My first Thanksgiving

Finals week is just a fortnight away. Walton MBA class of 2013 is busy tying up the loose ends of the group projects, working on individual assignments or just gearing up for the final test. We all enjoyed a five day thanksgiving break. Technically it was supposed to start from Wednesday but since I had no classes on Tuesday I got to enjoy a long long break. The first day after the break and my classmates were a tad sluggish after the heavy thanksgiving meal.

Tammy, co ambassador and a very generous person invited me to join her family for thanksgiving dinner. Like many other experiences this was a "first" for me  in the United States. Tammy was a wonderful host, and my tummy will validate the fact, a most awesome cook. Tammy’s parents, aunt and cousins all welcomed us and we felt like we were at home. I am still getting over the wonderful smell that filled her cozy house. The well laid out table with like a zillion dishes. I got to taste my first Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce. Tammy - "No turkey will be as good as my first Thanksgiving turkey"

Master Chef Tammy, the food was just yummy. Her cozy home looks just out of a fairy tale. Not kidding!

My first thanksgiving turkey. I am hungry all over again. I had read about it , heard about it and this year I got to taste it. :-)

I remember the taste of each of the items, not the names.

Thanks Tammy , for inviting Samita, Sara and me over. Joining us in the picture are Malbec, donning a tie and Maybe. 

Other than that I watched three movies, including a Hindi film. So James Bond, Pi and Sharukh Khan (The Bollywood hero) proved to be a great time to enjoy the thanksgiving holidays. There was an assignment due but it’s always easy to manage a group project when we have a great team so it did not dampen the holiday spirits.

So everybody's seen the poster of Skyfall and Life of Pi, so I figured this would be different. :-) 

Holidays are around the corner and Fayetteville is lit up. I mean literally. The downtown Fayetteville square is all festive and merry. Everyday after sundown,Families and friends  gather around for pony and camel rides. Everywhere you see smiling faces, all enjoying their time with their cherished ones. I had a great time walking around with friends and enjoying the lighting and the creativity of the workers.

No prizes for guessing the location.

Samita and Sara were calling the Hogs from the Fayetteville sqaure. WPS!

The decorations have transformed downtown into a fairyland. 

A merry go round, made up with lights.

We spent over an hour just walking up and down and enjoying the holiday spirit till it got too chilly.

The next two weeks are going be very very busy  with exams, projects, assignments. Best of luck to the Walton MBA class of 2013. J

Halloween

My first Halloween was a blast. Actually we had double the blast as we had two parties. The first one was at Trish and Matt's residence,on the D-day and a bunch of us enjoyed interacting with the kids who were out trick or treating. The evening ended with us going down to Dickson.

No prizes for guessing what I am dressed up as.... Trish was really scared. Really!

Dickson on Halloween night was fun!

Enjoying "trick and treating'' on Halloween. Can you see how only international students are dressed. Seems like we were the most excited. Hey this was the first time for a lot of us.

Then on Friday we had and a class party at Emmanuelle and Caroline's house. It was a lot of fun to hang out and just act crazy with our friends.

Well we had a Olympic gold ( or was it bronze) medalist, a Brazilian wrestler, The devil, Peter Pan, Batman, a Mummy Priest ( I dunno what that was), Hugh Hefner, A guy from some movie and a athlete to name a few at the class party.

Devavratha was a cheer leader and Emmauelle was Batman. Oops my bad! Just reverse the characters. Emmanuelle was a awesome host unfortunately her cheerleading skills are anything but good.

Caroline with the "Scream Character" - eerrrm thats Manish!

Sadly, I have to put away my costume for next year in the top shelf and wait for Halloween 2013.

It will be a shame, if I tried to describe the fun we had so I let the pictures tell the story.

Remember the fabulous four who won the Bowersox competition. Well they won $5000 and donated half the prize money to the university’s Full Circle Campus Food Pantry, a student-run assistance program that distributes food and personal products to members of the campus community.

