This has been a LONG week

As I sit here typing this entry, I’m on the verge of passing out from fatigue because this has to have been the longest week I’ve had since I’ve been here. Today was our last day of classes for the Winter quarter and it has taken every bit of energy I had to make it through without falling asleep at any given moment. I really enjoyed the 5 classes I took this quarter, but I can’t help but have some regrets because I don’t think I put as much effort into the classroom side of things as I should have. Instead of focusing on learning, I put too much of my time into trying to get an internship and the outcome has been little progress in the internship search, less retained information from the classes that I took, and less preparedness for 4 finals next week than I need to be successful. This weekend is going to be absolute hell as I try to cram a quarter’s worth of Strategy learnings into my head to prepare for that exam on Monday.

In addition to the end of classes today, I also had another internship interview today. This one was with a huge engineering services company called URS Coporation in their SF headqaurters. They are seeking an intern for their Corporate Strategy group and, since I’m trying to learn as much about strategy as possible this summer, I was very interested in performing well. Things started out iffy when i got caught in hectic traffic on US-101 going into SF and got there 10 minutes late. I parked my car in the most expensive parking lot ($3.00 per 20 minutes) of all time (which was across the street from their office and suggested to me over the phone by the lady who set up my interview) and ran in that building so I wouldn’t look totally unprofessional.

The session consisted of two interviews, the first of which was with their VP of Corporate Planning who runs the day-to-day operations of their Corporate Strategy group. This lady was SO on point with a PhD in Physics, 6 years of McKinsey experience, and several years in Strategic Planning at Chevron-Texaco. I think I developed a good rapport with her and did well on the case that she gave me, so i thought I had a chance to come out of this with an offer. The second interview was with one of their Strategy Analysts and i’m not sure how that one went. I felt like I was having issues connecting with her and, while she said that I did well on the case, I found myself making the case much harder than it was and I tripped myself up several times trying to do too much.

When the 2nd interview was finished, the analyst left me in a conference room by myself where I waited…and waited…and waited for 20 minutes for someone else to come in and let me know that everything was over. I eventaully had to go to the receptionist and ask what the deal was. At that point, I found out that I should have been done as soon as the second interviewer left me, but no one had even let me know. The roughest part of the experience was the drive back to campus after the interview because I came out right in the middle of rush hour trafffic. The drive back to Stanford that Mapquest said should have taken me 40 minutes to do ended up taking me 2 1/2 hours. Plus, I was tired as a mofo, so I kept on having to fight off the urge to take a nap while I was sitting in standstill SF traffic for 20 minutes at a time. That trip was so NOT CRUCIAL!!!

The night did end up on a high note when i got to participate in a charity activity for the Ronald McDonald House through the GSB’s Challenge for Charity organization. Along with about 15 classmates and some other volunteers for the area, we helped to set up banquet tables and decorations at the local neiman Marcus for a charity casino night that will take place on Saturday evening. There’s something about helping out a great organization that just wipes away the fatigue and stress that comes from fighting through terrible traffic on a Friday afternoon.

OK, time for me to hit the books. i’ve got a lot of Strategy cases to re-read so i don’t fail that final.