Don't cut me off!!

People are strange about some things. Look at the diagram below:

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Lane 1       C C     W   X C C C
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Lane 2       C C C Y       Z C C C
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This diagram represents a not too uncommon situation on the freeway. Imagine that Lane 1 is moving faster than Lane 2. In this situation car Y is going to do everything in their power to merge between car W and X, while typically car W is going to speed up and close the gap with car X, thus forcing car Y to merge behind W. If car Y does speed up and get in front of car W, it will typically piss off the driver of car W. On the other hand, if car W speeds up and closes the gap, forcing car Y to merge behind car W, the driver of car Y will often be upset.

I have been noticing lately that people who are quite content to do their own thing will often become dissatisfied when they find that they are "behind" someone else. This seems to be a universal trait that applies across nearly every human endeavor. Certainly not everyone is so afflicted with the doings of others, but it seems to be widely prevalent. I believe a large portion of these type of activities are motivated by selfishness. Most people seem to be concerned primarily with their own position, but are without consideration for the plight of their fellow man.

Personally I tend to be very individualistic, and I believe in looking out for number one, but does that always have to be at the expense of other people? On the freeway for instance, a lot of the accidents are caused by this type of behavior. People are always forcing their way in between other cars in order to save a few seconds, while the other cars are following very closely in order to prevent someone from merging. If either side would just back off and drive a little less aggressively, a lot of accidents would be avoided. Unfortunately, that would probably be require a change in human nature.

Getting back into the swing of things

Now that I've been home for a week, I am finally starting to get back into the swing of things. Last week I had to pull a near all nighter at work to fix a problem with a deliverable. I was there until 3:00 am, went home and dropped into bed then got up at 7:00 am and started working until 4 pm. After that I went and dropped into bed for a few hours. It made for a long couple of days but I fixed the problem. An interesting note about our company leave policy; we have to work a set number of hours per year, we can accrue those hours at any time during the year. Since the week I took vacation was split between two pay periods, I worked enough hours before I left and since I've been back that I won't burn any of my accrued leave. Interesting that I can be gone for an entire week and not burn an hour of leave. :)

So maybe I should change the title of this blog to slacking my way to an MBA. I haven't spent any time on my essays for a while now. I really need to start cracking on them and make good use of this extra time. I also really need to start hitting those letters of recommendation hard. I would like to have the rec's done and the essays mostly tied up by september so that our next trip to the schools is focused on helping me polish the essays.

I'm also reading through "My years at General Motors" by Alfred Sloan. So far it's been a great book, but I'll post more a more thorough review when I get done. There is also a big reading list posted on the Business Week forums. When I get some more time I'll pull the list out and post it here on my blog.

How I prepared for the GMAT

My brother is studying for the GMAT now, and he asked me how I prepared for it. I thought I would post about what I felt was important during my study time.

To brush up on my knowledge I read through the Princeton Review and the Kaplan books. I found them to be useful for tips and tricks on certain types of problems. They were ok as far as review went. Probably the most helpful thing I did here though was the Pre-Calculus class I took the semester before the test. I took that class specifically to refresh my knowledge before the test, and to ease me back into math before diving into Calculus this semester. Ultimately it's very important to get yourself back into the mindset of working with math problems.

Every weekend I would take two practice tests, one on saturday and one on sunday. The practice tests give you a good feel for what the test is like. It's a lot easier to read problems in a book than it is to read them on screen, so it's important to work several practice tests per week. One thing to note, when you do these tests, set your resolution to 800x600 or 640x480 because the tests are designed to run at that resolution. If you don't you will be squinting to read the small text.

When I used the official guide, initially I started just working through the math problems, but soon realized I needed to use the practice time to reinforce the timing of the test. So every night I gave myself two 75 minute blocks. In the first 75 minutes I would do 20 Problem Solving Questions and then 20 Data Sufficiency problems. Then I'd take a five minute break before starting the verbal section. For the verbal section I would do 10 - 12 Reading Comprehension problems (this section varied because I would do all of the problems for a given reading passage). After Reading Comp I typically did 10 to 12 Critical Reasoning questions. I used this section to round out the questions I did with Reading Comp. Then I usually did 20 or so Sentence Correction. I focused heavily on Sentence Correction because it was my weakness in the verbal section. Overall I usually did 41 questions a night for verbal.

The reason to structure your daily study this way is to fully ingrain into you how long you have to do each question. By doing it this way, I rarely needed to look at my watch, I had a built in clock and I knew how much time I had left and how quickly I needed to approach different questions. I kept my watch handy, just so I could check my timing and make sure I was on pace. I really believe that using this approach helped me immensely on the test. By doing that many questions every night I built up endurance and an ingrained knowledge of test timing. Those two things are every bit as critical on test day as actual knowledge of how to solve the problems. Be careful though not to over do this. I was really burned out towards the end, and the last week before the test I only studied a few days.

Make sure you do you practice tests and your studying in a quiet area free from distractions. Try to talk your loved ones into leaving you alone while you are studying. The idea is to recreate as closely as possible the conditions of the test you are about to face.

