitting on my coffee table at home.  That is all the readings, case studies, P-sets, and papers that we've reviewed / created over the last 11 weeks that I haven't had any time to sort or make any semblance of order.  It's truly hard to believe that we covered all of that information since the beginning of June, but that's exactly what we did.  Yes, it was  lot of work and yes, there were a few times during the summer where sleep was sacrificed to get assignments done and some of us wondered if we'd make it to the end, but the truth is that it was an incredible experience and I wouldn't trade it for the world.  We now have a week off to reset (we're heading to an as-yet undisclosed mystery trip!), and then it will be time to jump into the Sloan orientation and the Fall courses of MBA core.

Of course, just because we've been working like crazy at school doesn't mean we haven't had a lot of fun times.  Here are some highlights:

Perfect weather to walk along the Charles, on our way to dinner in Back Bay.

Final Statistics project: dropping paper helicopters from the 3rd-floor stairwell.

LGO end-of-summer celebration BBQ

The emptiest that I've ever seen the LGO lounge (5:30pm on the last day of classes)

What do we do after the last day of class?  Mini golf and drinks in the Sloan lobby of course!  Here's the Boeing contingent up to no good.

Like kids in a candy store: LGOs visit the Verizon Wireless Innovation Center in Waltham, where they develop all the latest gadgets utilizing 4G LTE technology. 

After a 3-year hiatus, I finally made it back into the air thanks to my classmate Karl Kulling.  He was getting a check-ride to stay current, so I hopped into the back of this beautiful 2006 Skyhawk (complete with a G1000 flat-panel cockpit!).  More pictures to come soon.

Fun Summer Diversions

It's been another series of busy weeks!  As I look back at my previous posts, there seems to be an ominous pattern of decreasing frequency.  Once a week, then once every-other week, now a span of three weeks.  I can only attribute this to having such an amazing time in the LGO program and packing my hours with so many fun things that I haven't had much time to post here.  A quick catch-up...

Several of my classmates have posted fantastic articles about summer classes and recent activities, so I won't spend any time repeating it here.  We're two weeks away from the end of the summer term and I'm having mixed feelings: on one hand, very excited to have a week off before MBA orientation starts, but on the other hand sad to be closing out the summer here at LGO that has been so much fun.  Our class has grown into a strong community over the last two months and we have had some good times together.

At the beginning of the summer, my team set a goal of leaving weekends open for fun or individual coursework.  We've since discovered that that goal was a little ambitious, and have been getting together on Sundays to work on some group assignments and to get ready for the upcoming week.  That still leaves Saturdays open though, so we've been taking full advantage of the chance to get out and about.  Here are just a few highlights from the last few weeks...

Karaoke
I'm happy to report that the LGO tradition of Karaoke Thursdays at the Thirsty Ear pub is alive-and-well!  We've had a pretty consistent showing over the last several weeks and have had fun getting to see a different side of our classmates (and occasionally professors!). 

[SIDE NOTE: Just about a month ago Cynthia Lin and I became the first "LGO 2015 Couple" and since then have been having a wonderful time together.  The rest of this blog will make a lot more sense with knowledge of that fact :-)]

Rock Climbing
Cynthia is a big climber and has been itching to get to one of the climbing gyms in the area.  Last Friday we rented a car for the weekend and finally had a chance to make it to MetroRock.  It's been about 8 years since I climbed last and I was definitely rusty (and quite sore the next day), but it was a lot of fun to try something different.  There's also a new climbing gym in town, Brooklyn Boulders, that we've been trying fruitlessly to find time to visit.  Someday...

MetroRock Climbing Gym

Fishing / Lobstering in Maine
Last Saturday we headed to Maine with Cynthia's sister and parents (who were visiting from MD), with the intent of fishing on the Atlantic.  They had arranged for a charter boat to take us out from Wells, ME in search of striper fish.  But before we could fish for the stripers, we had to catch a bunch of mackerel for bait.  So we spent about an hour trolling around catching mackerel after mackerel (sometimes 3 on the same line!).  Feeling confident in our abilities, we headed out to seek the larger stripers.  What had started out as optimism soon faded as we managed a few bites and one broken line but couldn't manage to reel anything in.  As a consolation prize, our skipper offered to pull his lobster traps and split any of the catch up between us.  So we went out and pulled 6 traps and found 5 keepers.  Before heading home, we stopped at a local lobster shack to eat some of the local fare...complete with the outrageous lobster bib!

