That's a Wrap! (Second time around)

When I woke up on Wednesday morning, all that stood between me and a long break for the holidays was a final in 15.010 (Economics).  A few hours later, as I handed in the test, I realized that I was half done with the academic portion of LGO.  Since I'll be on my internship during the spring semester, I really only have two semesters left at MIT which is truly hard to believe.  Now that I have some free time and no looming finals, I've been thinking about my experience so far at LGO:

Summer vs. Fall Terms
I definitely feel that the summer was tougher than the fall.  Maybe it was the fact that I hadn't been in a classroom for 5 years or maybe there actually was more work, but it seemed like I was always busy during the summer.  In the fall, there was a lot more downtime and time to do more things outside of school.  Of course this can completely depend on the engineering electives that you choose to take.  My two engineering courses (Logistics Systems and The Airline Industry) were both very interesting but relatively light in terms of workload.  There are definitely classes that can make the fall much tougher than the summer, but I have no regrets about my choices.

The team dynamics were also completely different between my summer and fall teams.  During the summer, we worked on virtually every assignment together, or at least compared solutions to the P-sets.  We saw each other a lot outside of class and got to know each other really well over the summer.  During the fall, there was really only one group project during the entire term (for Organizational Processes) and I didn't see much of my core team at all except for during class and the weekly Communications Lab.  Other LGOs had great core team experiences in the fall, so mine may have been an anomaly. 

LGO within Sloan
We were warned before the fall semester that we would have to actively try to connect with the rest of Sloan, as it is all too easy to stay within the tight community of LGO.  Now that the core term is over, I have mixed opinions how I did with the integration.  I definitely tried to join in on a lot of the Sloan events, including some wonderful dinners through the Happy Belly Club and the NYC trek with the Travel and Hospitality Club.  On the other hand, I definitely spent a lot of time in the LGO lounge and more time outside of class with LGOs than with the rest of Sloan.  The common theme is a group of incredibly smart and talented people and I definitely want to continue to get to know people better.  Something to work on going forward!

Living in Boston
I'm still enjoying my time in Boston, though the recent winter weather is definitely testing that enjoyment.  As the summer turned to fall, the fall colors came out radiantly along the river and the only change that I made was to throw on more layers.  I was still running regularly along the river until about mid-November.  That's when the real cold weather started and I cut back quite a bit with the running.  I have yet to find enough layers that can make a run through 5-degree temperatures comfortable.  We just had our first batch of snow roll through Boston last week and it was fun to trek through it to finals.  Four months from now I may not be so excited, but for now it has a certain mystique to it.

The MIT dome after a snow storm

The Sloan building, after my last final!

The Charles River Trail...a little harder to run on it now!

The sailboats are out of the water until the spring...and the river is frozen.

Cynthia celebrating the first snow.

So what's next?  Well, for the next month I will be living as a nomad.  As I write this blog, I'm sitting in Suburban Maryland, visiting my brother and Cynthia's parents (who happen to live just miles apart from each other).  On Monday I'm headed to Mexico City to meet up with my family for Christmas, followed by another brief stop in Maryland.  Then it's off for the epic LGO Plant Trek!  We've put together an action-packed itinerary for the trek, including stops in Detroit (GM), Portland (Nike), Seattle (Amazon/Boeing), LA (Amazon), Tucson (Raytheon), Austin (Dell), and San Juan, Puerto Rico (Amgen).  This is one of the major highlights of the LGO program and I can't wait for all the adventures!

Itinerary for the next month!

First leg: BOS - BWI yesterday (flying over Manhattan here)

So if you're looking for me over the next month, just look up.  Odds are that I'll be on a plane!

Happy Holidays!

Internships, C-Functions, Movember and more!

Yikes, I just realized that it's been over a month since I last posted anything here.  We've been pretty busy will a whole host of school activities and other adventures!  Some updates:

Internship!
The biggest news is that the off-cycle internships have been announced and I will be going to Sikorsky in Startford, CT to work in a supplier management role.  There is a longstanding debate within LGO about whether to do the internship off-cycle (Feb - Aug) or on-cycle (Jun - Dec).  About 25% of the class does off-cycle and the other 75% does on-cycle.  For me, the decision was mostly driven by an interest in the project (only offered off-cycle) and the fact that it met the requirements for my Aero/Astro engineering requirement.  It is also a follow-on to a previous LGO project, so I'll have a good baseline to start from.  The main difference is that I'll get two fall semesters on campus, while the on-cyclers will get two springs.  That drove a few changes to my course schedule but it didn't have any major impacts on my plan.  The two big benefits of the off-cycle internship are that I can participate in G-Lab next year and also get an extra 3 months to write my thesis!