Take the practice tests with a grain of salt, here are my practice test scores:
Kaplan: 610, 560
Princeton Review: 640, 670, 710
Power Prep: 690, 740
Actual Gmat: 740

it might look like the Power Prep 740 correlates to the 740 on the actual GMAT, but I don't think it does. The math on the actual GMAT was much harder and I'm quite certain I missed more questions on the actual GMAT than I did on that Power Prep. I believe the practice tests tend to score low. Of course, if you suffer from test anxiety you may do worse on the actual test, it's hard for me to say because I don't suffer that way.

If I were going to do this again I would change my study in the following ways:

1) I would take more Kaplan tests. The scores are wrong and their verbal questions suck, but their math quesions would be good practice for the test. Their questions are harder than the actual test, but the Power Prep and Princeton Review math questions are way easier than the test. I think it would be better to practice at or above the difficulty level of the test. Be aware though, their score system is downright wrong.

2) I would probably not study for 2.5 - 3.5 hours every day for a full month. I would ease into it a little slower, maybe 2.5 hours 3 times a week, 1 hour 2 times a week and 2 practice tests a week (3.5 hours). My burnout at the end was pretty bad, I would be a little more careful to avoid this going in.

3) I didn't ever work the last 150 problems in the problem solving section of the Official Guide. This is where all the hard questions are, I would make it a point to work all of these questions and know the techniques behind all of them.

4) I would keep a log book of all the concepts I missed when taking a test, or something that I was confused about. Review this book daily to make sure that you understand the concepts that were confusing.

5) If the power went out during the test again, I wouldn't wait around as long as I did to finish. I would've counted my blessings that I saw some actual test questions for free, and rescheduled for the next week.

Completed Jack, Straight from the Gut

I finished reading Jack Welch's autobiography today. It was really a great read, he covers a lot of interesting material about his position as CEO. The book is filled with his philosophy on organization and leadership. If you're looking for a new business book to read, I highly recommend this book. It gives a very lively account of his time at GE, his progression through the ranks, and his eventual selection as CEO. He then spends a great deal of time talking about the reforms and initiatives he put in place, and his goals for improving the company. There is also a lot of coverage of acquisitions and divestitures of different divisions within GE. I really liked this section because he covers the rationale for the decisions, and discusses the numbers behind the deals (albeit in a light fashion).

Next up, "My years with General Motors" by Alfred P. Sloan Jr.

New Apple cinema display

I've been waiting for this announcement for a while. There have been rumours circulating about this new 30" monitor for almost a year now. Hopefully the new 23" monitor will have a faster response time making it better for games. Now that they are DVI they will be fully PC compatible, and with the price drop, I think I'm going to have to save my pennies for one of these monitors.

Here is the link:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=512

Back from vacation

Our flight left at 7:20 am this morning from Philadelphia, which meant we had to be up by 4:00 am to get the final parts of our packing completed and return the rental car. Remembering our near flight miss on the way to Philly we decided to make sure we were at the airport plenty early.

Yesterday on our last day in Pennsylvania we went went to see my uncle in Red Lion. It was great to see him, I've had very little opportunity to see him as he lives on the east coast. We met at a very nice country club near his house and had lunch. The great thing for me about talking to my uncle is that he is a very successful entrepreneur. He started Zero Restriction which is the number one outer wear supplier for the PGA, LPGA and Senior PGA tours. He has several patents on the jacket design, and believe me they are nicest golf jackets on the market. We got a chance to talk quite a bit entrepreneurial principles and the creation of wealth. He gave me a number of good ideas, and really forced me to rethink some of the ideas that I have been pursuing lately. One of the really great benefits for me personally going to Wharton would be the nearness and availability of my Uncle.

We also got a chance to tour his local factory where the jackets are manufactured. That facility is a 50,000 square foot wharehouse, it is quite an impressive operation. He also has two more factories within the company and two independent factories produce material exclusively for his company. It is quite the amazing operation and it is very impressive to see in person. Talking with him and seeing the factory was the perfect capstone to this wonderful vacation.

After we finally made it home, I crashed in front of the couch for about five hours with the U.S. Open on television. I'm still relatively tired, but I have to admit, it was great to have my own pillow again. Time to make the rounds and go wish our fathers a happy fathers day.

Recovery day

We didn't do much yesterday as we slept in quite late trying to recover from the day before. After we got up, we headed over to the Ben Franklin museum to check it out. Admission was free because there were a billion kids running around. Most of the displays seem geared towards kids. I wish there were more and better scientific museums around for adults that have a fundamental grounding in physics and science. I guess we aren't that big of a group though. :(

While we were there we decided to see a movie in the IMAX. The movie was mysteries of Egypt, and it was a designed for a real IMAX screen. That was the first movie I've seen that was designed to be projected that way, and they certainly make you feel a bit disoriented. My wife seemed to be more affected than I was, and the poor lady sitting next to me had to put her head between her hands and close her eyes several times. I guess those days of playing FPS games come in handy after all. :)

At the beginning of the movie there were a several kids sitting in front of us playing with flashing toys of some sort. They were quite irritating when the lights went out, and the kids actually held them up as high as they could and started waving them around. There were two kids right in front of us doing it, then several more in the next few rows, and around the area. When they started waving them around, I leaned forward and in my sternest voice possible said, "Hey! Knock that off." Heh, not only did the two kids in front of us stop, all of the kids in the vicinity stopped immediately. Several people around us said "Thank you", and wouldn't you know, those toys didn't flash once more the rest of the movie. I was surprised that was as effective as it was.

