A few familiar faces. A lot of new faces. And a lot of good info. The AWS event was jam packed so rather than a rundown of the day, below are the highlights, and lowlights of the day.

Highlights

- I’ll lead off my highlights with my victory in the ice breaker game again (I won the ice breaker game the first time I visited Smith). The staff people remembered and joked with me about it. My prize was Terpopoly, the college edition of Monopoly. Lucky me! Terpopoly was a great conversation piece, although  my wrist got really sore towards the end of the day from carrying the game around. Hopefully I’ll be good at other things in bschool other than winning ice breaker games.

- For what it’s worth, Smith is ranked #3 in intellectual capital for MBA schools, meaning Smith has, as Dr. Bob said, a “scary smart” faculty team. A high ranking is nice, but hearing the current students talk positively about the professors was a better indicator of the quality of the faculty. The students I talked to had nothing but good things to say about the professors @ Smith. I even got a chance to talk to the students after the AWS event to get the “real” scoop.

- I’m really excited about the opportunities to travel abroad. China, India, and Brazil are the three mainstay trips and there are opportunities to go elsewhere depending on interest. Maybe I’ll propose a trip or two while I’m there. We are allowed to go on a maximum of two trips during our two years. The trips are kind of expensive at ~$6k a pop but they sound like a lot of fun. The case competition trip to China even sounds educational

- The Dingman Center for Entreprenuership is going to provide a lot of  entreprenuership experience that I’m looking for. The center is more than just a guidance center for people who want to start their own business. For people like me who want to get involved in commercializing technologies and helping startups, The Dingman center has a lot of opportunities to get my hands dirty with local entreprenuers and with researchers at UMD’s school of engineering who want to bring their research to market.

One of the exciting things I’ve got in my sights is the Israel Technology Summer Fellowship. Israel is probably the world’s most entreprenureal countries in the world, spending more per capita on entreprenuership than any other country. Smith has a program that takes a couple of students to Israel to study at the Technion University and to consult for technology start ups for 10 weeks.

- Kevin Plank, the CEO of Under Armour (UA), one of my favorite brands, graduated from the Smith school (undergraduate). I talked to a member of the marketing club and asked her about UA’s relationship with the school. She said that UA does recruit from Smith and they look for someone specific They look for someone who understands their business, can relate to their product, and is part of their target market. I’m definitely shelving that for future reference.

- One of my fellow prospectives that I got to know over the weekend, Chris, and I talked to the Dean for a while during the reception. I asked the Dean a really strong question that he later referenced in his reception address about what changes are in store for the next two years @ Smith.

The first change is that for the class of 2012, the school wants to matriculate about 160 students, an increase of about 30 students when compared to the class of 2011. The reason is  to grow the network of full time students. The second change, in response to the first change, is the expansion of the OCS. They’ll be adding additional office space through new construction in Van Munching Hall and increasing the staff size. Lastly, the Dean wants to get the faculty out in front of the decision makers in DC. As the Dean puts it, being so close to our nations capital, the “thought leaders” from not just the Smith school, but from the other schools on campus, need to have a bigger presence on capitol hill to help influence and guide Washington to make more responsible, ethical, and sustainable decisions. All of these changes, the Dean hopes, will enhance Smith’s growth, visibility and reputation.

- I think I was the only person out of the 70 or so prospectives who did not stay with a friend or family, or lives within driving distance of UMD. As such, I had nothing to do after ASW so I hung out at Cornerstone bar, the other local bar, with a couple of current and prospective students. At the end of the night, I was the only prospective left standing. I ended up hanging out with a group of first years on what I call the unofficial tour of “Life as a Smith Student”. We ate at Five Guys, a burger place (we have one in Carson), drove around DC looking for parking and beer, and crashed a Canadian themed party thrown by some second years. It was interesting to see life outside the confines of CP and the business school. More thoughts on this in a separate post.

- I saved the best highlight for last. For the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to find the right fleece workout jacket. I’ve searched high and low, from Patagonia to Nike, and I couldn’t find one that was just right. I could spend a couple of paragraphs describing what the right jacket would be but then that would only reveal that I’ve become a shopaholic, a disease that I’ve contracted from having dated TL for three years.

Long story short, I lugged the oversized Smith fleece that I won at the last Smith event in hopes of exchanging it for a smaller one. Not  only did I get a better fitting fleece, the fleece is made by UA! When I tried the jacket on, I was giddier than a school girl who just got a Hannah Montana backpack. At least the staff member who helped me out with the exchange shared in my enthusiasim for the jacket and didn’t think I was crazy.

I might have lost some of my manliness with this highlight, but at least my body temperature is being perfectly regulated as I’m wearing my awesome Smith jacket.

Lowlights

- For the OCS session, we broke out into 3-4 people groups to practice behavioral interviews. None of us were thrilled with this exercise since we just got through a barrage of MBA interviews. The OCS folks thought that the mock interviews would give us an idea on one of the services that OCS provides. Fail.

- A couple of weeks ago, I read on ESPN that College Park is considered the worst college bball town in the ACC. To quote the article, College Park is a “dump”. I really didn’t notice that the last time I visited, but on this trip, I did notice that outside of this small strip of Highway 1, there really isn’t a whole lot of stuff going on in CP. It’s of little surprise then that most Smith students live outside of CP. Finding a place to live is going to require some major planning…

On Friday morning, I took a red eye out to DC, this time flying into Reagan National (DCA) instead of Dulles. The advantage of flying into DCA is that the metros goes directly to College Park. No fuss and cheap. From the CP-UMD metro stop, I took the campus shuttle (free) to the student union (The Stamp) which is in the middle of campus. I stopped by the technology building to scope out the laptop prices and bought Chick Fil A at the food court. From there I walked to the the Mariott which was about a 10 minute walk.

