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!