For dinner we went to Moshi Moshi, a sushi bar right around the block from us. My wife has never had sushi before and she wasn't very keen to try it, but she decided to have one of my california rolls. She said it was pretty good and had another one. I had only got one order, so I order another one, and she had two more!! I was so impressed that she would eat those, she even knew sushi was raw fish when she ate them. I have to admit their sushi tasted much better than anything I've had back home. I imagine living close to the ocean you can get much more fresh seafood.

That was about it for yesterday, we briefly debated driving up to Boston for the Harvard info session, but it's about a six hour drive and we didn't want to have to drive back down after that. So we decided to leave that until the september trip.

Hershey, Harrisburg, Gettysburg, Somnia

Yesterday was a jam packed day. True to the plan I got up at 5:30 am and moved the car to a metered slot, so I only ended up paying $20.50 to park for two days. Despite the headache, it felt like a minor triumph. :) After working out and showing we headed out on the road to Hershey.

The drive to Hershey took about two hours, and took us through some very scenic country. I was really looking forward to the tour of Hershey, I had understood a tour of the actual plant was what the tour was. When we arrived at Hershey, the first tour that I saw was the factory works. You might think the factory works tour is something about how chocolate is actually made, but then you'd be just as disappointed as I was. Factory works is in fact just a little thing for kids, basically it's just machine with a conveyer belt that moves pre-made chocolates around. Kids push buttons and it opens a bucket dropping out some candy onto the belt, then they get their free candy. I was seriously disappointed here, because I really wanted to see the actual factory operation. We bought some candy to take home for friends, and nearly left at that point. Right before we left though I asked if it was possible to take a tour of the actual factory. They told me it wasn't, and that they haven't done tours for thirty years, but the ride shows you the process. A ride? It shows the process? This sounded promising so we went and got on the ride. It was more what I was looking for, as it showed the process of how chocolate is made, with decent explanation. So at least I got a better feel for how things are done, although I'm still a bit sad that I couldn't see the actual process.

After Hershey we headed over to Harrisburg to see the National Civil War Musem and grab a bite for lunch. I must say, the Museum in Harrisburg is spectacular. There are a lot of relics from the civil war on display. There are also a lot of explanatory plaques and they have put together a nice collection of videos. The museum does an excellent job of giving you background and perspective on the war. I didn't realize before going to the museum that the anti-slavery forces and the pro-slavery forces had been at it for nearly a century, and that it finally boiled over with the civil war. There was a lot of great historic information here that I didn't know before going. I highly recommend this museum, it's well worth the trip. Try not to go when there will be a big group children going through though, they tend to ruin the somberness of the place.

After Harisburg, we were both exhausted, and I nearly talked myself out of going to Gettysburg. The drive from Harrisburg to Gettysburg was quick, but I was fighting sleep the entire way down. Finally when we got there I pulled into a parking lot to let myself fall asleep. It turns out this parking lot was one of the tour centers, and as it was 5:00pm I decided I'd better check and see if they were closing before going to sleep. They were closed, but they gave me directions to another one that stayed open later. We drove over to the other tour center, and bought a few trinkets and an auto tour on CD along with a battlefield map. Gettysburg is unlike any other historic city I've been in. The battle was fought all around and in Gettysburg, so the entire city is a monument to this battle. I wanted to see the wax museum before we did the tour, so we drove over there and saw that show. It was pretty neat, and gave another good set up for what was to come.

The auto tour was perhaps the single greatest thing I've ever done on any vacation. The tour itself is perhaps two hours of audio narration and dramatization. It took us about four hours to get through it, because you are driving around the battlefield, and at different sites you get out and walk around and overlook the battlefield. The feeling of somberness and respect for that place that comes over you while doing the tour is simply amazing. The battle took place on July 1, 2, and 3. We are very near that time of year so the conditions were probably almost identical to what we found when we were there. The entire area was covered in a thin, almost unearthly fog that prevents you from seeing too far. As you drive from site to site, and you see the monuments to all of the fallen soldiers, you can begin to envision the battle lines. You can see the positions where they were set up, where the attacks took place, and where the rivers ran red with blood. You go through all of the different areas of the battle, and it was fought in a surprising large area. I can vividly remember these places now, where the two groups first clashed. The battles for culps hill, for the big and little round top. What the devils den looks like. Where the final charge was, and where it all ended. You drive along the confederate battle line on seminary hill, getting a feel for their position, and looking across the field to cemmetary hill where the federal lines were. You drive along the union battle line, seeing what they must have seen during that fateful charge. At certain points they have erected massive steel lookout towers that you can climb to overlook portions of the battlefield. If you have any interest in the Civil War, I would strongly encourage you to go to Gettysburg and do the auto tour. In fact, next time we would get a room in Gettysburg and stay for a couple of days. There is a lot more to do and see there that we didn't have time for.

