late nite post

I am dead right now. Not the best time for reflection…

Sometimes, though, life needs to lived, and reflection can happen later. Spent most of the day catching up on facebook (those of you who I didn’t contact, I will, believe me), where I learned a simple truth.

When I write to people, I need to be completely, 100% there. It’s not something that I personally can do with 50% mental capacity. Writing to friends, for instance, means slightly different tones and questions then you’ll pose to another friend. If writing to an honorary sister, for instance, you can be more honest in your dealings, but if writing to someone who you haven’t talked to in three months, then…

Then, you should probably first apologize for blowing her off and being such a schlub.

Sorry. I will get better at prioritizing.

Some of the difficulty, though, is ideological… after a long night of walking around Seoul (and introducing Omrice to my out-of-town visitors), spent roughly 2 hours talking to Yuni about… everything. It was utterly spontaneous, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Call it friendbuilding, if it were. One of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities that unfortunately gets in the way of the strict discipline of blogging before 2 in the morning. But friendbuilding, is, obviously, important, perhaps even more so than one day of honest reflection.

There’s gotta be give and take, maybe… maybe sleeping at 2am is not so bad… but tomorrow, finally made a phone date with Meeta to inquire about her new job, which means… I gotta sleep. Because my phone date is less than 8 hours away. Time to reflect?

Yeah, there should be. If only I hadn’t made my day so busy. I think there were three major highlights…

1) Bumming around Hongdae, ran into James (from Toastmasters!) selling ice cream on the street, of all things. The guy’s got balls, and he’s driven enough to be out there at 11PM on a Monday night. Mad props.

2) Hongdae playground… one of the best tap dancers I’ve ever seen, including the Mask and Wig shows at Penn (sorry Charlie Durkin). This guy was something… he went at the same time as a bongo guy and a drummer… not sure if the set was choreographed (I think it was), but the three musicians played off each other in a way that made me want to quit my day job and become a homeless guitarist. Truly amazing show, and totally and utterly free. These guys were playing in a park in a playground.

3) Of course, the conversation with Yuni. Really nice girl, lucky to be friends with her. Friends of friends so many times over, maybe it was inevitable we’d meet sometime. Glad it happened now rather than later. Leaving Korea on Friday… too soon. Way too soon.

^_^

home

No entry yesterday. Too busy with the speech. And recording.

Yesterday was actually one of those days that go by in a flash – lunch with Amanda (at Istanbul), recording the Felix and Linda song at the studio, bbq until returning home to practice my speech… and then spending two hours talking with Yuni and Yao instead of actually doing work (!). Discipline has never been a strong suit of mine when there are interesting people to meet…

So the speech went well. Forgot to tape it (!!!!), but hopefully there’ll be others of a similar nature. I think it’s a little odd; the topic was inspiration, and it seemed like the audience loved it… the takeaway is that people like moving hand gestures. Just like the ‘Move to Oz speech,’ I had people use gestures while saying “Experience! Try new things!” People seemed to get more into the speech because of the movement and shouting… and if I ever become a motivational speaker, I’ll be sure to incorporate that lesson. Make the people move…

Followed the night with bowling… they say practice makes perfect, and damn… I need to practice. Ha ha.

But the thing is… I’m going to write the next part as fast as I can because I want this memory imprinted forever. Seoul is home. And yes, I’m going to Oz on a full-tuition scholarship, and yes… I’m definitely looking forward to it, and yes… I think it will be a wonderful time…

But Seoul is home. And I’ll leave, and if I make even a quarter of the good friends I’ve made here, I will be an extremely lucky man. Sometimes I wonder why I’m leaving… I mean, yes, I have an amazing opportunity, but it’s an amazing opportunity to teach some chill university job for 15 hours a week as well, especially if all your FRIENDS are here and you can start a business on the side…

Maybe I’ll come back, right? But by that time, maybe everyone’s gone. Maybe Ki goes to the states, maybe Bernard actually does decide to move…

Anyway, Melbourne WILL be amazing, and even though Korea is amazing too… sometimes you have to say goodbye before you say hello. Wish me luck… :)

Why Melbourne Business School?

As previously mentioned in your blog, you spent most of your academic life attending top-ranked academic institutions. Melbourne Business School, at the time of your decision, was not generally considered one of the world’s very best MBAs; the latest Financial Times had ranked it #75 in the world, below many US and UK schools which you have never heard of. However, you have heard of the University of Melbourne, and an Australian friend in Korea told you that Uni Melbourne was far and away the best school in Oz. He was from Melbourne. At the time, you did not think this detail was significant.

In your previous life, you had visited Sydney for a week and had found it magical. You thought you would like to live there, at least for a while. Obviously Melbourne and Sydney are very different cities with very different personalities, but you did not know this. To you, Australia was Australia, and you decided to apply to at least one business school in Oz. However, AGSM’s start date was not in September. It was in January. Because you wanted to start business school in September, you decided to apply to MBS, and not to AGSM.

You were accepted to half of the schools you applied to, including 2 M7s. Conventional wisdom told you to attend the 'best ranked' MBA program you got into. You believed the vast majority of business school applicants would do this. However, you were still curious about Melbourne Business School.

You decided to visit. You owed it to yourself and to MBS to at least see the school before deciding to attend another MBA program. Strangely enough, this was the only school you felt this way about; maybe it was due to MBS’ transparent admissions process and / or the friendly correspondence that you had with the school's representatives. When interacting with MBS, you did not feel like a number. At every other school you applied to, you did.

Suddenly, you were anxious to see MBS. You had to see whether the school was good, whether it fit the criteria that you had of a ‘top-ranked’ school… because you did not trust your Decision to a ranking made by a newspaper halfway across the world, in England.