Cynthia and her Lobster (plus an awesome sister photo-bomb)

Tourist Shot

First Red Sox Game
The Sloan School organized an outing to a Red Sox game last week, so I finally had a chance to experience a game at Fenway Park.  Unfortunately,  they were playing the Mariners!  So yes, I was that annoying out-of-towner cheering for the visiting team amongst a throng of Red Sox fans.  What looked to be a cake-walk win by the Mariners (7-1 heading into the 8th inning) soon turned into one of the most exciting baseball games I've witnessed.  Through a combination of bullpen confusion by the Mariners and an incredible rally by the Sox, Boston ended up pulling off an improbable 8-7 victory.  Not the result that I wanted, but it was an fun game with a great group.

A Night at Fenway

LGOers celebrate an improbable Red Sox comeback
(while fellow Northwester Dan and I wonder what the heck happened)

Building a House
This weekend we chose something a little different for our off-day: building a house for Habitat for Humanity.  12 LGOers and SOs headed up to Danvers for a day of shoveling, flooring, painting, and drilling giant holes through concrete walls (Nicely done Ammar!).  More info here.

LGO at Habitat for Humanity (Photo Credit: Ammar Asfour)

Running
With the busy class schedule and so many diversions, it's been a little hard to get into a regular running routine, but I took a big step (or stride?) a few weeks ago by joining the Cambridge Running Club.  It's a great group of very good runners, and one of the first times I've been towards of the back of the pack while running 6-to-7-minute miles.  They push me every week, and their twice-weekly organized workouts have been keeping me motivated.  Every Saturday morning they host a long run from Cambridge, including fully stocked water stations and a post-run feast.  Now that's my kind of running!

CRC "Magnificent Seven" during a recent club relay race / BBQ

Cooking
As a nice diversion during the weekdays, we've been having fun cooking some wonderful meals (and making lots of left-overs).  It's a nice excuse to learn some new recipes and eat some great-tasting and (mostly) nutritious food...

From-scratch lasagna with stir-fried eggplant and roasted brussel sprouts

Chicken piccata with bell peppers and noodles

French Toast + Bacon = Happy Sunday Morning :-)

Fireworks, CLGO Visit, and Plant Treks, Oh My!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here in LGO-land!  Last week marked the halfway point in the summer term and it all seems to be flying by so quickly.  Rather than have to decide between focusing on school and focusing on fun, I've taken the approach of doing it all and am planning to catch up on sleep sometime after I graduate.  Here are some of the highlights from the last few weeks:

Fourth of July

Boston Pops Concert

It turns out that Boston really knows how to celebrate America's birthday in style and the whole city seems to get involved in the party.  The festivities kicked off on the evening of July 3rd, when several LGO folks and families headed over to the Hatch for the Boston Pops 4th of July Pre-Concert.  It was a fantastic opportunity to see the Pops (and many special guests) perform an amazing concert without all of the massive crowds of the actual 4th.  The highlight for me was definitely the iconic 1812 Overture, complete with real cannons firing on the banks of the Charles!

On the 4th, I woke up early and went on a bike ride for the first time since moving to Boston.  I linked up with the MIT Outing Club (MITOC) for a 62-mile ride through some of the historic sites of the Revolutionary War (i.e. Lexington and Concord).  Each site had special events going on for the holiday, including reenactments!  It felt great to be back on the bike again, though with 90+ degree temperatures and full humidity, I was definitely ready to quit by the end.