Dr Mosher, Amberle, Jason, Zack and Xiaoyan, the team that made us proud. 

Just goes to show what a great bunch we have at the Walton MBA class of 2013. We are the best in whatever we do, be it  academics or partying.

 Woo Pig Sooie!

Good news everywhere

Well, the best news first. My classmates Jason Schloss, Amberle Morgan, Zack Hall and, XiaoYan Zheng, won the Bowersox Graduate Supply Chain Challenge. They were accompanied by Dr Loray Mosher. The competition hosted by Michigan State University, and held at the Henry Center at Lansing, Michigan. There was stiff amongst the top ranked supply chain management programs.  The teams competed in a simulated real time competitive supply chain scenario and displayed their skills in managing a supply chain scenario, and like I said - WE WON! WPS!

The winning team- Xiaoyan, Zack, Amberle, Jason and faculty advisor Dr Loray Mosher

My whole class participated in a etiquette dinner , as part of a professional development program. The three hour session consisted of a three course dinner and professional advice about the dos and don’t of table manners in a professional setting. The evening was fun and had its share of some pretty entertaining questions. I for one definitely picked up a few pointers for the next event. Since we have a MBA social planned on November 1, I will be applying my newly acquired knowledge.

The MBA Class of 2013 at the etiquette dinner, at Carnal Hall

 Thank God we had a three course dinner. I don't know what I would have done had it been eight course. 

 The student mentors for the incoming batch of MBA students have been decided and I am lucky to be part of the team. Each year the faculty chooses mentors, based on applications.to help the incoming students, mostly by answering to any questions that the new students might have, as well as helping during the orientation process. Can't believe it going to be one year in Arkansas soon. Our team of 7 decided to click a few pictures with the awesome fall foliage.

Huaying, Sara, Tammy , Emmanuelle, me, Nick and Zack (L-R).The student mentors for the MBA Class of 2014 . David Dai, our classmate, was our photographer.

We had a awesome time clicking the pictures and then grabbing lunch at Dickson Street.

Well Halloween is around the corner and I am having a tough time deciding what I want to be for my FIRST ever Halloween. Sara, Samita, Devaratha and myself attended a "Spooky Night" event at the student union. We had a wild time, playing games, painting pumpkins and just acting weird at the photo booth.

Samita wearing really small glasses, Sara in a professional hat with, errr Cleopatra or was it Nefertiti?

The four of us met with Avatar (Micy, a undergrad student) at the photo booth.

Well, I have picked my Halloween costume and I am not going dressed as above. No use dressing up as myself, might as well dress up as something different. :-)

Fall Break

Fall break just ended. I can’t believe that I have already crossed the halfway mark. I had made a promise to blog at least once a week, but sometimes the assignments just don’t make it possible. Take the last two weeks for example.  I am ready to start class tomorrow after a 5 day break. But, it dosn’t seem like there had been a break. I had to submit a take home test, prepare for a presentation, and complete a assignment( a rather lengthy one), before class resumed. Not that I am complaining. J

My roommate, Devavrata took this opportunity to visit Chicago with a bunch of friends. He had an awesome time at the “Windy City”. He says it was a comfortable 10 hour car drive from Fayetteville. I had to stay back to work on my test. Devavrata has taken the finance track, and so he did not have to worry about the test, nor did he have to bear the agony of missing out on Chicago. I consoled myself thinking that I had been to Chicago in February, to visit the head offices of United and Saatchi and Saatchi X. The trip had been sponsored by the university, and four students of our class had been selected for the trip after submitting a letter of interest.  I was lucky to have been part of the team.

Devavrata - At Chicago! Now that's a royal way to spend the fall break. 

Spring Semester - Company visit in Chicago. 

