Monday, September 29, 2008

I'm still alive (Curt)

So, I've been noticing my absence from posting to this blog and I thought I would give some updates. As Carmen has mentioned, I've been staying very busy with school. I am only taking two classes right now, and I agree with Carmen that this is as many classes as I ever want to take at once, especially while I'm working over 40 hours per week. My two classes right now are Accounting and Statistics. Thankfully, those are both areas in which I have some experience, so I have a good base. Unfortunately, they both require A LOT of homework. I have been spending about 12 hours each week on homework. Part of this is me being an over-achiever, and part of it is that I really am expected to do this much work.

In other news, this morning I passed another licensing exam (it was the Series 10 for those who care, I already did the Series 9). I wanted to have it done before school started, but it just didn't work out that way. I'm just glad that it's off my plate, so I can focus more on school.

Speaking of school, I would be remiss if I didn't mention some observations from my first few weeks of school. Besides all the work I have to do for school, I am already seeing the potential future benefits. I have not been on campus yet without having to wade through on-campus recruiting events. Even now, only one month into the school year, there are about 50 recruiting events each week in the business school. Not to knock on BYU's business school, I feel that I received a great education at a great price, for which I am grateful, but there is absolutely no comparing the two schools as far as job recruiting goes.

I know, I know, different departments at BYU have different levels of recruiting exposure (i.e. accounting vs. the rest of the business school), but I never saw anything like this there. While I feel that my education prepared me well for many jobs, most companies that I was interested in working for did not actively recruit on campus. The resources were available to me to find out what jobs were available, but I had to go to them. At U of M, there are companies of every type, sector, and geographical region actively seeking interns and full time hires. I have seen everything from auto manufacturers (not anywhere I would want to work, but we are in Michigan, you know), to management consulting, corporate treasury, private equity, investment banking (from the US and the UK, although it will be interesting to see what the US investment banks look like over the next year or so), marketing, strategy, and the list goes on. These companies are doing interviews, reviewing resumes, giving presentations, providing dinner, and don't forget the all important happy hour at nearby bars. While I'm happy where I'm at right now, I'm pleased to see just how much wider the proverbial window of opportunity is opening by being where I am now. After all, that's the point, right?

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