Monday, December 13, 2010

A Day in the Life of a BC MBA Student

6:00 am: Wake up for a morning run...Who am I kidding? Hit the snooze button....five times.

6:30 am - 7:45 am: Shower, check and respond to e-mails, peruse The Wall Street Journal online, prepare books and binders for class today, and breakfast.

7:45 am - 8:30 am: Swing by Athan's to pick up a coffee for the day...resist their delicious scones. Travel to Boston College.

8:30 am - 10:30 am: Meet with my Marketing Team to work on our final project. For our final project, our team will be launching a brand extension for The Arbor Collective. The Arbor Collective, a small, privately-held company headquartered in Venice, CA and founded in 1995, specializes in the design of eco-friendly snowboards, skateboards, surfboards, and affiliated apparel. Our team has chosen to create a comprehensive marketing plan for the launch Arbor Nix, a new line of freestyle skis. Today, we will work on Buyer Behavior and Consumer Segmentation exhibits.

11:00 am - 1:00 pm: Managerial Economics with Professor Cliff Holderness. Today, we discussed Search Theory. Apparently one can search for a spouse by using the same basic economic principles you use when shopping for the best price of a car. This is probably not something you want to mention on a first date.

1:00 pm - 1:45 pm: A quick lunch in Lyons Hall with my classmates.

1:45 pm - 3:45 pm: Marketing class with Professor Gerald Smith. Today, we covered Conjoint Analysis. We looked at three attributes consumers consider when selecting a hotel room: size, rate, and location. Upon running a conjoint analysis, we concluded that the males in our class were the most price sensitive (big surprise!) and size did not matter to the females. Attention: If you're a Super 8 with small rooms and more than 10 miles away from an urban setting - you're going to have to ramp up your marketing efforts - at least for the demographic of our MBA class.

4:00 pm - 6:30 pm: Work on Finance Problem Set with classmates.

6:30 pm - 7:30 pm: Attend a Net Impact Lecture. Dunkin Brands was on campus to discuss their Corporate Social Responsibility efforts. Those Munchkins were much needed to hold me over until dinner.

7:30 - 8:30 pm: Return home for a quick dinner - homemade chicken soup picked up from my parents when I visited last weekend. Hey - you're never too old for Mom's Chicken Soup!

8:30 pm - 11:30 pm: Return to BC to read in the Bapst Library. Preparation for tomorrow's Information Technology ( a case study for Google, lecture notes, academic articles) and Finance classes.

11:30 pm - 12:30 am: Chill with my roommate and watch a "pretty good; pretty, pretty good" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

12:30 am - 1:00 am: Read a bit of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. And bedtime.