The park closes at 10 pm, and at this point we were both famished. So we stopped at Ruby Tuesdays to get some dinner before our journey back to Philadelphia. I was completely exhausted at this point and my wife was in no better shape, so we waged a pitched two person battle against sleep on the drive back. I probably should have pulled over to the side of the road, but pulling over at 11 pm into a darkened forest wasn't overly appealing to me. So we cranked up the radio, and my wife had to listen to my terrible singing voice as I tried to keep myself engaged in something to avoid getting too drowsy. After what seemed like hours, we finally made it back to the city. Of course at that late hour the only parking structure still open was the extortive parking garage. D'oh.

What an incredible day. What an incredible place to take a vacation.

Historical visits

Today we did the historic tour of center city. We saw the Liberty bell, went to the national Constitution center and saw many other historic buildings. It was a great opportunity to see many great and historic sites in downtown philly. The plan tomorrow is to head for Hershey Pennysylvania, and then over to Gettysburg, we have to get up early to have any chance of making the trip worthwhile though.

Since everything closes at 5pm around here, we are thinking of going to a movie tonight. At the moment we are just chilling in the hotel, recuperating from all the walking and the heat of the day.

Wharton Info Session

We attended an information session today at Wharton. We arrived about an hour early so we could walk around the campus and get a feel for the building. The building was pretty dead, just as we expected due to coming during the summer. Huntsman hall is an exceptionally nice building, the facilities are very modernized, and there are nooks all over the place for people to study. The classroom facilities were excellent as well. I can't wait to come back during the year when there are students and classes in session. Overall I was very impressed with the facility though.

The info session itself was incredibly useful. Kimberly was conducting the session, she was very friendly and very helpful. She made my wife feel very comfortable as well, which is a big plus in my book. There were two other couples there with us today, I was a little shocked that anyone else would come during the summer, although I was glad they were there. I highly recommend that anyone contemplating attending Wharton, attends the info session. She gives a very good description of what they are looking for in the application process, and she gives some very specific items to emphasize in your essays. I would also say that you should come prepared to take notes. I brought my laptop, and I was able to capture significant portions of what she covered, there is no way I could've done that with a notebook and paper. A lot of the information was similar to what is on student-2-student, but it's different to here the emphasis when spoken in person. I believe I have a much better feel for what I need to do overall. Specifically I plan to rewrite both of the drafts of essay number one and number two that I've written.

After the info sessio we went to Chillis and got some food. We were planning to head to the constitution center downtown and check out the historic sites in city center, but because the info session wasn't until 2:30 and we didn't get done until 3:30, we didn't have the time to make it to the sites as they close at 5pm. People complain that everything closes early where I'm from, but they obviously haven't been to Philly yet. This place shuts down at 6pm, including significant portions of the retail shops.

I also found temporary solution to the parking problem. I found a place that I can park the car after 4pm until 6 am the next day for $6. After 6 am, they charge $3 per 20 minutes up to a maximum of $13.50. So the charge is $18.50 per day, which is almost $5 cheaper per day than the other garage. I am thinking about going and moving the car to a metered spot at 6 am, then I can pay another $2 to $3 and park the car for $9 the entire day. Of course, if I need to leave the car parked the entire day I can just pay the $18.50. It's still something of a pain, but at least it's a bit more flexible than starting at $23 for the entire day.

Atlantic City

We both slept quite late this morning after a much earned rest yesterday. Once we got up and worked out, I called the hotel to see what they were going to do about my wireless connection. They said they'd see if they could find a different room for us, and asked if I had any special requests. I said the nicer the room the better :), she responded that it was a long term executive room and it was nice. She told me she'd have to call me back in a bit though. After a couple hours and me getting restless, they finally moved us to a new room on the tenth floor. It is definitely a much nicer room, and I have wireless access here. :) I am impressed that they responded so well and got us a better room with wireless access.

We took a quick drive up to University of Pennsylvania to find Wharton. Huntsman Hall is an impressive building that you can see quite far away during the approach. We didn't expect the building to be open, I just wanted to find the building to make sure we wouldn't get lost on the way. The building was in fact open, although the guards said we couldn't walk around today, but tomorrow we could. He also told us that the info sessions are at 2:30 pm.

After grabbing a quick bite to eat we headed out to Atlantic city. It was about an hour drive to get there, it's interesting to think that the entire state of New Jersey is only about 60 miles wide. Atlantic city itself wasn't that exciting, as there is very little to do besides gambling and drinking. We walked around the boardwalk for a while (it's literally a walk made out of boards), bought a few trinkets, looked at the ocean for a while. After a few hours of walking around, we decided it was time to head back to Philly. My impression of Atlantic city is that of an embryotic Las Vegas. Even twenty some years ago when we went there, Las Vegas had a lot of things for non-gamblers to do. Atlantic city didn't seem to have much in the way of entertainment though. Of course we weren't there very long, it just wasn't as thilling as Las Vegas. It was really nice to see the ocean again though, it's such a refreshing site to see and be renewed by the purity of the ocean. I rolled up my pants and got my feet wet for a while and my wife got a picture of the waves splashing me pretty good.

