yep, it started!

(OK, so it's been 2 weeks…But my excuse was I was out of town for one of those weekends! I'll split this up, otherwise it will look REALLY long…)

Noteworthy items: CMC days, exemption exams, Baseball game, Etiquette diner, annnnnd PREwork!

CMC days (Career Management Center)
In general, to be honest, this freaked me out a bit. A lot of people really now what they want to do…some don't yet. It's a balance to have a plan, yet at the same time be open to the 1,000's of opportunities that are here.  We practiced writing STAR stories, got introduced to the online "career compass" to sign up for interviews, workshops, submit docs, etc, and were told more than once to also do off campus (which I'm expected to do, since I'm non traditional, anyway)….All in all, it will be very interesting to balance this pillar of school (outside academics, extra curriculars…sleep, maybe?). Already our Resume is due in "fuqua format" this week, and soon we'll be assigned Career Fellows to work through everything that's coming up.... CMC's a bit focused on second years finding jobs right now, but too soon it will be our turn for internship interviews (mostly after January, but again, depends on the industry…)

Exemption Exams - 
It seems like a good amount of people exempted some of our Core Classes, depending on their background. A friend of mine was a marketing major and did marketing after undergrad; he just had to submit those courses to get that class waived. Same for accounting, etc. … On the other hand, Stats required a test. This was interesting - I hadn't planned to take it, until they started emailing about it, almost pressuring people to try it! "80% of the students last year passed" either into the higher forecasting (regression) class, or straight out into taking Finance early. Well, my roommate was successful to get into forecasting, but sadly, I was not! I honestly dreaded class, given the horror stories…but so far, at least the first class was good - the professor was very funny!

Baseball Game - 
Fuqua Habitat for Humanity had a fundraiser by getting a section in the Durham Bulls stadium and selling those tickets. I ended up going, taught some international students the basics, but sort of left early since we weren't really watching the game! I can at least say I went though…and they had 2 Rita's (water ice) stands - that stuff is good!

Etiquette dinner - 
A random email from a few weeks ago told us that the graduate schools of Duke were hosting a dinner and that Fuqua had 100 spots. Within hours those spots were full - luckily, I got one!  There were lots of little bits of information, some I knew (silverware start on the outside, or make a b & d by doing "ok" with both hands to quickly remind yourself where your bread plate is and where your drink is)…and others I didn't (take bread in small chunks to butter; don't cut it and slather the whole thing!). A big take away was when in doubt, don't order something that could be messy...

PreWork - 
just as we had pre work for GI, we had preassigned work for all 4 classes due. Some individual cases, some online submissions, etc. Having been gone the weekend it was a bit overwhelming to try to get it all in. Some people actually left early to get it done, or didn't even come at all, intimidated by the piles of homework.  We got down and dirty with Stats, Accounting, Econ & Management Communications. Thank GOODNESS I finished the "5th" class - Business Computer Applications - before GI. They sent ou that info online and basically all assignments and quizzes could be done virtually; the class shows up on our schedule, but attendance is optional. I'll probably go for the later classes, for the parts of excel I breezed through but didn't really stick…!

(PS last weekend some of us got a house in North Myrtle Beach, SC…what happened there stays there, but it was a great mini break! and it was great to be near the ocean again!!)