Nicole Zenel, MBA ’11

2 Short Weeks Till Opening Day!!

It's hard to believe it's that time of year.  In just two short weeks Investment Banks will descend upon Cambridge to kick off the Summer Internship Recruiting Season 2009-10.  My blue suit is ironed, my pumps are polished, business cards are printed and I am ready!  Just two weeks left and I still have a lot of work to do to ensure I bring my "A game" on October 1st.  I have spent the last few weeks networking with alumni, friends, and classmates to learn everything I can about Investment Banking.  I will admit I need to work on the smoothness factor.  I just ended a phone conversation with an alumni with a coughing fit (I am recovering from a cold.) :(

The best thing so far about Sloan is how many resources they provide to help you succeed in the job search.  Between the Career Development Office, online resources like Vault, classmates, and 2nd years, I feel much more prepared.    

Pre-Term and Orientation

Pre-Term was well...it's one of those things that in hindsight I would have just done accounting and economics and skipped the DMD and finance.  However, It was a great opportunity to meet people and mostly importantly get used to sitting still for an hour and a half.  As with many of the E-Trek, Pre-Term and Orientation events it was good to get to know people in small chunks at a time as opposed to 400 all at once. 

Orientation was pretty great.  My Ocean is awesome, except that I am possibly the world's worst speller so "Mediterranean" is not doing me any great favors.  I am glad we just go by "Meds."  My favorite part was the day at the Warren Center.  I am pretty hard core so I couldn't wait to get past the "get to know everyone's name" game and get on with the ropes course and boat building.  The ropes course was fun but by far my most hilarious moment of the day had to be when I was blind-folded trying to toss three tennis balls into a paint can for 45 minutes.  This is so what I am paying $50,000 a year for.  Only later, did I come to find out I only needed to get one of the tennis balls in, but hey that's life :)  As the last event for the day we had to use plastic barrels, rope, and wood planks to build boats.  Not to boast, but my team had the highest score of the day.  Go Gannets!