We are now back in the hotel and will get some rest, while the rental car is back in the extortive garage racking up another $23 bill. The nice thing about having a car is that there are a lot of historic amazing places to vist. The problem is parking. If I can solve the parking problem having a car here wouldn't be such a bad thing. If any of you live here in Philly, does your apartment allow you to have a car? If so how much does it cost to park it?

On the way to Philly

We finally made it here to Philly, although we almost didn't make our
flight. We were up very late packing and getting last minute items
wrapped up around the house. Both of us went to bed exhausted, so
when the alarm went off I turned it off, and didn't get up. Luckily
the Orbitz reminder call woke me up and got us moving. As it was
though we nearly missed our flight. We arrived at the airport just
shy of an hour before our flight, and we spent forty minutes getting
our boarding pass. At this point we had fifteen minutes to make our
flight, and the security checkpoint line was at least another forty
minutes. Luckily I ran into someone that I knew who worked at the
airport, he told us that to have any chance of making our flight, we
should run to a different terminal, one that is never busy, and go
through security there. We did so, and we immediately got through
security, then we had a ten minute run across to the other side of the
airport. We arrived at the gate about five minutes before the plane
was to depart, every other passenger was already aboard.

After narrowly making our flight, the flight itself was relatively
relaxing. Both of us felt more at home than last time we flew. I
was exactly one hundred pounds heavier than I am now.
Losing a hundred pounds will really make the seating a lot more
comfortable in an airplane. Of course my wife was a bit nervous
during the flight, she isn't a big fan of flying.

Getting our rental car was straight forward. I rented a Kia Sonata
from Dollar, it turns out it's a pretty nice car. The drive to the
city was quick, the airport is located only a few miles away from
downtown. Once we got into the city though, I began to understand why
people complain about having a car in Philadelphia. The roads are
very small, there is hardly any parking and people drive very
aggressively. After winding our way through the streets, we drove
past our hotel, not because we didn't see it, but because there wasn't
a single place to pull over and go sign in. The hotel doesn't have
any parking, and there is no drive way that would allow you to pull in
and unload your bags. After circling the block a couple of times, I
dropped my wife off a quarter of a block away, then I headed over to a
parking garage, but on the way I saw an open parking spot. I jetted
into it so I could run my bags in, on the way in I realized it was a
handicapped spot (d'oh), so I hurried in, then ran back out and moved the
car to the parking garage.

The parking garage I chose charges near extortive prices at a dollar
an hour, lacking other immediate options, I parked the car.
Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to find a cheaper garage to park in.

After we got settled into our room, I found out that the wireless
access doesn't reach my room. So they are going to move us to a
different room tomorrow that has wireless internet access.

We walked around and checked out the few blocks around our hotel.
This city is pretty incredible, it reminds me a lot of New York,
although it is more toned down. We went and saw the French Quarter,
which seemed to consist mostly of French restaurants. Since today
was our anniversary we decided to splurge and eat at one of the nice
restaurants named Bleu. The meal was excellent if a bit expensive at
$63.00 plus tip. Finally after a long day we came back to the hotel
room for the rest of the night.

Heading to philly

This week has been very hectic as we prepare to leave for vacation tomorrow. I've spent the last two months training one of my employees to handle the project for a week, and I still feel like it's going to be rough. I am completely exhausted as we race around to make our last minute preparations. I should have internet access at the hotel, so I'll post updates to the blog as we tour Philly and the neighboring locations.

I appreciate all the book suggestions, keep them coming. :) I already have Gerstner's book and it's queued up next. I'll have to check out the book 'My Years at General Motors', it is rated quite highly on Amazon. I will say though that what has appealed to me about Jack Welch is the fact that he succeeded while having a very strong personality. That is something that I hear frequently said of me, and while I try to tone down the aspects of a strong personality that aren't always positive and capitalize on the good points, it's nice to hear that people with very strong personalities are successful as well.

Ok, time to go get some dinner and then start packing. T-minus 14 hours until flight departure.

Essays and a death in the family

It's been a rough and tumble few days. This last week I got out two rough draft essays for Wharton Essay's number one and number two. Essay number one was really draft number two, but it's the first draft that I even kind of liked. I'll let them sit for a few more days before I pull out the red pen, I need to get drafts of two more essays done, then I'll decide if the optional essay is necessary. Montauk says that most people shouldn't use the optional essay because it typically adds very little value. I need to decide if my situation merits it or not.

We found out Sunday that my Wife's Grandfather passed away. It was a painful slow process for him, and it was very difficult to watch. He has been at hospice for a week now, refusing any type of treatment, just wanting to die. It was extremely difficult for his kids to sit by and just watch him die. I hope I never have to put my children or family in that position, I think I would rather have a quick death like my Grandpa. On the other hand, they each got a chance to say good bye and tell him they love him. The viewing is tonight and the graveside tomorrow (he didn't want a funeral). I took the day off work tomorrow so I could go to the graveside and then to lunch with my wife's family.