Well, coming back to the present. The fall weather has been unpredictable. One day it’s rainy and cold, and the next you can’t live without the air-conditioning. A few of us friends went down to the Fayetteville Lake to catch a glimpse of trees in various shades of green, red, yellow and brown. It was a fun evening. Sometime last week, Sara and I drove up to Mount Sequoyah one day after class. I didn’t even know that this place existed, and I got a chance to witness the most scenic sunset in Fayetteville.

Lake Fayetteville. The picture is not doing justice to the sights we saw. 

It was a long walk. Only Thibault looks happy. Sara, Samita and XiaoYan look tired.

Sunset at Mount Sequoyah

Sunset at Sequoyah. See how tired I look. That's how hard I have been working. :-)  

Today I got an opportunity to meet Steve Glendinning, HR Director Mr Price. Steve has come down to Arkansas to participate in the board meeting for The Center of Retailing Excellence.  It brought back fond memories of my internship.

Another 2 months, and we will be a semester away from graduation. Gosh! Time really flies when you are at the Walton College of Business. J

Job Search, Networking and Partying

Networking opportunities, with the industry folks, are always on the priority list for MBA students.  Luckily for us, at Walton, we have a fantastic career center that has made networking easy for us.  Last Tuesday, over 100 employees visited the career fair organized by our career center. The Walker Hall was filled with capacity with representatives from the various companies, and students from the university. MBA students had an added advantage. The career center organized a “Business Career Fair Networking Event”, with the employers, the previous night. We had all prepared posters on our summer internships and it was our chance to interact with the employers.It was a special evening for me.The results of the presentation competition were announced. Thanks to my marvelous opportunity at Mr Price- I WON!

Tammi, Emmanuelle and Caroline at the Business Career Fair Networking Event. Tammi and Adam, not in the picture, won the poster competition.

Manish, Andrew, Devavrata and Jason at the event. Each one of us had a poster on our internship. Jason along with three other classmates, is going to represent our college in a case competition in Michigan.

Krystle and Charles with their posters.

Winners of the presentation competition. David, interned at Kelloggs and came second and Charles worked in China for ACCA

The career fair at Walker Hall. The event required was held at 3 floors of the Walker Hall and also spilled over to the adjacent JB Hunt building

Another view of the fair. The event was a huge success and subsequent to the fair, we saw interviews going on in some rooms at Walker hall

In addition to the networking events our career center has been responsible for setting up sessions with individual companies. This week Cameron and Nielson representatives came down to our university and discussed openings post-graduation. There was one session, which was of particular interest to the international students. Walmart has opened up an international academy and offering full time job opportunities for international students seeking to return to India, Brazil and China, after working for 1 year in Bentonville. They are focusing on three areas of business- supply chain, real estate and merchandising. At the University of Arkansas, this program is ideal and very well suited for many international students. Participants benefit from experiencing the work culture in US and also get the opportunity to take it back to the countries and implement it.

Bikes, Blues and BBQ was all the rage in Fayetteville this weekend. It was a time to just chill with friends, enjoy the rallies as hundreds of bikers rode up and down Dickson Street on their bikes. I had never witnessed the event before and I enjoyed watching the bikes and their antics. In addition to the bikes the concert and the food stalls are a major crowd puller.  I enjoyed a particularly juicy, BIG turkey leg. It was big. Monday has our first semester exam in store for us and my whole class is busy accounting (that’s the subject). I really need to forget the bikes and get on with my financial statements. J

David Dai, clicked these absolutely magnificent B&W pix to capture the action. I just had to include them.

Another magical click by David

I want a Harley too!

Crazy action at Dickson

Yaay, I saw a monkey riding a bike

The stage constructed for the event

Cultural Diversity at the University of Arkansas

This week, in between valuing the intrinsic value of company, comparing the financial statements of two organizations, working on a website for a accounting project and learning to use analytical problem solving methods for the corporate world I got a chance to enjoy some cultural time. This week was loaded was loaded with assignments and all my classmates were busy with their teams to submit their respective assignments before the deadline. However, the awesome fall weather at Fayetteville proved to be a distraction. It makes me want to go for long walks in the trails all along Fayetteville. While hustling to the student’s union to get my poster printed for a poster competition, I found a mariachi band playing at the open air theater and stopped to enjoy the music.

