On leadership ... and collaboration

Over the past few months, I've been working on an article with Darden professor, Ryan Quinn. In about 800 words, it discusses the role our culture played in creating the current financial crisis, and the small, personal choices we can make to help enact change. The piece was published in The Washington Post's "On Leadership" section last Friday: http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/guestinsights/2009/12/four-questions-for-changing-culture.html
Writing it was a great experience. Not only did I get to try my hand at a new style of writing, I got the opportunity to work closely with a professor who just a year before had stood before my Section B class and cold-called me! To me, this is a testament to the wonderful relationships students and professors can form here at Darden; relationships of creativity and collaboration.

Snowed in

I left New York City just in time! A mere 24-hours after I wrapped up my trek visits and boarded a train back to Rhode Island, the snow started falling. It hasn't stopped. And judging from a recent walk (or rather, attempted walk) with my dog, it's about knee-deep now. Not that this is a bad thing. With a counter-full of baked goods, a Christmas mix on repeat and a tree still un-trimmed, my family's been keeping busy.

NYC Job Trek

Each year, several Darden groups and clubs organize two- to three-day treks to cities near and far, from London to Las Vegas, San Francisco to Charlotte, and Houston to Hong Kong. The aim is to visit companies that don't recruit at Darden on their own turf. And it's the perfect opportunity to find and follow-up on job leads when your search is geographically focused.
Last year, I attended the Media, Entertainment & Sports Club's Washington DC trek. For me, it was a fabulous way to learn about companies, meet with executives and network -- an especially important part of finding a job in the media industry. The trip was so successful, in fact, that tomorrow I jump back on the trek bandwagon.
This year my destination is New York City, where the first-year trek leads have compiled an impressive list of companies to visit, including: NBC, The New York Times, Hearst and ESPN. So excited.

Papers, exams and things that distract me from completing papers and exams

One of the (many) luxuries of second year is being able to take home your papers and exams and complete them at your leisure during exam week. The only problem, of course, is that leisure leaves the door wide open to a whole host of distractions. Chief among them today, has been posting (and anxiously reviewing) all of the photos taken at last night's Darden "prom." See, every half hour for the past three hours, someone new posts their pictures on Facebook, leaving me no choice but to spend a few minutes clicking through the album. The result? Some lightening-fast photo "untags" and just two pages of a six page paper done. Sigh.