The Storm Before the Storm

When I started this blog I promised myself it wouldn't consist of boring factual updates with nothing insightful to say.  That's what facebook is for.  But two weeks into orientation and pre-term classes with 12+ hour days and a lot of networking, I'm breaking my own rule in lieu of letting Wolverhorn slip into the Blogger graveyard.  I won't let this happen often.

Orientation started August 2 with a packed schedule of activities on top of trying to learn 261 new names (and personally trying to fight off a nasty cold).  I think all of us were pretty exhausted by the end of the week after having full days of lectures and group activities followed by McCombs-sanctioned night activities (usually followed by more "non-McCombs-sanctioned activities").  Some highlights were:

• Monday night: Dinner reception at the Red McCombs Red Zone at Texas Memorial Stadium.  It's the section of suites in the football stadium financed largely by Red McCombs (who donated $50 million to the bschool 10 years ago, founded Clear Channel, is the main investor in Austin's new Formula 1 race track, basically owns Austin, etc.).  The man/myth/legend/super-investor Red McCombs himself spoke to us before dinner.
  
  
• Tuesday night: Students from all six UT MBA programs (executive education, Houston and Dallas, etc.) convened in Austin.  I had a chance to meet students from the other programs (and more in my own program).  Dean Gilligan spoke to us during dinner.
  
  
• Thursday afternoon: In pairs of study group teams, students competed in an online business simulation.  Each person was assigned a different role and had different responsibilities to manage a computer manufacturing company.  It was by far the most ridiculously complex simulation I've ever seen or heard of, but we had a blast.  We killed some imaginary employees in a hurricane and lost a lot of money, but the winner was chosen based on the quality of a presentation to hypothetical VC firm, which we won for our cohort!  So our team picture will be posted on the Carpenter Center wall for future classes to worship see.
  
  
• Friday: We spent the day outside in 100 degree heat doing more team building activities on the Colorado River.  Fortunately one was rafting down it so pretty much all of us jumped in to cool off.  

The week of August 9 was full of pre-term classes to get the academic ball rolling.  We had more fun stuff scheduled during a few of the evenings:

• Tuesday night: Cohort games at Zilker Park.  Much like the BBA games at Michigan, each cohort competed in four events (beer drinking was not an official event) for the Cohort Cup.  Historically, my cohort is known for...how do I put this...its propensity to choose beer over bragging rights.  But we put up a fight, and if not for getting shafted by the judges on the wheelbarrow race, would have tied for 1st.  We also had an epic "Rudy" moment with one of our cohort mates in dodgeball that propelled us to the win.
  
  
• Thursday night: We made the trip to the Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood for some pretty amazing Texas BBQ.  After dinner, one of the most epic dance circles I've ever seen broke out, led by our unofficial fearless cohort leader Carlos.  Beer and wine flowed, 80s and MJ started playing, and things got a bit nuts.

This week classes are in full swing.  Hopefully more insightful posts to come! 

Until then,