Jack, straight from the Gut

I've started reading Jack Welch's autobiography. I am really impressed with this book and its lively and engaging story telling style. It is interesting to see how someone rose to the pinnacle of power from relatively modest beginnings. I've been reading every biography I can get my hands on lately, I find it illuminating to hear the story told from their perspective. Welch's unassuming writing style tells it the way he sees it, but unlike Trump who sees everything with an eye to flamboyance, Welch comes across with a certain dignity and innocent charm in his writing. It has also been informative to read about the culture at GE. It really sounds like a place I would enjoy working, I think really would have liked working under Jack himself. Many of his ideas are similar to my own views. He sounds like he's a tough guy that requires serious execution of the people underneath him, but if they perform he rewards them accordingly. I'll continue to post my thoughts about this book as I work through it.

Eventful day today

The first thing today my wife and I went to Petsmart and volunteered for an animal shelter named Heavens Gate. They are a really great cause, and they do a great job taking care of the animals and screening the people that can buy them. They sell them because apparently a lot of people have taken to using free kittens as snake food.

When we got to the store there was a cat running loose in the parking lot. Now to envision this parking lot, it is a massive shopping center with thousands of cars and dozens of stores. The cat was quite freaked out, and was hiding underneath the cars. My wife and I jumped into helping retrieving the kitty. We were able to marshal about 50 people to our cause to catch it. It was truly an inspiring site to see that many people all pitching in to help round up this poor kitty. We were quite worried about the kitty getting away because one of our cats jumped into a neighbors van and was (unknowingly?) driven to this same shopping district, he got out of the van and the people didn't catch him right away, and we have never seen him since. With that background it was all the more important for us to return the kitty safely to the owners. It turns out that the owners were bringing the kitty to drop it off at the animal shelter we were going to volunteer at.

After the shelter I went and got a quick hair cut, then headed over to get my brother to play computer games at a local center. It was an interesting experience because the guy that was there didn't know anything about computers, which really made the overall experience much less enjoyable than it should've been. We weren't even able to join multiplayer games online with other players. It was ok though because I was able to show my bro the basics of the mod I wanted to play, now we'll just play the game at our respective homes via DSL.

Time to read a bit more of Watership down, then I need to head to bed so I'm ready for my 8:00 am T-time tomorrow morning.

Myers Briggs Personality test

I decided to take another personality test today. This is the third time I've taken it in the last three years, and I've got the same results each time with different tests so I suppose it's probably accurate.

The tests that I've taken give two break downs a general personality type and a specific personality type within that group.

My personality type is: NT Rational,
with the specific type as: ENTJ - Field Marshal

There is an interesting description of the traits of a field marshal here:
http://keirsey.com/personality/ntej.html

If you are interested in taking this test you can follow this link:
http://similarminds.com/myers-briggs.html

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

If you take the test, please post your personality type here. I am interested to know the personality types of those applying to Business School.

Firestorm at Chicago GSB

Quite the controversy is raging on the Business Week forums about the recent decision by the Chicago GSB dean to allow part time business school students to interview and compete with the full time business school students. Some 100 students met to protest the deans decision. It is an interesting dichotomy listening to the full time students complaints, the posts that I have read have been quite elitist in their viewpoint. Essentially they have stated that the part timers aren't good enough to compete with them, yet they are upset because the part timers are competing with them. It stands to reason that if the full time students are that much better than the part time students they will likely land nearly all of the jobs. However if the part timers represent an actual threat to their jobs it stands to reason that either the part timers are as good as or better than the full timers in the program.

Ultimately I think it is a wise move for Chicago to open up the recruiting process to their part time students, that's what the free market is all about. Here is an excellent post by Will Slaughter to the forums:

"I am posting this letter under my own name in response to the truly asinine debate which has been raging on other threads with respect to the recent changes in Chicago's recruiting policy.

I would like to ask all my fellow full-time students to cease disparaging the evening and weekend programs at the U of C. These attacks are unfair, inaccurate, impolite, and ultimately self-defeating. I take personal offense at such attacks on behalf of the many part-time GSB students and alumni that I have had the pleasure to know and work with over the years. These include my former boss, the director of research at a major Midwestern brokerage firm, and my prospective future employer at a major U.S. hedge fund. Other GSB part-time "losers" you should be aware of are Robert Steel, the current Vice Chairman of a little firm called Goldman Sachs, and Daniel Coleman, the Head of U.S. Equity Trading at UBS, to cite just two prominent examples.

A salutary regard for your own interest should dissuade full-timers from traducing the part-timers: You might very well be asking a part-time student or alumnus for a job in a few months. But further, it is neither right, becoming, or honorable to act like like a jerk. We have an honor code at the GSB, and that should at minimum impose a duty to behave towards one another in a gentlemanly manner.

As full-time students, we benefit from the university's large part-time programs. Each part-time student pays the same tuition we do, and attends the same classes taught by the same professors. The tuition paid by part-time students nearly doubles the revenue available to the GSB, and subsidizes the large and diverse faculty of world reknowned scholars that we prize here at Chicago. If, as some on these forums apparently wish , the school were to eliminate the part-time programs, we would have to kiss half the faculty and half the courses in the catalog goodbye.

