Open House: Friday

Here's what happened on Friday of the Columbia admitted students' event.

Took the red line into Morningside Heights around 9:15am. Showed up at the reception area, had some coffee, and talked with more people I hadn't yet met. Afterwards, Vice Dean Masri put the hard sell on CBS, and why, in his words, "it is the best business school in the world." There were only a handful of people attending who were still unsure of whether to attend, and after the presentation, I'm not sure that the sell really changed anybody's mind. To me, it was a waste of 90 minutes.

The next session was with a panel of current students and a couple of career services people. They led a Q&A on finding an internship/job at CBS. The students only hinted at possibilities of where students' grades could become a factor in the recruitment process. I think that this means that there are indeed more than a few places in the workforce that view grades as a distinguishing factor between applicants. This really does beg the question, how hard are the courses graded? There is a hard curve on the courses, but I don't really know what the breakdown is for actual grades.

We then had lunch as a class, and listened to the keynote speaker, Mario Gabelli, talk about taking chances and making things happen. The thing that stuck with me the most was when Gabelli said that he was coninuously told that his company would never succeed, and yet he still went ahead and made his goals a reality. That kind of determination and perseverance is an inspiration to me.

After lunch, we had another student panel that discussed student life. Students talked about classwork, clubs, finding jobs, balancing work and fun, where to live, etc. I was bored out of my mind.

Four o'clock rolled around and we were shuffled into a hall where various student clubs were there to talk a little about themselves. I found it quite comical that there was an Asian club and also a Korean club. That is so Korean.

The class was invited to a reception at Bloomingdale's, but I had had enough. I was thoroughly exhausted from trying to meet as many people as I could. 2 days, and I'm already cutting events. There was too much to do and not enough time to get everything in.

Oh yeah. My private loan came in at prime+1%. That's probably the equivalent of 8% at this year's end. Not good. I'm going to look for a cosigner or put my life savings on one spin of the roulette wheel.