After three weeks off, we started our second quarter last Monday. Hard to imagine that we are 1/6 of the way through the MBA course already! We are only taking three core classes in this quarter (though some of my classmates added a fourth elective course), because the university anticipates that this will be a heavy quarter for recruiting and networking.
I also will be starting an internship this quarter, with the Ontario Reign, who are a minor league team of the Los Angeles Kings based in Ontario, California, about 75 minutes east of Los Angeles. I'm really excited about this opportunity. I'm impressed with the people I have met in the organization, and I know that I will learn a lot about the sports business and sales and marketing in general.
Off-campus opportunities seem to be the theme of the quarter for all of my classmates. Whether it's an internship or recruiting and networking, we are all expecting to spend more time off-campus this quarter than last quarter. In fact, even excluding those, we would be spending less time on campus: we only have three classes, so there are days when my section has only one class. Plus, there are far fewer corporate presentations. This has really killed a lot of the campus buzz from first quarter. The diligent focus on our careers is the fundamental difference between graduate school and university.
That's not to say we're not going to have a fun quarter -- far from it! Next weekend, I'm playing in the MBA Poker Tournament in Las Vegas, hosted by Harrah's, the casino. It's an annual event featuring MBA students from all of the West Coast business schools. Including that one, there is a chance I will be in Las Vegas three or four times during the next few months, for one reason or another.
The weekend after, I'll be in New York on the Sports Business Association's career trek. And just after the quarter, over spring break, I'm hoping to go on the student trip to Japan.
It's shaping up to be a fantastic quarter already!
-- Sreesha
