Tech Entrepreneurship, Data Models & Decisions, Finance, Communications, Accounting, Economics, Organizational Processes: done^7! The core is no more! It flew by, it was a lot of work, it was awesome, yada yada yada.
First off, I didn’t spend a million hours per week on class
work. I had an awesome core team that did a great job of distributing group
work, and I was able to spend plenty of time on things outside of my core
classes. I made sure to have a solid grasp of all of the material, but I didn’t
spend much time cramming for exams or lose any sleep over getting a perfect
score on an assignment. This was quite a change from undergrad. That said,
several activities kept me beyond busy. Let me get to some of the unique things
that I did this semester.
I joined the organizing team of the MIT Clean Energy Prize (CEP). The CEP runs in parallel to the MIT 100K Business Plan Competition, but, you guessed it, it is focused on clean energy. The CEP will give away $500,000 to winning teams this year! As the co-lead of the transportation category, I have been working with the rest of the CEP organizing team to gather sponsors and student teams to participate.
Also, I joined the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference organizing team. We have been working to put together an incredible group of panelists. It has been great getting this conference organized with some fun people from the Sloan Entertainment, Media, and Sports Club. I’ve also enjoyed assembling my panel, ‘International Trade’, with the conference co-chairs, Jessica Gelberg and Daryl Morey (How cool that I get to work with the GM of my hometown Houston Rockets!). Also with the EMS Club, I attended the New York Sports Trek. This was an awesome opportunity to see some of the premier US sports league’s corporate operations. We visited the NBA, NFL, NHL, and Nascar, and each gave us great perspectives on careers in the sports industry.
Sloan EMS Club members at the NFL League Office
At the beginning of the semester I heard that one of my classmates was assembling a team to work on a marketing project for the Chevy Volt, so I had to jump on that as well! We worked with GM’s Director of Marketing for the Chevy Volt, Director of Global Marketing, and others to develop an integrated marketing campaign that included recommendations for promotional ideas for the Volt. Unfortunately, I am not able to go into more detail, but we did deliver a successful presentation to Gm executives to conclude a great project. Also, a member of GM’s Corporate Strategy group took us to the Boston Auto Show and let us get a sneak peak of the new cars before the public!
Sounds like a lot of work looking back, but I had time to relax. I was able to explore Boston when family and friends came in town, and I could regularly be found playing basketball at the athletic center. I also made
sure to watch my Texas Longhorns play football every Saturday, and win every
time! 13-0! I’ll be pulling for them hard in the National Championship!
So what’s next? We have no classes for the month of January.
This is what MIT calls Independent Activities Period. I will be heading to
Silicon Valley at the beginning of January with the rest of my Entrepreneurship
& Innovation peers, then heading back to Boston for an externship with an
early-stage, automotive energy storage company, FastCAP Systems.
Oh yeah, what better way to end the core than to help shave my classmate’s head! Dave auctioned off his beard (and hair and eyebrows!) during our charity auction to benefit the Polaris Project.