Some also suggest, incredibly, that part-time students deserve second-class status because they have not made the the same "sacrifices" to attend the GSB as have full-timers. Such sacrifices are alleged to include foregone income and the expense/inconvenience of relocation from distant places. I thought we were at Chicago, temple of free markets and Ayn Rand disciples! Each student at the GSB, whether full or part-time, has voluntarily made choices according to his or her own lights. Life entails taking risks, and grownups take risks. If full-time students had really wanted to attend a part-time program, they could have done so. It is true that part-timers have the advantage of continued income, but consider also the disadvantages: (i) it takes twice as long to finish your degree; (ii) you cannot focus intensively on your studies, making your academic experience potentially less rich; (iii) it is much more difficult to share a common experience with and build community among your fellow students; (iv) in most cases, you remain wedded to your current employer, and (v) even under the recent changes, you have less access to on-campus recruiting resources. Who gets the better bargain here?

Also, in true Chicago fashion, we should consider the option value implicit in having both a full-time and a part-time program. If you believe the part-timers get a better deal now, the program allows you to switch, without restriction, to the part-time program. If that private equity firm you intern with this summer is just itching to have you start working on a full-time basis right away, you can! Just go to work in September, and finish your degree at night. Try doing that at Harvard. It is logically ridiculous for Chicago students to complain about opportunity cost, because Chicago's program is one of the few top-notch program that actually allows you to take the better offer (without penalty or inconvenience) the moment it comes along.

Finally, at Chicago we have the reputation for being tough, analytical realists. We think competition is a good thing in the real world. If so, competition is also a good thing for us as individuals. It forces us to be stronger, smarter, and more focused to succeed. I would submit that more competition, in the long run, can also make us more generous. I would like to attend a business school where every one of my classmates has full confidence in his or her own abilities, and an optimistic belief in the tangibility of his or her dreams. When you are confident, you do not believe that someone else's success is a crust of bread snatched out of your own mouth. You can honestly congratulate others on their good fortune without privately resenting it in a poisonous cloud of secret envy. What sort of people do we want to be at the GSB? I, for one, want to congratulate others on their success and wish genuine good luck to those who are still seeking.

So, could we stop the whining about part-time recruiting? The school has established that relatively few part-timers are affected, and they are people just like us: They've paid the same tuition, taken the same classes, are part of the same community, and happen to need a job. Why should we begrudge our neighbors the same success for which we hope ourselves?

Sincerely,

Will Slaughter

University of Chicago MBA Class of 2005"

He really does a great job of explaining why the full timers shouldn't complain about the new recruiting process, and their options if they don't like it. This was a very well thought out response, and some of the ideals he espouses makes me think I need to look more closely at Chicago as a possible school.

Final thoughts on Montauk

I have completed reading through the essay section of the book. Rather than summarize each of the essays, I will give my overall thoughts here. The issues covered in the essays and the applicants themselves are quite diverse. There is really good coverage of different issues that should be covered for different types of applicants. For instance there are essays from people with an engineering background, entrepreneurial background, liberal arts background etc. Each applicant needed to focus on different areas in their background that could have been perceived as a weakness. After reading through these essays I came away with a stronger impression than ever that you cannot effectively copy someone else's essays. Good essays will be strongly branded and tailored towards benefiting the specific applicant, they will also be highly targeted towards the school. Certainly you can approach issues using a similar method, but the singlular thread that tied these applications together was the personalization of the stories themselves. Writing a good essay isn't about using big words, or even buzzwords, rather it is done through humanizing yourself and your life story so the adcoms feel like they know and like you when they have finished reading your essays. It's also about presenting a completely unified picture of your past, your present, and your future direction.

One iteresting note for international applicants is that I could not distinguish international applicants from domestic applicants based on their writing style. The only reason I could tell many applicants were international was because they wrote a lot about international experiences, and mentioned specifically where they were from. I don't think it's necessarily having just the spelling down, I truly believe the applicants had a very good understanding of english overall. The essays do a good job of covering both applications to American schools and applications to European schools. The international focus of a lot of the essays should be of great assistance to those applying from a different country. The issues addressed in an international essay are quite different than those presented in an essay by a domestic applicant.


As I've said before, the essays are unbelievably helpful and useful to any applicant. Something I have gathered from reading through all of them is the degree to which the applicants personalize themselves. I contrasted these essays with my first draft of my career progress to date, and after seeing good writing like this, I really get a feel for the type of changes that need to be made in order to liven up my writing. My first draft was a very dry recitation and mostly a list of accomplishments. Typically the applicants told one or two stories per essay, but told them in rich vibrant detail.

Now that I have completed the essays, I am going to go back and re-read chapters eight through ten (Marketing, Key Essay Topics, Writing Persuasivly), I plan to refer to them constantly and use them as my guide while writing my own essays.

My overall thoughts on this book are that it truly is the king of all books for the actual application process itself. The coverage of the GMAT and preparation was relatively sparse, but that's a good thing as there already is a lot material that covers the GMAT. Where this book shines is when it comes to writing the essays, getting recommendations, and going through the interviews. The overall broad perspective of business school is also quite good. I can't imagine any serious applicant not getting and reading this book.

