A smattering of career related events in the past few months

Hello world

Thanks to all my readers who followed up with me and made sure I was still alive - although I'm slightly disfigured from 3 terms of cases and recruiting, i'm breathin' and kickin'.

Special C~O~N~G~R~A~T~S to all the round 1 admits - come to Darden! No buyers remorse here from this lil' lady and i'm pretty picky about everything. 

So I thought it would be fun to share a bit about how my recruiting process has been over the last 3 months to give you sense of what you can expect if you're anything like me and if you like to have some fun in life too.

Laura getting cash so we can zoom through the tolls.

At the end of November my friend Laura and I were invited to go to NYC for a women's MBA event at a bank. The weather was not in our favor that day and at little Charlottesville airport, my flight was canceled. The agents couldn't re-book me on another flight because all the transfer hubs where backed up and the earliest I could expect to arrive in NYC was the following morning. Our event was that evening so unfortunately my options didn't look very good.

I have this weird tendency where I feel compelled to make something that someone tells me is impossible...happen. So I rented a car and emailed the bank that I would be late because instead of flying up, I'd be driving. I got a huge GMC SUV, texted Laura to let her know I'd be late, then set off for NYC, which is about 7-8 hrs away from New York.

About 40 minutes into the drive, I get a phone call from Laura - she is stunned my flight got canceled and apparently her connection out of Dulles is delayed and she's going to miss the event. We complain about how we'll never fly out of CHO again and then I tell her i'm going to pick her up from Dulles and we'll drive to NYC together. We end up meeting somewhere near Vienna to save time and she gets in the car and off we go. We end up missing the entire event, but thankfully Scott, who was there to meet us waited and we got to see him for at least half an hour. Moral of the story: never take no for an answer! Even when no comes from airlines and weather.

Ashoka's DC headquarters

Since school started I've been volunteering at Ashoka DC, spearheading the launch of one of their new initiatives around activating the role of parents in raising social entrepreneurs. The idea is that individuals like Richard Branson and Bill Gates are not born -- they are influenced by their parents/guardians and had changemaking experiences in their lives that made empathy, leadership, responsibility, and a concern for the world deeply rooted in their value system. I've been working on average 10-15 hrs/week on this launch.

Facetiming with my Learning Teammate Jeremy over winter break to do interview prep

 Winter break has basically sucked in terms of "fun" - lots of interview prep and only interview prep. Even tho it's 80 degrees out in LA i haven't done any surfing..just staying indoors, maintaining my pastiness, and running through technical questions.

We had a dutch auction a few weeks ago where sections were pitted against each other in an effort to raise money for building a house as part of BGiA (building goodness in April) with Habitat for Humanity. My sectionmates and I all volunteered auction items ranging from (year's worth of ballroom dance lessons to special message delivery from our section all star, Kaz). I think we raised somewhere between $13-$15 just in our section alone.

me in San Antonio, Texas for NSHMBA
I attended a diversity job fair in San Antonio with some classmates and met some wonderful people (particularly a director at P&G whom I still keep in touch with). 

Lunch @ Apple with old co-workers

Darden @ Google

 Last week was our tech trek job week in the Valley and we got to hang out at Google, LinkedIn, eBay, among other awesome companies. My wonderful friend Nina got a group of us into Dropbox for a tour and then I went to NYC mid-week for week on wall st. Then came back to an empty apartment in SF for the rest of week and time to catch up with old coworkers from Cisco that are still my mentors today. Words of wisdom from these 2 wisecracks? Snag a solid guy now, before my "stock tanks." Yup. So mature.

Can't leave out a #cabselfie

 Like I mentioned, I was in NYC for a few days to attend week on wall street events. All about the hustle. 

 And now i'm finally home. I probably have typos but think of it as stream of consciousness luster and part of the art of describing my last few weeks in business school. It's all been a GIANT stream of consciousness!! Time to prep for interviews....I've been blessed this year with interviews so gotta make the most of all the opportunities presented! #PEACE

Brand Challenge

Today was brand challenge. SO MUCH FUN! Pics coming soon.

Record Scratch. Round 2.

Ok guys. I apologize for the super vague introductory post that was here before. I'll be much more diligent in the future about capturing the Darden experience.

Let me introduce myself first. I was born in Shanghai, but grew up in Los Angeles (Los Feliz area) and went to college in Cambridge, MA. I studied East Asian Studies and Visual + Environmental Arts at Harvard and lived in Adams House (woo!). After graduating I worked as a business analyst on the emerging countries strategy group within Cisco Systems in Silicon Valley and then in entertainment product marketing at Amazon.com before I was on the founding team of Teach for Egypt (which is now defunct). I also love hyperlinks.

Here at Darden, I'm exploring tech, social enterprise, and social sector work through consulting, public finance, and entrepreneurship. I also work with Ashoka's Youth Venture to launch a new campaign for parents in addition to being on the business development team of a Philippine coffee collective called Kalsada. Life's good.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions. The door is open.