Pre-term is kind of like an iceberg…

By Conor | August 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

We are just days away from the end of NYU Stern Pre-Term, and I gotta tell you, it is pretty much a blur at this point. The day is mostly constructed of various presentations. These presentations have, in my opinion, gotten more practical as the days have gone on. Interestingly, however, there may not be a direct correlation between the utility of the presentation and class attendance to these presentations.

Now, I may be speaking out of turn here, but if you ask me, which you didn’t, the secret to ensuring that people show up to these presentations is making them – and I quote – “optional.”
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Pre-term: On cultural differences and four cheese sauce

By Conor | August 21st, 2008 | No Comments »

On the first day of Pre-Term for Stern, we gathered, 400+ of the new class of 2010, in an auditorium named after somebody named Schimmel. Or Kimmel. Both people apparently donated enough to have auditoriums named after them, and I’m pretty sure I am not the only one to confuse them. I’ll tell you this: if I’m ever thinking about dropping a few million to dedicate a new wing on a b-school, I’m sure as hell not doing it if people are going to confuse my wing with that school’s already existing Quonor Drennan Wing.

It was great to see the Class of 2010 in full force. Everybody seemed pretty psyched to be there, there were endless introductions, and those who had met once before were likely meeting for the first time in a venue that did not have “$3 Boilermakers” chalked on a blackboard outside.
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The End of NYU Summer Start

By Conor | August 17th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

NYU Stern’s Summer Start Program is, as they warned us it would be, over before it began. Not literally, of course – it lasted several weeks, and for it to be over before it began would be an impossibility. If anybody ever says anything is over before it began, literally!! I encourage you to hit them in the head with fruit, like plums. Plums will explode on contact and get in their hair. And from that day forth, anytime they are about to use the word “literally” inappropriately, they’ll think back to those plums in their hair and how much that sucked.

Certainly Summer Start went quickly. I guess there are several possibilities why it went so quickly – it was fun, the people were tremendous, the work was intense – but I have a different theory. I think that it went quickly because everything worth doing seems to go quickly. And the NYU Stern Summer Start was definitely, positively, worth doing.
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Five Lessons on Giving a Group Presentation (Lesson 1: Don’t be bad.)

By Conor | August 7th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Some time ago we did a team building exercise called Uncommon Leadership. It was based on the Marine training exercise, and it involved a group of, say, six of you, put before various physical challenges. How do we get this barrel over this eight foot high bar without a.) touching the ground, b.) coming within 900 feet of the bar, or c.) touching, or even thinking, about the barrel. They would give you a set of “tools” to use to complete this task – usually a half a bar of Irish Spring and a Menorah.

Now, it was really cool in itself. But the point of it – to learn how to work in teams – I never really bought into. Not that I don’t think it was hugely useful for the Marines – I have no doubt about it. And not that I have any problem with the Uncommon Leadership itself – I thought it was awesome. (And that has nothing to do with the fact that any of the Marines involved, were they to read a poor review of their program in this blog, would potentially voice their disappointment, maybe by throwing a tree at me.) But I wondered what kind of practical application it may have in business school.

Well, my friends, now we know. We know that the point of performing these tasks with your classmates – tasks such getting six people across a forty foot wide chasm using only a glass of grape juice – was only to prepare you for the significantly more difficult challenge: The Group Presentation.
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PowerPoint for Beginners (Rule #1: Animate EVERYTHING)

By Conor | August 4th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

I challenge anyone working on PowerPoint for the first time – anyone who has been tasked with giving a presentation – to NOT animate the holy bejeezus out of every single element on the page.

It just isn’t possible.

For those of us who are relatively new to PowerPoint, you have to understand: more animation equals better presentation.
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A gift for my international friends

By Conor | August 1st, 2008 | 1 Comment »

One of my favorite things about Stern, already, is the diversity of the group. I read all about how important that was to the school when I applied, and what a high premium they placed on it, but I honestly thought it was lip service.

But no. It was more than that. It was whatever the opposite of lip service is.

The international men and women in our group are a highly intelligent bunch and are fantastic colleagues. Having lived virtually my entire life post-college abroad, I am accustomed to relying on native speakers to help me sound non-idiotic. In Brussels, for example, my French friends encouraged me to put a very heavy emphasis on the second syllable of my first name – CoNOR instead of COnor. The reason being that the way I was saying it, I was introducing myself as whatever the French word for “A**hole” is. (Hint: It’s “Conor.”)
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Who did, and who did not, appear in the WSJ yesterday

By Conor | July 30th, 2008 | No Comments »

I believe in a just God. I believe that He knows very well what He is doing, and that His plan is fair and loving. Which is why I am forced to admit that it is no accident that even though I, Conor, am enrolled in a top MBA program at NYU Stern, I was not featured in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.

No, my friends, the member of my family who did, in fact, managed to grace the pages of that hallowed business journal, photo and all, was – and I can’t believe I’m about to say this – our dog.

Oh yes, laugh. Get it all out. So very, very funny. What a hoot it was, reading an email from my beloved wife Liz yesterday afternoon containing only a link to the article with a subject line that, if I recall, was made up solely of a half dozen question marks and exclamation points.
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Like a rake to the face

By Conor | July 28th, 2008 | No Comments »

I can’t imagine there will be too many weekends in business school like this past weekend. My wife Liz and I did just about as close to nothing that two people can do without growing moss. It was quite blissful, really. I spoke to my classmates this morning during our break, and got similar responses. Many slept, though a few of my international friends had gone to see Step Brothers and loved it, which proved that the Yell-and-Fall-Down humor of Will Ferrell transcends culture. There is something encouraging about that. Partially because my own brand of humor can be summarized by Volume + Repetition = Very Funny, At Least to The Person, Providing the Person is Me. I wonder if this might not give us some insight into healing our relationships with the international community. Yell, fall down.

There’s something in this – mark my words.

This line of political/anthropological thinking quickly faded as we returned from our break to find our Stats midterms graded and placed at our seats.
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On appropriate assumptions

By Conor | July 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

I was just putting on my shoes and it occurred to me that our dog – Emma is her name, this beautiful, frenetic yellow lab – seems to think that this is an absolute and definitive signal that I am taking her out. If Emma did not exist, perhaps she reasons, why would anybody ever put shoes on their feet? They are certainly not as comfortable for inside wear. It is the same line of thinking that undoubtedly causes her to believe that if she did not have to drink water, there would be no need for toilets.

To be honest, her apartment-shaking enthusiasm for me tying my shoes actually makes me want to take her for a walk. And now, with the Statistics Midterm finally behind us as of Friday afternoon, I have more time to do just that.
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Trying not to find your voice

By Conor | July 23rd, 2008 | 2 Comments »

Hey, look out the window! Is that some crazy rain or what? Is that the hurricane that I saw on CNN.com for a fleeting instant earlier today? Or is that in the Caribbean or something? (If it is in the Caribbean, I look like a total retard right now. Unless I can play the Global Warming card? That’s a pretty decent catch-all these days.)

Due to our Stats midterm quickly approaching on Friday, I have not read the news for about three days other than to scan the headlines to make sure a.) nobody in my family has been detained by PETA, b.) Hillary Clinton hasn’t already moved into the White House, changed the locks, and capped her hands over her ears and begun humming loudly, or c.) Statistics has not been replaced, by UN decree, by some other simplier form of mathematics, such as “Counting-from-One-to-One-Hundred-istics.” I’ll tell you what, my friends – I’d ace that midterm locked in a gunny sack.
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