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk

C-Functions
We've had several more C-Functions in the last month including Korea, Latin America, and Mexico.  All the clubs have done an excellent job of putting on the events and we've been treated to some amazing performances by our classmates.  One of the Baltic Ocean traditions is that someone always wears a penguin suit.  This month the honor went to LGOs Cynthia and Kara!

Cynthia as the Baltic Penguin at the Korean C-Function

Photo shoot in front of the dome

Kara as the Baltic Penguin at the Latin C-Function

Movember
The month of November brought on Movember and the men (and women) of Sloan teamed up to raise money and awareness for men's health by growing ridiculous facial hair.  So far the "Mustachioed Men of Sloan" have raised more than $14,000!  Ammar had a great series of posts with pictures of the LGO 'staches, so I'll just post a few shots here.

Exploring Boston
The winter weather has arrived, but that doesn't mean an end to the exploring around Boston.  Recent excursions include discovering a third climbing gym in the area, visiting the aquarium, and eating lobster on the waterfront.

Penguin Exhibit at the NE Aquarium

Lobster Feast!

Thanksgiving in Maryland
It turns out that my brother and Cynthia's parents live within a few miles of each other in suburban Maryland, so it worked out to be a perfect destination for a quick trip over Thanksgiving.  We didn't have any travel issues in either direction and had a great time down there.

Thanksgiving Feast

Outfitting my Nephew William with MIT gear

Post-feast hike at Great Falls

10-Mile "Turkey Burn-off" run

Travel and Hospitality Trek to New York City
One of the many benefits of being at Sloan is getting seemingly endless opportunities to learn more about particular industries by doing on-site visits and "treks".  Last Friday we had the opportunity to go down to Connecticut and New York to tour companies in the Travel & Hospitality industry.  We stopped at the world HQ of Starwood Hotels, at lunch ate 'wichcraft in downtown Manhattan, met with the senior marketing team of JetBlue, and got a behind-the-scenes tour of Delta's operations at JFK.  Of course, being an aviation geek, the stops at JetBlue and Delta were most interesting to me.  The JFK tour in particular was like being a kid in a candy store; we got rare access to the Delta ground operations center in the control tower and toured around the new facilities at Terminal 4.

JetBlue HQ in Long Island City

JFK Operations for Delta Airlines - Amazing Place!

Next up is just two more days of classes, and then finals!

SIP Week, LGO Hockey, and Winning the World Series!

It has been another series of busy weeks here in Cambridge.  We reached the mid-point of the Fall semester a couple weeks ago, which meant it was time for our first Sloan Innovation Period (SIP).  SIP is a program unique to Sloan that was developed to get students out of the traditional classroom environment and into more experiential learning environments.  Instead of regular classes, we get to choose between workshops in ethics, leadership, and other topics.  For the first-year LGO's, we were required to take two seminars in ethics and I found both of the ones I took to be very interesting and engaging.  One was on common pitfalls that we can fall into when dealing with ethical issue in business, and the other involved live-action (i.e. we all had to act) performances of situations when we faced an ethical issue.

SIP is also viewed as the mid-way breather in the semester.  Unfortunately for LGOs we still have our regular engineering classes, which for me meant a mid-term and and a major homework assignment was due.  Oh well, that doesn't mean that we didn't still find time for a lot of fun!  I was able to strategically schedule my SIP workshops so that I was done with everything by Wednesday afternoon, which meant a 4-day weekend for adventures.  Here are the highlights:

Sailing on the X-Dimension
It turns out that MIT has a 42' sailboat sitting out in Boston Harbor, and our captain extraordinaire Adam is fully qualified to sail it.  So on Thursday morning, 7 of us headed out for an overnight adventure on the X-Dimension.  The weather was definitely chilly (picture mid-40's and windy), but we had a great time.  Even when we realized that the stove didn't work (out of propane!), we still had a great evening playing card games by flashlight!

Getting ready to head out on the X-Dimension (non pictured)

All geared up for the frigid (but clear!) weather

Our Mighty Vessel

Outdoor Climbing in Western Mass
I finally had a chance to get some outdoor climbing in, with the help of Cynthia's climbing network.  She found an MIT student who was heading out to Crow Hill and we were able to tag along.  This was my first time climbing outdoors in about 10 years and it was definitely a challenge, even on the "easy" pitches that Cynthia was leading.  Still a lot of work to do if I want to stand any chance of keeping up!

Making it look easy!

Blacklight Run
After climbing, we checked out a Zipcar and headed up to Andover for the "Boston" Blacklight Run.  I say "Boston" in quotes since it was actually about 45 minutes outside of town (a fact that they neglect to mention on the website!).   Oh well, we recruited some other Sloanies and had a great time running trough stations of powdered die that glowed under the blacklights.

Hard to tell, but we were really glowing!

