Ithaca is Gorges!

If you think Johnson's MBA program is only about living an intense life filled with courses taught by world-class faculty or connecting with industry leaders through speaker series events or making life-long friends with future leaders, you are wrong! Because, it's also about experiencing the beautiful campus life, here in Ithaca.

Last week, I visited the McGraw Tower where Cornell students played "Cornell Alma mater" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark Theme". To try and explain my amazing experience in words would be to do injustice to the Chime masters who played that afternoon. So, I put together a clip that I had recorded for you last week. If you want to read more about Cornell's chimes please visit http://www.chimes.cornell.edu/. And, as you watch the video, please pardon my recording skills for I am stilling working on them....:)

I have also attached a few pictures that I took around the campus (except the one where I am standing in front of the tower). The photos are just a glimpse of the serene Cayuga lake, where Johnson School normally organizes its outdoor events and the pretty Beebe lake, which is one of many jogger's paths.

Hope you take time to walk around the Cornell's campus when you visit us, for trust me, it's worth it!

The fall semester bonding

Having spent the entire summer studying the core courses, in Johnson school’s basement, the Accelerated MBA students seem to develop a unique bond every year. And this year it’s no different. While the summer was intense and we did not socialize as much, the fall semester seems to bring together my dispersed Accelerated MBA classmates.

For eg. earlier this semester we celebrated the joyous moments of our classmates who recently became fathers or those who recently got married. The photo below shows the happy faces of men whose initial words upon receiving the gifts were literally -“This is such a CUTE teddy!”....I guess it's true that the child inside you never dies :). Starting from left to right in the photo there is - Mihir Shah, Ki Hyoung Cho, Yongkai Xie and Srikanth Tummala. Also, attached below is a sweet photo of Yongkai's 2-month old son, DongChen with his Cornell teddy and t-shirt.

If you talk to these students, you would know that it is indeed tough to balance family life and school. But from what I have seen, Johnson school is extremely good at working closely with students so as to help them handle any life changing events with ease.

For instance, last year Marieme (AMBA 2007) was in her second trimester when she started her Accelerated MBA program. And when she delivered a baby girl that following December, she was able to shuffle some of her coursework deliverables and exams to take time off for her delivery. By the way after studying finance from Prof. Michaely all through the summer, I wouldn't be surprised if Marieme's daughter's first words were – “What’s my NPV, Mom?” ;-)

And then, just last week, our student council members, Chirag Shah and Michael Young, initiated the idea of having a weekly AMBA dinner get-togther. Given that everyone is busy with their job hunt and don’t get time to see each other very often, I feel it’s an awesome idea. Although, I haven’t attended the last two dinners I am really looking forward to the remaining ones. After all, we have only six more months left before we get back into the REAL world!