Official GMAT Results

I received my official GMAT results in the mail today. It's nice to finally have an official score in hand, I was a little worried that the power outage during the test could affect the official score some how. However they Quant, Verbal and Overal scores were exactly the same. I received my AWA score and got a 6.0. The freaky thing was that there was a FAQ page included with the packet and it had sample scores using a graph. The sample scores had a 580 overall and a much lower Q and V than I got. For a minute I was worried that my scores were completely wrong. However I found the actual report soon after, and all was well.

More thoughts on Montauk

Ok, so I was a little overly ambitious in thinking I would finish Montauk over the weekend. I dramatically underestimated the number and length of essays in the appendix. I'll do a review up to where I am currently.

Chapter 16 (How to Get the Most Out of Business School) is about how to get organized and keep your head above water during school. As usual this is an excellent chapter that reiterates some of the common wisdom, for instance that this opportunity has a lot more to offer than just academics. He recommends that the reader make sure to use their time wisely to make friends and network with people. He also suggests getting involved in a few clubs and a sport, although he strongly cautions the reader to avoid joining every club and every sport. Instead he suggests picking a few clubs to really focus your attention on. By focusing on a select few clubs you will make better use of your time and form more lasting friendships. He also discusses choosing your study group wisely if you attend a school where you are allowed to choose your own. It is very important to have a diverse group with a lot of different viewpoints and experience. To a large degree the dynamic of your study group will determine how you view your experience in graduate school in general.

I think the best part of this chapter though is the discussion of the workload. He is quite frank that business schools purposely pile more work on you than any human being could actually do. The reasoning behind this is that as an executive there will be numerous demands placed upon your time, and you have to learn how to prioritize your time and deal with the most important tasks properly while giving less important tasks less time. He also discusses that it is possible to skate through some programs, taking easy classes and never really applying yourself. Doing so does a major disservice to you and your career, and is something you will regret in years to come.

The final section of the book is properly focused on stress control. He discusses the importance of a proper work / life balance. This balance is something that is stressed a lot in different ways in the literature, but it is important to note that while school can be overwhelming it is still vitally important that you keep yourself properly adjusted to avoid burn out.

If the book concluded here, it would still be an invaluable book that everyone who is planning to attend a top program should read. The wisdom, advice and insight he offers are highly worthwile, and when considering the cost of the book ($19.95 for my version) it's a no brainer, this book is a must have.

The book however doesn't conclude here, and in fact the appendix with the essays may be one of the most valuable sections in the book overall. It's one thing to discuss lively persuasive writing, but it's another thing altogether to read actual examples of essays that worked, and to have a discussion included that explains the good and bad points of each essay.

There are quite a few more essays than I initially anticipated, which led to my erroneous belief that I would plow right through them. :) The essays have a pretty neat structure to them with 115 essays written by 17 different applicants. The first four essays are by applicants that applied to the University of Chicago and were accepted; they represent the typical essays of accepted students. The next three are some of the best essays by applicants to Columbia. After the Columbia essays there are a series of applicants that Education U.S.A. worked with, for these applicants there are essays for many different schools. For instance Carol applied to a number of schools including Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Tuck and Darden. There is also a grid at the beginning of this section listing the applicant down the side, and the issue addressed across the top. There is then a check mark on the appropriate row if that applicant addressed that specific issue. This should be particularly useful for reference later on if you need to see how someone handled a certain type of issue.

The Chicago essays were written quite well. You can definitely tell that the applicants took their time and really tried to convey the essence of themselves. Each applicant wrote several essays that are included in the overal application to the school, and while overall the essays were good, there were a few that I felt fell short on their marketing campaign. Montauk's comments at the end of these essays bore out my opinion. The essays were good, but there were definite areas for improvement.

The Columbia essays were exceptional and really stood out as great examples of phenomenal essays. They had great content and the writing was clear, quick moving and lively. I would be very pleased if I could produce essays that were put together as well as these. I really appreciate the opportunity to read these essays, because as I mentioned earlier it gives you a very different feel to read about great writing than it does to read great writing.

The next essays were written by Carol. She applied to a large number of programs and there are a lot of essays here to read for her. Carol's essays don't have the almost poetic rhythm of the Columbia essays, but they are exceptionally well written as well. I believe they stand out from the typical essays written for the University of Chicago. Again Montauk's comments on these essays are very helpful, however the one thing I wish he provided in this section was information about what schools she was accepted to. I think the level of her writing is very approachable through proper writing and re-writing. I must say it was very interesting to see how different the essays were for different schools. There were a couple of times where essays from one school were used verbatim to answer a question from a different school, but that was the exception rather than the rule. Generally each essay was specifically targeted at the school, which I believe must have greatly improved the overall effect of the essays.

I have finished reading Carol's essays, and now I'll be moving on to Roger's essays. I am very excited to read Roger's, because he is an entrepreneur, and I am interested to see how he handles that type of experience in his essays. I myself have started several companies, so handling this issue appropriately in the essays will be critical.