My new best friend

Monday, November 16, 2009

For all those out there that want to watch their favorite teams but live in states that don't broadcast channels like the mtn. I have found the most wonderful work around. It's a site called justin.tv. I have managed to watch all of the UofU's football games through this site. It is freaking awesome.

Above you will find a recent screenshot of my laptop. I am currently sitting in international project finance, bored out of my mind talking about the capital asset pricing model for the thousandth time during business school. But if you look in the upper left corner you will see a college basketball game. It is such a wonderful site. I recommend it to anyone.

What I've Been Up to Lately

Friday, November 13, 2009

Well at the request Michelle, I thought that I would take some time to update everyone as to what I have been up to lately.

Well things have been pretty insane lately. First of all, School. I thought that the first year of b-school was going to be the worst, well I was wrong. I have never been so busy in my life. I started off the semester with 5 classes: International Mergers & Acquisitions, Case Competition, Global Corporate Valuation, International Project Finance and Financial Statement Analysis (which I am taking a break from to blog right now). All of the classes have been quite good, my M&A class was even taught by my boss from my summer internships. Needless to say I got an A (not because of him, but because I am that damn good). As a part of the case team I get to participate in case competitions. The big one each year is the Molson International Case Competition in Montreal. Luckily I was selected as one of the four that is going so I get 8 days in Montreal on the school's dime in January. Case competitions are where you are locked in a room with a business case and 3 hours to prepare a 20 minute presentation on transparencies with markers, no powerpoint.

As for work. After my M&A class finished up, my old boss approached me about doing some more work. This is good because I need money and he pays, so of course I said yes. While I can't say which companies are our clients, I have had some great experiences interfacing with CEO's, CMO's, and other executives. It does mean for some very long days, however, since I don't have a brand name MBA like Harvard or Northwestern, I have to work just a bit harder to be included in the fraternity of management consultants. I do really enjoy my work though, and the people I work with. So in addition to a full-time MBA program, I am also working 25-30 hours per week. Luckily it is from home, and I can do some of it in class when class gets a bit boring.

The one thing that I haven't had tons of time for has been the job search. I did have some initial at the Black MBA job fair in New Orleans. I interviewed with Ford, Chrysler, and Air Products. Chrysler subsequently flew me to Detroit for an interview. I felt like it went great, but it has been 3 weeks and I haven't heard much from them. Lately I haven't had tons of success partly because of the economy. But I have had some interviews, and I am hopeful. The whole management consulting thing is definitely a real possibility so we will just have to see what happens.

I hope that everyone enjoys this update.

P.S. If anyone has any connections to jobs, or people that may have access to jobs please let me know. I am a hell of a find, trust me.

Office with a Window....and a Bed?!

Monday, March 30, 2009

After 6 months, 70 online applications, 50 cover letters, a dozen interviews I finally got myself an internship. Wow, what a relief. At the beginning of October I started applying to internships and I said that I wanted to go into either Management Consulting or Finance. (Great time to pick finance huh?) That was October, by January or February I had kind of given up hope of finding an internship at one of my target companies or even target industry, and I had all but given up on consulting in this environment. January rolls around and I have a business strategy simulation with Dr. Schweiger. The first day we learned that he owns a couple of consulting businesses, I didn't really think anything of it at the time, except wondering how he got into consulting and can I get in without a PhD. Fast forward to my first week in Mexico. I look on the school job posting website and I see an internship for Dr. Schweiger's consulting company Schweiger and Associates. I thought hey lets give it a shot. ( I was not very confident at this point after receiving daily rejections) Two days later and I get an email asking if a guy named Vishal could contact me for a first interview. Alright this isn't too bad, maybe I have a shot. The first interview goes good, we talked for about an hour and I felt that Vishal was a really nice guy, and not what I expected. I thought he was really easy to talk to, and I felt that we got along well. The night that I get back from Mexico I get an email saying that I have been selected for a second interview in which I will have to give a 15 minute case presentation and 15 minutes for Q&A. I thought WOW this is great, I hope I can deliver in this next part. The instructions were to prepare a market overview of the Solar Power Industry in the USA in 48 hours and limit it to 4 slides. At first this task was a bit daunting since I knew nothing about the industry. For a day and a half I devoured all the information that I could for the industry and then I found I had enough for an hour or two and I didn't know how to fit it all in 4 slides in 15 minutes. At 11am on Friday I gave my presentation, and I felt that I had given it my all and that I nailed it. I felt really good about it, and Dr. Schweiger and Vishal were very complementary of the presentation and my conclusions.

Now for the title of this post, Office with a Window....and a Bed?! The great thing about this internship is that I get to work from home and since Delilah and Michelle play in the living room most of the day we have decided to turn the bedroom into my office.

The company that I will be interning for starting on Friday is Schweiger and Associates. (http://www.scaas.com) This company is a Strategic Management Consulting firm that specializes in Strategic Development and Planning, Merger & Acquisition Integration, and Organizational Culture Assessment & Intervention. I am very excited about this opportunity, and it is exactly the type of company and in the exact consulting field that I wanted to be in when I came to the Moore School of Business. Please visit the website for more information about Schweiger and Associates.

I would also like to thank everyone who has been supportive throughout this stressful process of finding an internship. Especially to Michelle for dealing with me being so stressed.

Peas

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

When it gets to this point, I usually opt to do the dishes. For some reason I just can't deal with the stickiness. I am usually the person that eggs her on to this point, however.

I think I have looked that happy and messy after eating some ribs. Gotta love those sweet potatoes.

As I was sitting down to eat I noticed that Delilah had learned a new trick. Peas are soft, and because they are soft this makes them susceptible to be CRUSHED!! She just sat there and crushed peas for about 5 minutes. It was pretty awesome.

Viva La Mexico

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Hola Senors y Senoritas. For the next two weeks I am going to be in Mexico as part of a required course for my International MBA degree (such a tough course!!). Part of this course requires me to make a journal of my experiences in Mexico. I decided to turn this journal into a blog so that Michelle, Delilah and the rest of my Family could see what I am doing. The new blog is www.collinenmexico.blogspot.com, so please feel free to go over there and check out what is happening in Guadalajara and Monterrey, Mexico.

Daddy's Good Luck Charm

Saturday, January 3, 2009

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this. Delilah is the reason that Utah is undefeated and the best team in the Nation right now. Now hear me out for my reason. It all started with the Michigan game at the first of the year. I dressed Delilah in the same Jersey that you see above. Then when Utah played BYU same Jersey. And now last night as you can see from the above picture, I obviously couldn't change a winning formula had to dress her in the lucky Jersey. 

On a more serious note, last night was amazing. I was up till 4:15AM just listening to national radio shows and reading blogs. It was wonderful to bask in the Glory of the Sugar bowl victory knowing that Utah is the only undefeated team in the nation and rightfully should be the #1 team in the nation now. Really what anybody else says about Utah being #1 is superseded by the fact that Utah is Undefeated, something that no other team did this year.

The other thing that I love is that since I now live in prime SEC country and am going to rub it in down here. I have been getting grief all year long that Utah is that good and that they would get beat by any SEC team. Yeah first day of school on the 12th you better believe that I am wearing my Utah shirt and hat, and rubbing it in to all these SEC snobs down here. I really thought that by moving here to the South that I would see some truly great football, but I guess one just has to go to SLC to see the best football in the Nation. 

Daddy's Girl

Sunday, November 9, 2008