Intramural Hockey
Last week marked the start of MIT Intramural Hockey.  It has become a tradition to field an LGO team for the D-league and this year is no exception.  Now keep in mind that I've only been on ice skates two or three times in my life (it turns out that skating experience is not a prerequisite!) so you can just imagine what happens out there.  I've made it to two games so far and they have both been pretty epic, including our first 2014/2015 inter-class LGO rumble!

LGO 2014s and 2015s after the Rumble

Red Sox Win the World Series
Last week was a great week with the Red Sox winning the World Series in Game 6 right here in Boston!!!  I went downtown right as the game was ending and witnesses the huge celebration on Boylston Street.  Then on Saturday the city threw a parade, with all the players (and the trophy) riding in the Boston Ducks.  The weather was absolutely amazing and the whole city seemed to be having a giant party.  Great way to wrap up the week!

World Series champions and nice fall colors!

Sweet Trophy

Midterms and Mid-Term Fun

The last few weeks have reminded us that we really are in school, and that school involves midterms.  It seems like October is a midterm month, with at least one test every week and sometimes a couple.  So far we've had Accounting, Organizational Processes, Economics, and Logistic Systems.  One more to go (The Airline Industry, next week).  As I've said before, none of the topics are particularly challenging on their own, but the combination of classes means that there is a lot of information to learn in a short time period.  It has all been manageable so far, but I'm definitely starting to understand the MIT mantra of Drinking from a Fire Hose.

Now of course it hasn't been all work and no play.  Some of the highlights from the last few weeks:

Climbing:  Cynthia is an avid climber and we finally made it out to the new Brooklyn Boulders climbing gym in Somerville last week.  She also made it to the real rocks up in Rumney, NH to get a bigger challenge (I'm not quite there yet!).

Brooklyn Boulders - A Climbers Paradise

Lead Climbing in Rumney, NH - Now that's some real rock climbing!

BAA Half Marathon:  Lots of LGOers ran in the BAA Half Marathon last weekend, and the weather could not have been better for a run through the fall colors of South Boston.  This was Cynthia's first-ever half marathon but I have a feeling it won't be her last!

BAA Half Marathon LGOers

Trip to the Berkshires: This was definitely the first time that I've gotten Columbus Day off, and to sweeten the deal MIT gave us both Monday and Tuesday off.  So after a weekend of studying, we headed out to the Berkshires in Western Mass to relax and check out the fall colors.  Along the way, we stopped at the MASS MoCA museum in North Adams to check out some large-scale modern art.  We also had time for some exploring and driving to the top of Mt. Greylock, the highest point in Massachusetts (which lived up to its name as it was completely locked in with grey fog!). 

MASS MoCA - Colorful walls by Sol LeWitt!

Would you believe that these are all pencil sketches?

Close-up of the above picture - amazing!

Xu Bing's "Phoenix" - Made completely from scrap construction material from Beijing

Fall colors in the Berkshires

"Bridge of Flowers" in Shelburne Falls (A great little town!)

Driving up Mt. Greylock

Rowing Events: Cynthia was on the crew team here at MIT for all 4 years of her undergrad, so I've been learning all sorts of stuff about rowing.  A couple weekends ago we went to the MIT Crew Alumni event where she looked right at home in the boat.  There were enough alumni to fill four 8-person boats for the race, and it was lots of fun to watch from the shore.  Then this last weekend was the annual Head of the Charles Regatta, when rowers from all corners of the world take over the Charles River between Boston U and past Harvard.  It turns out that this is the largest 2-day rowing regatta in the world, with over 9,000 athletes, 1900 boats, and 61 events.  It was definitely hard to tell what was going on in the races as it was such a long course, but it was quite a sight!

Alumni Crew Race - Cynthia's 4th from the Right

Head of the Charles Regatta

More Head of the Charles

Interested in LGO? Come visit us during Ambassador Day (November 4th)!

Have you been reading these blog posts and thinking "Wow, that LGO program looks amazing"?  Well, don't take my word for it; come see it for yourself!  Ambassador Day is coming up on November 4th.

From the LGO website:

Every fall, LGO hosts an Ambassador Day and Information Evening on campus. This daylong series of events is designed to allow prospective students to learn more about the program and its students. Ambassador Day features student and alumni panels, a partner company seminar, and the opportunity to attend classes, interact with students and faculty, and see what makes LGO the nation's leading graduate, dual-degree program in engineering and management.

I attended Ambassador Day last year and it was really my first contact with the LGO program other than e-mails and the website.  It was a great experience to get out to Boston and spend a day with the current students, attend a few classes, and hear more about what makes the LGO program unique.  I remember flying back to Seattle the next day knowing that this was the right program for me.

So if you're interested in LGO, come on out for Ambassador Day.  All the details (and a great video made by some of my classmates) are available on the LOG website: http://lgo.mit.edu/

Ambassador Day Video

Hope to see you next month!