View from the MIT Sailing Pavilion

Of course, the 4th wouldn't be the 4th without a huge display of fireworks and Boston DEFINITELY knows how to do them right.  The display is launched from a set of barges in the Charles, and MIT has the unique advantage of having our sailing center positioned dead-center in front of the barges.  Since LGO is one of the only programs on campus during the summer, we sent people early to block out our spot and ended up with about half of the rooftop deck with incredible views of the river.  With a full BBQ, stocked coolers, and a little shade, we had everything we needed for an incredible afternoon / evening by the river.  By the time the fireworks started, we were all sitting on the dock with our feet in the river looking out on a perfect evening in Boston.  You can't get any closer to the action without getting arrested!  This was definitely one of the best fireworks displays that I've ever seen and the whole day was definitely a highlight of the summer.

CLGO Visit

CLGOs Visit Sloan

Not long after the smoke cleared from the fireworks, a group of visiting students arrived from our sister China-LGO program at Shanghai Jiao Tong University for a week of cross-cultural exchanges in Boston.  They came in off a red-eye flight from San Fransisco and jumped into a buy day of touring MIT, Harvard, and some of the sights around town.  The highlight of Friday was the LGO-CLGO BBQ we intorduced our Chinese friends to American football, and had lots of fun with frisbee, soccer, and croquet games.

Whale Tail!

Saturday was a packed day of sightseeing in and around Boston.  The day started with a duck tour of downtown Boston and the Charles.  From there, we headed to Quincy Market for a fantastic lunch of local favorites.  As the temperatures started to rise, we headed out on the open water to cool off a bit and go Whale Watching!  That trip was great, and we did end up seeing a humpback whale off the coast of Cape Cod that we watched for about an hour before heading back to Boston.  We concluded the day by eating a wonderful meal of duck and lobster in the heart of Chinatown.

Cross-Cultural Bonding

After such a busy day on Saturday, the CLGOs had a much lighter schedule on Sunday and had time to go shopping and recover a bit from the busy trip so far.  While they were shopping, a few of us LGOers drove down to the South Shore and went out on a boat for an awesome day of cliff jumping and water-skiing.

On Monday, the CLGOs came to class with us and we had some great discussions about operations and the difference between doing business in China and in the US.  The highlight of the week was on Monday morning, when our new Chinese friends invited us over for a delectable feast of homemade dumplings and other delicious creations.  They taught us how to make dumplings and we all gorged on the incredible food!  Throughout the rest of the week, we continued some cross-cultural events and discussions before wishing them goodbye.  The visit was great and they definitely set a high bar for us to reciprocate when we visit Shanghai next year!

Plant Treks

One of the cornerstones of the LGO program is our close tie to industry and the opportunity for students to tour the facilities of our partner companies.  While most of the plan tours are held during the 2-week Domestic Plant Trek in January, many partners are close enough to Boston that we can see them in a day-trip.  Last week marked our first set of tours, with trips to Sanofi, NationalGrid, and Amgen, of which I made it to the latter two.

LGO Visits National Grid

The NationalGrid tour was the first time that I've really had any exposure to the utility industry and it was a great tour across many of their sites.  We started at the US HQ building in Waltham to get an overview of the company and meet some of their leadership.  From there, we headed to the NE Distribution Center in Sutton, which provides all of the hardware needed to maintain, upgrade, and repair the electric grid in New England.  It was there that we saw first-hand how the challenges of managing numerous legacy power systems can drive the need for huge amounts of inventory in order to sustain operations (This areas has 20+ different kinds of power networks, each requiring unique transformers and other hardware!).  Even with the challenges, the DC was able to provide needed hardware to the field within a few hours' notice.  Very impressive indeed!  Our last stop of the tour was the line-crew training center in Millbury.  This was also and EE's playground, with entire mock-up neighborhoods with electrical and gas networks in various stages of completion, ready to be used for true hands-on crew training.

After class on Friday, we headed down to West Greenwich, Rhode Island to tour the Amgen manufacturing facility that produces Enbrel, among other biotech drugs.  This was my first-ever exposure to the biotech industry and it was definitely a unique experience.  As opposed to the pharma industry with creates drugs from chemical compounds, the biotech industry actually GROWS its product through an incredibly intricate process of cell replication and protein harvesting.  The factory was by far the cleanest facility that I've ever been in, and the team giving the tour (including several LGO alums) were all great in helping us understand the process.  It was certainly interesting to compare it to the aerospace industry that I have been used to!  After the tour, we wrapped up the day by discussing the business strategy of the site and then sharing it with the plant manager before we left.

