Today was a good. I met new people, went out and socialized and got a free iced chai tea latte from Starbucks. My favorite drink ever and it was perfection. Like Ice Cube said it was a good day.
But before I get to that, let me tell you about where I left off...GRAD SCHOOL (say it in your best Halloween voice, that's the best way to get my point across).
Like I mentioned before, I'm at SIU to get my Master's in Business and Administration while working as a graduate assistant for the recreational department. But in order to take MBA courses, you typically need to have a Bachelor's is something business related. Surprise! I did not get a business degree, in fact I pretty much SUCK at econ. But hey let's give this whole MBA thing a shot. My degree is in International Relations so I couldn't get into Business School right away. So I'm taking what are called "Foundation Workshops" which "help you prepare for the rigorous course load" that is apparently going to be a big part of my MBA degree.
These workshops are 3 hour daily classes for 1 week. At the end of the week you take a test and if you pass with a 70% you do not have to take the regular course, which is the pre-requisite undergrad equivalent, during the semester. This was great news as my contract is only for 2 years and I can't afford to start off behind in my course load. There's 4 total workshops I have to take but I can split them up. So I'm taking 3 now and I'll take the remaining one over winter break. Sweet deal.
Or so I thought.
I'm in class from 9-4 with an hour break at noon. It's like a real job only instead of working I'm taking notes and being lectured at. In the same room. I haven't sat in a single class this long since the 8th grade! 6 hours is a very long time...and no we don't get recess. We get this thing called a 5 minute "bio break" which is just a fancy, educated term for "bathroom break". By the way, when did the word "bathroom" become offensive and we had to start calling it "bio" instead?? When my professor first said it I had to ask the girl next to me in an awkward, hushed tone "Umm, did he say bio break? What does that mean? Where or what is a 'bio'?" She scoffed and said, "It means 'bathroom', you mentally impaired, nimrod from California."
Ok. She didn't say that last part. But she might as well have.
Back to the class. I'm taking 2, one from 9-12 and one from 1-4. The first is a basic overview of everything business and basically the next two years condensed into 15 hours worth of slides.
Oh mother of pearl there's a lot of business-y shit I do not know nor want to. Great. Do I switch majors? I just got here. This is a ton of sales and advertising, I don't want to do that! What now?!? Do I back out? But then I'd have to apply to a different grad program! My parents are gonna freak if they knew I was changing programs. What do I do?? Shit. Shit. SHIT
I stick it out and we make it to the 2nd class, Finance. One of the other girls in the class has taken a liking to me, or at least more so than 'bio break' girl so I move to sit by her. It's a different professor and this one is very smartly dressed, petite, Latina and has a very high pitched voice. She pronounces her 'v's like 'b's so 'vending machine' becomes 'bending machine' and I'm not sure how she ended up in Carbondale but boy, am I glad she did. Don't let her looks confuse you, she's BRILLIANT. It's an overview class, or refresher on a bunch of finance, econ formulas that at one point or another I had seen and probably even used before but never understood. But she makes it so easy! I'm plugging away at Total Rate Return equations, I'm finding out what the net present value is, I can explain to you why making sure that the IRR for a project needs to be higher than your interest rate as it's a good predictor you'll end up making money on a project and I can finally look at a problem and not burst into tears!!
For anyone who knows me this is HUGE.
Quick side story for some background: Me and math do not get along. I almost failed econ 1 at Davis (all my Davis friends I'm sure will laugh but it's true) and don't even get me started on the required econ 100. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die but luckily caught a break and cozied up to the TA as we shared a mutual love for Sherlock Holmes. She basically did the homework for me and made sure to grade my exams. Thank god or I'd still be at Davis trying to just graduate.
So now I'm excited. But all this stuff I should know already and I feel like I'm learning it for the first time. That can't be good right? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.
While the work is making more and more sense, it's still tough. The first class which is just MBA fundamentals, while it's not hard, it is a lot to take in. And while finance is finally easier, it's still not a cake walk. But hopefully it'll be ok come test time.
I have made some new friends or acquaintances out of the classes too. Obviously not the first bio break girl, but the other one, we'll call her Tessa, is very nice and very helpful. She is a local girl and pretty intrigued that I come from Cali. She walked me all the way across campus to the Student Center when it was raining the first day so we could share her umbrella. She's been telling me all the in's and out's of the town and especially helping me with the pronunciation of some of the names around here as well. For instance, I called the neighboring town of Marion, Merry-ON. rhymes with moron. Well I sure felt like one when she kindly corrected me. It's Merry-EN, the ending more like the sound of 'station'. Oops.
While I sit in class all day, the entire department is having graduate assistant training. Cool. Their training the GA's how to do their jobs, meeting all the big names in the department and getting free lunch. Awesome. So not only am I freaking out that maybe being in the business world isn't for me but I'm also missing out on some very important information and friend-making opportunities. That's just swell.
But today that changed. I finally got to meet the other GA's other than my roommate (my fellow IM sports GA) who work in different areas within the department, like fitness, outdoor recreation, etc. They invite me to hang with them and we go to a bar for awhile just chilling out, drinking margaritas and getting to know each other. I try to play it like I'm cool but inside I'm like...
YAY! PEOPLE! FRIENDS!
Oh and get this, one of the fitness instructors is from California. Northern California too. In fact she is from this super small town on the coast near Oregon which is pretty close to my home town. We know exactly where the other is from and have been to each other's respective home towns. We played each other in basketball for high school! SMALL FUCKING WORLD MUCH?!?!??
(Yrekians, she's from Crescent City! So we talked about the JC Basketball tournament and how insanely coincidental it is that we are from some of the smallest towns in all of California only to end up in Carbondale, Illinois together. Talk about whoa!)
So far, so good. I think I was just a little intimidated by the intense workshop series but now that I'm a bit more settled I'll be ok with it. I do want to get an MBA and have a more tangible degree that can help me in any field I wish to enter. Which could be recreation, could be something else. If I've learned anything in my 21 years of life it would be that you can try all you want to plan your future and life out. But life has a funny way of throwing you curve balls by taking those plans and saying, "Yeah, no you didn't see this coming but SMACK! it's here!". My curve ball is Salukiville. But I'm still in the batter's box and I got my eye on the ball.
To be continued :)
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