We had our last Corp Fin and Managerial Economics classes today. It's amazing just how fast the semester has gone. Our cluster had a get-together this evening to celebrate the end of the semester, and all of our professors came out, which was pretty cool. Finals start next week.

I also have my electives locked in for next semester. I am taking Capital Markets and Investments as well as Analyzing Financial Statements. Capital Markets and Investments is a pre-req or co-req for pretty much all the upper level finance classes, so it is good to get it out of the way in your first year if you plan on taking any other finance classes in your second year.

Tommorrow night is Follies, which is a comedy show that CBS students put on twice a year. It's supposedly one of the best events, and is followed by Happy Hour (until 2am). I am looking forward to the show and also seeing off the 2nd years. It's hard to believe that I literally only have 1 year left to go!

Tonight I went to see my clustermate's wife act in her one-woman-show at a theatre near my downtown apartment. It was a really good show, our cluster represented in a big way (I think there were about 15 of us there) and afterwards we hung out at a ramen noodle shop. A few of my clustermates tried to convince me to go uptown afterwards to a bar but I'm pretty tough to convince to go 100+ blocks when my bed is 4 blocks away :) Anyways, we're all getting dinner tommorrow at Dinosaur BBQ so we'll have plenty of cluster love then (possibly followed by some karaoke near campus). I love living downtown but sometimes I have to admit, it is a pain since most folks live up near campus and its not easy for me to swing back and forth (unless I want to spend an hour on the subway or $15 on a cab ride).

In other news, I got a note from the Science and Technology Ventures office at Columbia that they would like to interview me for a Fellows position. I posted about this earlier, but basically the role would be to assist the office in commercializing technologies being developed at the University (on a part-time basis). Since I would like to land in the startup/VC world after I graduate, it would be an awesome opportunity and I am really looking forward to talking with them next week!

Just got back from rugby practice...we had pretty light attendance (I think people have gone home for Easter) so we played touch rugby in the gym. Still got a good workout, regardless of not being hit :)

Tonight I am going to freeze my a** off at Yankee Stadium watching the Yanks and O's. I am not a fan of the Yanks in the least (J-term Johnny is from Boston) and my wife is from Baltimore so you can count on us to root for the birds. What happened to all that spring weather we had last week!

Next week there is a ton of stuff going on. On Monday I'm having coffee with a classmate who used to work in the IT research industry. Both the General Management Club and the PE/VC club are holding happy hours on Tuesdy, my cluster is having a dinner at Dinosaur BBQ (not to be missed) on Wednesday, and on Friday I fly down to Duke with the rugby team and spend the weekend playing rugby against b-schools from around the world. Oh yeah, I have a couple of assignments due next week, too :)

More on the coffee with a classmate...I wanted to make a greater point here about making an effort to network outside of your clubs, group, cluster, etc. We were lucky that one of the guys who ran for GBA President compiled a list of all 1st years and their former companies and industries so it helped me track down folks who I thought would be interesting to speak with (and who I likely wouldn't have run across on my own). It's good to get outside of your b-school routine and just reach out to some new people - of course the issue, as always, is making the tradeoffs and finding the time to do it!

Two topics today...

1) Groupwork - Had an amazing working session today with my group (part of it, actually, couple of folks couldn't make it). We worked on a marketing case writeup together at the library for a few hours. I felt like we really pushed ourselves and made sure we attacked the case from all angles, and pushed each other to dig deeper and find the compelling insights within the case. Times like tonight really make it hit home that all the groupwork you're made to do in the first year really helps.

2) Course selection for summer term - The course bidding system went online today and I don't have much of a clue as to what I am doing. We have a set number of points to use to bid on elective courses (not everyone can get into every elective they want) and they are supposed to last us our whole Columbia career. I put in bids for Capital Markets and Investments (pre-req for almost all finance electives) and Managerial Negotiations. I was going to bid on Security Analysis or Analyzing Financial Statements instead of Negotiations, but I figured I would be so quant-heavy this coming semester (Operations, Decision Models, Accounting, Cap Markets) that something a bit softer might be nice. Luckily I passed the exemption exam for Leadership class so I'll only be taking 6 classes for the first 6 weeks, and then 5 for the last 6 weeks.

Speaking of Marketing, I have to get this case wrapped up since its due tommorrow morning!

Party time!

I spend alot of time focusing on the academic aspects and extracurricular activities at school, but I don't want that to detract from the great times we have socially outside of the classroom.

Over the past week I have been some GREAT parties thrown by my clustermates. In fact, here is a link to the pics from one of my study groupmate's birthday party at Lotus. I think the pictures tell the story, but needless to say it was a killer bash.

It also was awesome to see J-term represent in a big way. We had a nice cross-cluster showing (X, Y, and Z) and was a great bonding experience.

That's about it for now. I have mucho work to do this week and have managed to fritter away most of the weekend relaxing my sore back (note to all aspiring 145 lb rugby players -- don't take on the 220 pounders head on!).

Talk to you all soon. And keep the blog feedback coming!