Fall A & Learning to Say No

Our first semester at Haas is actually more like two mini quarters that put together makes up the usual 15 week semester. After all of the fun and excitement of orientation, we've been settling into school work, the internship search (yes, I know we just got to school, but it's already time for the internship), and of course playing much much much to hard. It's very different from undergrad in the sense that you don't want to be at the top of the class, but you just want to be in the middle of that curve so you end up with a decent grade at the end. This is a bit counter-intuitive for me to not constantly aim to get the best grade. Now, I just need to do enough to pass. Luckily, that means that I have enough time to work on my internship search and play hard with the rest of my class.

Our class has enjoyed lots of good times together so far. We've had toga parties, 60s parties, checked out bars in SF, bars in Berkeley, barbecued, made bets on who's going to win American's Next Top Model, and enjoyed countless lunches and coffees together. With all of these fun things going on, it's sometimes difficult to make it to all of them, let alone make sure that enough time is spent on revising your resume and doing micro homework.

Thus, I've been learning how to say no. For some reason, it's always been very difficult for me to not do things. Here there really is no choice though when there are 2 career related events, 3 fun events, and a GSI's (Graduate Student Instructor) office hours. Since I haven't perfected the art of being in 6 places at once, I have to decide which is the most important and cannot be done at another time. There's something freeing about deciding to say no that somehow leads to more saying no. It's definitely good because there are so many opportunities to do so on a daily basis.

With three more weeks left until the end of our mini quarter, we're definitely heads down on our group projects! More opportunities to say no coming up!

S'mores Cheesecake

I happened to find a bit of time during my post-midterms weekend to bake this S'mores Cheesecake for a potluck. Sadly, my baking has become a by request only thing that happens once in a time. But, this recipe was great! It tasted just like a s'more!!

The recipe specifies that the cheesecake needs to be chilled for 8 hours before you put the marshmallow on top. You do really need to do that. I didn't and the marshmallow topping became a bit oozy and made a nice sticky mess. Also, you definitely HAVE to brown the marshmallow topping under the broiler or use a creme brule torch, if you have one. It was the best finishing touch and really added the essential s'mores flavor to the cheesecake. However, watch your cheesecake closely while it's under the broiler. I was amazing by just how quickly it started to smolder.

If you'd like to make your own S'mores Cheesecake, check out the recipe here.

Midterms Already?

I can't believe it! We've been in school for 3 weeks and we are already to midterms! It's so crazy. This whole experience is going to go by so fast. I will have to try to find some time next weekend and share more with you guys, but in the meantime, it's back to the stats and econ problems for me! I'll resurface again next week!

Behind Already??

Wow, we have definitely hit the ground running. It is the beginning of the second week of classes and I feel like every time I turn around I find something else that I needed to do. The last thing that has been on my mind lately has been my internship search. After resolving a pesky email forwarding error, I found that much of the 150 emails that I had neglected were related to the career search and the industry and job search workshops that are coming up starting this week! Luckily, I've been using the "just-in-time" method of getting through this stuff so I haven't missed anything yet.

Now, back to the reading that's due tomorrow that I completely forgot about!

O-Week!

I know I kind of disappeared for a bit lately, but I've resurfaced to tell you all about my first couple of weeks at Haas.

My business school experience started with two weeks of a math review known as Math Camp. It was a nice review of everything that we'll need to know to start school. Also, it was great to get to know half of my fellow classmates as well as get used to getting to classes and doing homework while it was still optional. We started off with a review of basic math and statistics. Then we reviewed all of the essentials of Finance and closed the week out with a quick review of Financial Accounting. It was super helpful to remember a lot of the things that I learned as an undergraduate business major but haven't used in the last 4 years.

Orientation or O-week as we fondly call it followed Math Camp. Here we met all 239 of our classmates, found out which cohort we are in (go Axe!), and had a lot of fun while learning a lot about ourselves, our classmates, and Haas. The CEO of Intel shared with us his experiences and where he sees the business community going for him. There were scavenger hunts, Cohort Olympics (which we lost by just 5 points! Ugh!), cupcake eating contests, numerous bar nights, cases, and networking events. It was a very intense week with often 10-11 hour days mixed with fun, socializing, and drinking from a fire hose. I have to say that I'm very glad that we had a 4 day weekend before we started in on classes to recuperate and prepare for what was to come.

I'll have to tell you more about the beginning of classes in my next post, but I can't wait to see where this crazy adventure takes me. Go Bears!

A Comic For All Grad Students Out There

Tonight's xkcd comic is just for all of you grad students out there... see it here. (As is common with most xkcd posts, mouse over for the best part of the comic strip!)

The Last Dessert Night (at least for a while)

Dessert Night is officially over. Well, at least for the next 2 years while I'm in school. I decided to celebrate the end of an era with one of my favorite desserts, Carrot Cake. I think I really just eat Carrot Cake because I LOVE cream cheese frosting, but nevertheless it was tasty.

I turned again to one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen, for the recipe for this week's dessert. However, I opted for a traditional cream cheese frosting instead of the maple cream cheese frosting that SK used because I had leftover cream cheese frosting from the red velvet cupcakes that we had earlier this month.

The cake was super easy to make. I opted to use currants instead of raisins because I happened to have those on hand and substituted allspice for the nutmeg. I didn't include nuts because I'm always conscious of possible nut allergies. Another great idea for this carrot cake would be substituting crushed pineapple for the raisins. My mom used to do this when I was younger and it makes the cake a little sweeter and adds a bit of a tangy flavor to it. I highly recommend it. If you'd like to make your own Carrot Cake, check out the cake recipe here and the frosting recipe here.

Sadly, this will be the end of recipes that I share regularly on this blog. I will still be cooking and hopefully baking as I have time, but you cannot count on a weekly recipe. While I'm sad to end this fun Tuesday tradition, I know that Dessert Night will be resurrected at some point in the future when I'm no longer a student. From now on, you'll be hearing all about my life as a first year at Haas.