Hello from Texas! I am here visiting my newborn nephew during my very short break. Finals finished Monday and we start classes again this coming Monday! All of my grades are in (except for Microecon) and I did just fine. I felt like I learned a ton of stuff this semester, and am ready to start drinking from the firehose again on Monday. :)

I am taking 6 courses during the first half of the semester and then 5 the second. Here's what I'm taking, in case you are curious:

Analyzing Financial Statements
Capital Markets and Investments
Financial Accounting (Core)
Managing Marketing Programs (Core)
Operations (Core)
Decision Models (Core)
Global Economic Environment - fancy name for Macroecon (Core)

I exempted out of Leadership, which is usually a 2nd semester core course. However, for new students coming in this fall, the core is going to be much different, anyways. They are going to cut down on the number of required courses and move to a system that allows you to pick a 'track' based on your area of interest.

I think this is a good idea in some ways (you get to take more of what interests you earlier in your b-school career), but not so good in others (you'll be bound to have more classes outside your cluster than within it, which could cut down on bonding). I'm glad I am not the one making decisions on the structure of the core because I know it's tremendously difficult (ok, impossible) to find an outcome that will make everyone happy.

I also (as usual) seem to find myself with 18 different balls in the air as I start the semester. I'm helping out a company sharpen their funding pitch early this week (they are presenting to VCs on Wednesday) and have to write up an investment brief for a VC firm that I'm trying to get an internship with. Also, one of my study group peeps is going to have us all over for some dinner on Tuesday. Looking forward to that...