Assignments for Next Week

Now, it wouldn't be fair to talk about the last few weeks without mentioning the academic side of LGO and ensuring everyone that we really are working hard between all these fun activities.  In the last few weeks, we've had several epic case studies (i.e. leaving the LGO lounge at 1am), long problem sets (p-sets in MIT speak), and our first test of the program (in Probability and Statistics; results still pending).  As we head into the second half of the summer, the workload definitely seems to be increasing, with the addition of major group projects to the usual load of p-sets and case studies.  We're always figuring out how to most efficiently cover the assignments amongst our summer teams, and so far we've been able to stay just ahead of the curve.  What I can say is that most of the stuff we are learning is very interesting and applicable, as we discovered after seeing some of the concepts being used at the partner companies that we visited this week.

It's certainly been a busy two weeks, but such is life as an LGO student.  If we didn't thrive off this, we wouldn't be here!

Car-free and lovin' it!

One of the big choices when I moved out here was whether or not to bring my car, and I decided to go car-less (see earlier post).  It's now been a month since I sold the car and headed East and I'm happy to report that I don't miss it at all!  Boston and Cambridge are both easy to get around (maybe easier?) without driving.  My favorite modes of transport have been:


1. Walking (http://mnmlist.com/joy-of-walking/).  Certainly the most low-tech of options, but the most preferred for short hops on beautiful summer days.  My apartment is exactly one mile from the LGO office, so the walk in the morning takes about 16 minutes if I hit the signals right.  All the streets have wide sidewalks around here and the city is generally pedestrian friendly, though sometimes crossing an intersection can feel like an interactive game of Frogger.  Most of the days I've been walking to school and taking a different mode home depending on the weather / schedule that I'm trying to hold.

2. Hubway (http://www.thehubway.com/).  The Boston-version of bike sharing, where you pick up a bike from any station in the city and drop it off at any other station.  MIT students can get a yearly membership for $25 and there is no per-use charge as long as you don't have the bike out for more than 30 minutes (hasn't been an issue so far).  There's a great mobile app with live stats on where bikes and empty slots are available and so far I've had pretty good luck.  The racks near Sloan fill up fast in the morning, but there's a second rack across the street which usually has room.  Just remember to bring your helmet (BTW, we get a discount on those too through the city of Boston).  With the walk to the station, ride to campus, and walk to Sloan, the commute is about 10 minutes.

3. MTBA - "The T" (http://www.mbta.com/).  This is the second city that I've lived in with an efficient mass transit system that actually goes where people want to go (Portland being the first).  Pretty much everything that I need is along the Red Line, from drinks at Harvard Square to the airport bus (and oh yeah, my place and MIT in between).  MIT students get a discount (see a trend here?) down to $35/month that gets us unlimited use of the T and busses in town.  I haven't tried the buses yet, but I haven't really felt a need to for anywhere that I go.  From my place to school is 8 - 14 minutes depending on the train schedule.

4. Zipcar (http://www.zipcar.com).  This is a great car-sharing program for short trips in the city (i.e. large grocery runs or moving vacuum cleaners and box fans).  As with everything, MIT students get a discount so it only costs $15 every year.  The hourly rate for cars ranges from $8.50 - $12.00 depending on the car type and day (Audi's on the weekends are more than Honda's during the week, go figure!).  So far I've only used it once but was impressed with the convenience when I did.

 5. Car Rental (www.budget.com).  As a truly last-resort, there is a Budget car rental counter two blocks from my apartment with a full fleet of cars.  I've only used it once, to rent a sweet minivan for a hiking adventure to New Hampshire a few weeks ago (see Ammar's pictures here).  Total cost for a 24-hour rental was $67 plus gas, so it's a lot cheaper than taking the Zipcar for a full day.




Between all these options, I really haven't missed having my own car out here.  That opinion may change a bit when the winter weather rolls around, but so far so good!