La Casa De Bob

Time flies

I’ve totally ignored Tumblr for the first half-semester of B-school.  Finals are done, the second half-semester starts next Monday, and I’ve had time to decompress a little bit.

Things I’ve learned:

• Most B-school curriculum is similar regardless of the school you go to within broad ranking tiers, at least for the first year.  The subjects are consistent across the board, and even within the classes most schools will use similar texts and cases.
• To add to the rankings, they are really stupid.  But some employers only hit certain schools because of reputation/rankings, so they matter a bit.  Even then, when there’s a will there’s a way — if a person is determined he/she can get in at most any company.  And isn’t that the point, to get a better job afterwards?
• Don’t worry about grades too much unless you’re going into a field where grades really matter.  Don’t ignore them, but the school wants you to do well.  Trust me.
• During orientation somebody will probably say that there will be group members who don’t pull their weight and that someone in the class will get busted for cheating.  True.  You’ll probably have group members in your group that disappear for weeks at a time.  And someone will attempt to cheat.  I didn’t want to believe either of these items.  How silly was I?
• Career Services (or whatever the department that is in charge of getting you in front of prospective employers) matters more than anyone realizes.  If you know you’re going to need help getting in front of hiring managers, you need to ask each school tough questions about their CS group.
• You’re going to meet some awesome people.  Really awesome people from all walks of life.  Enjoy the differences!  Even those who you don’t want in your study group are probably great people to hang out with.
• Don’t sign up for everything.  Pick a few clubs/organizations you truly want to help with and focus your energy on those.
• Your career search is going to take time.  Allow for that — for some people it’s taken more time than classwork has.

That’s off the top of my head; I think I’ve covered the main points.  The minutiae about how to study and stuff … that’s a different topic.  Maybe I’ll cover that later. 

Reading list revisited

The (very short) reading list I posted a few days ago is old news.  We received the book list for our first semester today; now what’s happening in the fall is becoming real.  Putting together the Amazon order now, I’m kind of scared at how much this is going to cost.