Random Update from the Last Week of Business School

Hi everyone out there in internet land. It's me JJ Olsen. You may remember me as the Friday morning DJ on WSFX radio in Nanticoke, PA in the fall of 1996, but that was a long time ago and not at all relevant to this post. Anyway, I have only a single week left until I have completed all the requirements for an MBA degree. I had been fairly certain until just a couple days ago that I would be staying in Mesa or Tempe and working at the company where I've been an intern for the past year. Well, they had a 'hiring freeze' recently instituted, and I wasn't entirely keen on remaining as an intern. So I find myself without a job and with more owing in student loans than I thought was possible.

This Thursday I'm heading with 3 MBA friends to Chicago to present the findings of a 4-month project we've been working on for the Diagnostic Division of Abbott Laboratories. The project is concerning the sale of Services to diagnostic laboratories in Turkey. It has been interesting and time consuming. Everybody at Abbott has been really cool, and it seems like it would be a great place to work (hint... Abbott HR people).

I am really going to miss being an MBA student. I have to admit most of the first year was torturous for me to varying degrees. Accounting and Statistics were especially difficult, which is ironic because I now consider myself to be very comfortable with statistics. It took some practical application to really make it sink in. As for Accounting... I'll leave that to others. Now that I'm at the end of the two years I feel like I'm just starting to figure out how to enjoy the experience, but I guess a lot of things in life are like that. I have really enjoyed hanging out with some of the other students in my program. It's funny how the stereotypes about MBAs hold true, and the most interesting classmates are of course the ones who don't always fit those stereotypes. I will miss being a student, and I would like to say that I'm going to pursue a PhD, but it's really too soon to say for sure.

Well, since I can't legally start working until July, I suppose my family is going to get re-acquainted with me in the next few weeks. I wish I knew where we were going to end up. It could be Arizona, it could be somewhere in Canada, or it could be pretty much anywhere else. If anyone has any really good ideas, by all means let me know!

One more thing. Yesterday Laela (age 5) said something out of the blue, and kind of funny:

"Snowmen are Just like insects. The bottom part is the abdomen, the middle part is the thorax, and the top part is the head. Just like an insect!"

I thought it was funny.