Like I said, as if the weather is not distraction enough we had awesome  music to help delay our assignments

Cultural diversity at the University of Arkansas makes it a fun place to be. Students from all over the world proudly display their cultures at events organized all through the semester. Friends of India celebrated Indian independence today. Along with great food, they had organized a colorful cultural program. This was a great way to end the week as just last night I got to catch up on a Bollywood movie that was playing at a nearby theater. Below are some pictures of some of the events I have been to, since I joined the Walton MBA.

One of the lovely participants at the Independence day function, organised by the Friends of India.

Last Spring, we celebrated Holi at Wilson Park. Senthil and XiaoYan had a awesome time.

Samita, XiaoYan and I just happened to stumble across a event organised by the International Students and Scholars. The photo booth was fun.  I have no idea which country the  girls are represent but, I know I am wearing a Mexican poncho.

On Friday night, our classmate Trish hosted a party at her place. It was a great way to relax after a hectic week and we all took great pleasure at trashing her house. Thanks Trish!

Isn't it great to have a blog and put embarrassing pictures of your friends. Smile Jessica!  Caroline, Emmanuelle and Mark at  the party on Friday night.

p.s - Next week updates about the events organized by our awesome career center

The beginning of the end:Countdown from the Academic to the Practicing Community

It’s been three weeks since my last post and, I sincerely apologize.  But, to my defense the classes have started, plans for the football matches are on, the internship presentation was held and I am in the top three and, Fayetteville is awesome. Okay, the last point does not really help my case but, Fayetteville is awesome.

I would like to start my blog with a clean slate and so a quick recap of the purpose my blog. I came to the United States for the purpose of working hard, earning a degree, and landing the perfect job.  What I didn’t expect to happen was that while working hard, I would find a nurturing environment; while I began earning my degree, I found that I became a part of a professional and academic environment that taught me the importance of community and networking; and finally, I found that through the environment, community, and network, I began enculturation into the professional that will give me a marketing edge.  Over the next few months, I hope to document my movement through the last lag of my academic journey. 

The beginning of the semester, meant a few block parties. There was one at the courtyard and a few over at the Union. This is one of the advantages of studying in a community college. “The Community Spirit”- the warmth and affection that is showered on you not to mention, the free food. As a student, who is now cooking for the first time ever in life, I can’t explain the joy of free food. J

Block party at the courtyard behind Walker Hall

Mark, Devavratha, XiaoYan, Charles and Samita at the block  party.  Friends, food, fun, food, :-) What else do we students need.

Today was a sad day for all the Razorback fans. We lost a match to Alabama. This is my first experience with college football. Even though the razorbacks have not fared well, this season, I will proudly cheer on for them in the future matches. The students are allowed to buy a pass that gives them access to most matches in the Donald W Reynolds College Stadium. The present capacity is about 70000 and when the seats are brimming with hog fans and the stadium erupts into the hog call, the feeling is exuberating. Well, better luck next time. Woo Pig Sooie

My first experience of college football

Go Hogs!

Today's match did not end well but, U of A is the best. 

Classes are on with full swing and in between my assignments and GA work I am enjoying my free time with my friends. This week we stumbled upon a great Chinese place called East Buffet. No amount of assignment can stop us Waltonites from heading over to Dickson over the weekends to charge up for the next week. Like I said no amount of assignment; it’s Saturday, time to meet and mourn the match today with my fellow mates.

A visit to Eureka Springs, a 1 .5 hour drive from Fayetteville,  with visiting friends.

The fortune cookie had predicted my win on the day of the Internship  presentation. Not Kidding.

 Weekend fun at Dickson with Jessica and Matt.