I'm on a boat...in Italy!!!

One of the best things about being in business school is getting e-mails with subjects like "do you want to go race a sail boat in Italy for the weekend?" and being able to respond with an emphatic "yes!!"

Sloan is full of opportunities and you never know what may come up next.  It turns out when you surround yourself with 406 globe-trotting students with adventurous tendencies, there are really no limits!  So it was that I found myself sitting at Logan Airport last Wednesday waiting to board a flight to Paris on the first leg of a journey that would take me to Santa Margherita, Italy to participate in the Rolex MBA Regatta.

It turns out that Rolex hosts a 3-day regatta every year off the coast of Italy between MBA students from around the world.  MIT has fielded a team for the last several years, but the first that I had heard about it was about 4 weeks before I boarded the plane.  Once I learned that sailing experience wasn't a prerequisite for the team (my sailing resume up to that point included a total of 4 outings on the 2-person MIT tech dinghy in the Charles), I jumped at the opportunity.

The journey from Boston to Santa Margherita included 2 planes, 3 trains, and 2 buses over the course of 18 hours with brief stops in Paris and Milan, but everything went smoothly along the way.  I arrived to the race site at about 3:00 on Thursday and met up with the rest of the MIT team (15 in total split between 2 boats).  The agenda was to race on Friday and Saturday with parties hosted by Rolex every evening.

Milan Central Train Station

Downtown Santa Margherita

Santa Margherita Harbor (Photo credit: Andrew Tran)

On the Docks

It felt wonderful to be back in Italy, and of course one of the first things we did was sit down to a wonderful meal on the harbor. 

On Thursday night we all attended a kick-off reception at a villa overlooking the town and had more Italian food, wine, and lots of fun.  It was also a great chance to meet team from the other schools, including Wharton, Tuck, Kellogg, Booth, Harvard, Columbia, and many more from throughout Europe, Hong Kong, and Brazil.  

After not much sleep, we woke up on Friday and were the first boat to head out of the harbor towards the race course.  It turns out that there were several of us on the boat with little or no sailing experience, but we were in luck in that we had an amazing skipper in Adam Traina (another LGO 15!).  He gave us all jobs (I was on the jib), and we set to work learning what the heck we were supposed to do.  We were so focused that we completely missed the start of the first race (whoops!).  By the time we got to the line, we were dead last.  But it turns out that we had a great boat and a crew with a steep learning curve, so we were able to catch a few teams and finish the race in 7th place.  Then we kept improving and placed 5th in the second race.  After we decided to call it a day, the race officials decided to do the same and we all headed back into port.

Hard at work (Photo Credit: Andrew Tran)

Friday night we all boarded a ferry to Portofino for some exploring before heading back to Santa Margherita for dinner and a party in the Rolex tent.  More eating, more drinking, more dancing, and not much sleep.  Fun times in Italy!

Portofino (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Fun times in the Rolex tent (Credit: Andrew Tran)

The next thing I knew, it was Saturday morning and we were heading out on the water for another day of racing.  This time though there was no wind and we had to wait for a couple hours before the racing could start.  So what did we do?  Rig up a rope swing from the mast of course!  Oh, and skipper Adam donned his full pirate suit!

Once the wind did pick up (barely), we set off racing.  We had a great start to the first race but quickly lost our wind and watched helplessly as other boats cut in front of us.  Then it was time for the last race of the day (and the regatta).  We started aggressively and kept a great line for the entire race.  We were first of the line and managed to hold our position for the entire time.  That's right, WE WON THE RACE!!!  We may have only been going 2 knots as we cruised across the finish line under light winds, but when the signaling cannon went off we were definitely the first ones to cross.  It was a fantastic way to finish the weekend of racing and the victory was promptly celebrated with a bottle of prosecco!  That finish was enough to launch us into 4th place overall for the best showing that MIT has ever had at the race.

Finishing the last race in 1st place!

Celebrating the finish

With the racing over, we were free to completely cut loose at the final and most over-the-top party of the whole trip.  We were all shuttled up to a castle high on the cliff and overlooking the Mediterranean to attend a conference and black-tie party that was personally hosted by the CEO of Rolex.  Words just can't describe what an epic time was had by the whole team!

The Sloan Crew (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Courtyard of the Castle (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Fun times with great friends (Credit: Andrew Tran)

Sadly, all great things must come to an end and so it was that I found myself retracing my route back to Boston on Sunday morning.  This time I had a couple extra hours in Milan so I took the chance to get downtown and see some of the sights.  After another hop across the Atlantic, I was back in Boston and ready to start another week of classes.  Looking back, this is probably the craziest weekend adventures that I have ever done but it was an absolutely incredible experience with great friends and lots of stories!  We're already plotting to recruit a team for the regatta next year :-)

Il Duomo in Milan