Your school visit, as it turned out, was the very next day. You could not sleep that night, on the red-eye plane flight from Korea. You were alert, your mind was active. As it would be for all of first term.

***

When you visited the school, you saw a program that was extremely small (60 people per incoming class, since then, it has been reduced to 40), where the student dynamic is very different than the student dynamic at every other school you applied to. Specifically, MBS students seemed real; they were not concerned with superficially shaking your hand while telling you how amazing their lives were. Additionally, it seemed that everyone from the receptionists to the faculty and support staff were on first name basis with the students, and it seemed that everyone happily got along. The only other school that seemed even a little similar was Tuck. That being said, two main reasons you had originally applied to Tuck was because it was known for being small and personable, and because your girlfriend was getting her masters in nearby Brattleboro. You did not know this at the time, but you would break up with her mere months after your decision, for completely unrelated reasons. What you did know was Melbourne Business School's student body was literally 1/3 of Tuck's size. You thought about some of the ramifications of this, and realized that, at MBS, the administration would probably go out of their way to give personalized service to students. As it turned out, you were right.

The class you visited, Mergers and Acquisitions, was also interesting, and the teacher, David Trende, taught the material from a top down perspective. There was no showmanship in the class; none of the students were trying to outdo each other by trying to be smart*.

In sum, you absolutely loved the school, and you absolutely loved Australia. But that was not enough. The Question depended on whether MBS would be a blight on your resume... whether it hurt your chances of getting a job post-MBA. Though it seems utterly ridiculous now, you had stayed up nights thinking about this.

So you had an impromptu meeting with MBS Careers, who shared with you their most recent employment statistics; at the time, their employment success rate 3 months after graduation was something like 96%, and fully 10 people from the last graduating class were working at McK, Bain, or BCG. This number struck you as absurdly high for a class so small in size. In addition, the average starting salary from MBS was comparable to the non-IB feeder business schools located in the US, and you knew that Melbourne cost of living was significantly less than the cost of living in most metropolitan centers in the US. And you definitely wanted to stay in Asia, and attending school here would easily let you do that.

What you did not realize at the time, though, was that these statistics were vitally influenced by the economic climate, and you now believe that this year's graduating class may significantly worse than last year's simply as a result of the world economy. In particular, the graduating class of 2009 found consulting hit hard... just like it was at every other b-school in the world. Also, you did not realize just how different the MBS experience was from the US B-school experience, and how the MBA is valued differently in Oz than in the States. But that is a discussion for a later post.

All things considered, you realized it would be fun and professionally rewarding to spend a significant amount of time in Oz. And you decided to write a blog about it. So far, both these decisions have been good ones.

^_^

*A few members of your intake were a little different... but this is still the exception, not the rule.

Why Oz?

You are not really sure you need to be writing this entry in your blog. If anyone has ever visited Australia, they will realize why working in Australia is far more sustainable and healthy, than, say, working in New York. They will also realize the beauty of the country, the friendliness of the people, the abundance of professional opportunity, and the positive energy generated by the non-judgmental society, all of whose members can afford a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle. You cannot describe in words how much you appreciate these characteristics, and you do not try, but instead encourage those thinking about studying or living in Oz to visit for a meaningful amount of time.

After living here for roughly a year, your opinion is slightly revised; as of June 2009, you are fairly certain you do not want to settle in Melbourne just yet, largely because you want to see more of the world before settling down. Of course, that may change, and you reserve your right to change your mind without notice.

You also invite international students with specific questions to contact you at ronjon at alumni dot upenn dot edu.

^_^

About You

Your name is Ronjon, and you live in Oz. You like Oz. A lot.

Originally, you are from a suburb about an hour outside of New York City; Americans would say Jersey but you instead claim New York as your home of origin. You do this because no one in Melbourne knows where Jersey is, and here in Melbourne, you will not meet any New Yorkers who might be offended by this slight exaggeration. You started doing this halfway through your two-year tour in Korea, because no one in Seoul knew where Jersey was either.

Except for one New Yorker you met. She was so offended that she made a scene during a party, enough that everyone avoided her for the rest of the night. Truly, she was a New Yorker, the kind of New Yorker you hope never to become. But you received a flash of perverse pleasure from seeing her alone and friendless; this taught you that you are in fact a New Yorker, at least in mentality. You do not like this part of you, and you are doing your best to replace your Biting New York Mentality with the Supportive Melbourne Mentality. Although you have made strides, you have not yet been completely successful... and so you are ashamed.

Regardless, you did not live very long in your place of birth. When you were roughly 13, you moved out of your home and attended a top-ranked boarding school. After that, you attended the University of Pennsylvania, a top-ranked Ivy League University. You spent five years in the Naval Service, where you were stationed in various places including Virginia Beach, Hawaii, and Seoul (Korea).

You were heavily involved in music as a high school and college student, and from the end of high school, joined all sorts of prestigious singing groups, including the All-State Chorus, Sound of America, and even an acapella group at college. You even became a semi-professional singer / songwriter in Seoul… enough to know that you enjoy performing, but not enough to do it as a career. You did heavily consider it, however.

Instead, you decided to get your MBA, turning down two top-ranked M7 schools (among others) in favor of attending Melbourne Business School, a not-yet top-ranked MBA program. Instead, Melbourne Business School fits you in a way unlike any school you've ever attended. In choosing this school, you have made yourself happy.

^_^

Hallo, and welcome to your blog. These are the real-time chronicles of your time in Melbourne Business School’s 2-year full-time MBA program.

The blog was basically started when you started posting your diary online… since then, you told some friends about the site, they told their friends, etc. etc… and people gave feedback… so this blog continued, and is slowly becoming better and better… or so you hope. At least, you are trying to make it better and better, because you are now invested enough that this blog now feels almost like an extension of yourself. And what good are you if you don't get better with time?