My first official AWS event was a 1 on 1 meeting with a financial aid staff member. We (Dustin and I) basically went through the odds and ends of financing an MBA. After the financial aid session, I walked back to The Stamp to buy some Terp schwag. I ended up buying a turkey sandwich instead from the hippy co-op store and carried it back half exposed to my hotel room.

Later that night, I went to HH where I met about 6~7 of the prospective students and a couple of first and second year students. We caravanned down to Route 1, the main strip in CP, to RJ Bentleys. This was pretty much the start of the whole get to meet new people phase of things. Where are you from? Have you decided? What do you want to do? Where do you live? Etc, etc. To my suprise, I thought I would have gotten tired from meeting so many new people but I was genuinely interested in all the people that I met. If I’m going to go to school with these people, I better get to know them learn what they’re all about.

The prospective Smith students I met that day also gave me a glimpse into the diverse set of backgrounds that I’ll be part of. A guy from Arkansas who works in Honduras. A strong safety from Duke. A guy who works in Japan but grew up in CP. All this diversity should make for good times in the classroom.

Besides meeting the other prospective students, we also drowned the current students with every question we could ask. What are the good places to eat? Where are the cool places to live? How’s the commute? How do you like school? What did you do during snowmageddon? It was very informative and informal. If anyone is looking into a school, get in touch with a student because they are the ones that are most likely going to give you the most shpielish answer.

After HH concluded, I went back to my hotel room and decided to eat dinner down @ the bar/lounge. Long story short, I waited for 45 minutes without getting my food and ended up walking 15 minutes down this cold and lonely road to some hole in the wall restaurant. The day could have ended better, but the positive tones I got from mypotential future classmates and the current students let me go to sleep in peace.

Oh, and I got my decision from Vandy. In.

Full report when I’m back.

Tiff actually inspired me to start running. She was telling me about her training regime for her upcoming half marathon and it got my competitive sibling rivalry juices flowing. I thought, if she can run, then so can I. At least for a mile or two.

Surprisingly, I’ve been running every two days or so. With the extra time that I have now that school apps are done, what else do I have to do? I’ve gotten serious enough about my running that I bought an issue of Runner’s World magazine, bought a new pair of running shoes, and stole my mom’s yoga mat so I can stretch. Along the way, I’ve come across a couple of surprises.

Creaky knees: I’ve avoided running for the longest time because I was afraid of hurting my back. That was a legitimate excuse until now. My back is still funky, but turns out what hurts the most are my knees. Having banged up knees is the last thing that I want, so I’ve taken some preventative measures to protect my knees including adding more leg strengthening and stretching exercises and buying a pair of running shoes that fits my running style.

Don’t stretch: When Tiff told me that stretching before a run was bad, it was as if she was telling that the world was round. Ever since my first PE class, stretching was the first thing I did before exercising. How could it be that stretching can be bad for you?! I haven’t looked too much into Tiff’s claim but apparently there is some research that shows static stretching before running could lead to injuries. The jury is still out and the debate rages on. Regardless, I still do some light stretching before a run and some heavier stretching after.

Getting over the hump: It’s easy to think of running as a purely physical activity but the biggest challenge with running is getting over the mental road blocks in your head. I’m hungry so I’ll run after I eat. I’m too tired, I’ll just turn around and go home. I don’t have the right shirt, guess I’ll run next time. It’s easy to make excuses and avoid running but the challenge of getting over those thoughts, pushing myself to run instead of walk so I can get home faster to eat, taking another path that extends my run but allowing me t0 explore the neighborhood, are things that have made running enjoyable these past couple of weeks.

It’s TBD on how long I can keep this running thing going. I think one way I can sustain this is if I enter some races, perhaps a 5k as a starter. I might as well run for as long as I can because once school starts, I don’t think I’ll have the time or energy to exercise.

If you couldn’t think of one, don’t blame yourself. If you said Dat Nguyen, shame on you because he is Vietnamese.

Well, if you’re waiting for a Chinese NFL superstar you might not have to wait much longer. Ed Wang, a 6′4” 300 lb OT from Virginia Tech, is trying to become the first Chinese American to make it into the NFL. I didn’t think that Chinese people could be built that big. OK, there’s Yao Ming and that wacky  Mongolian guy, but they were cooked up in a lab. Ed Wang, however, grew up in Virginia! Close your eyes and listen to him talk and you’d think that he was a black guy. But then it all makes sense after watching his bio. His parents were former Chinese Olympians who probably received the premium grains enhanced with special performance enhancing vitamins given by the CCP.

I guess it’s not that surprising that the offspring of two world class athletes would turn into a world class athlete. Maybe if I hooked up with the world’s biggest, baddest female athlete, Serena Williams, I could have myself a little Reggie Bush. Yikes.

Anyways, good luck to Ed. Make us proud.

On another note, I found out last weekend that if I wanted to ride at night, I need to have a headlight and a taillight on my bike. Why? Because it’s the law. Apparently Culver City Police is pretty liberal with handing out tickets for headlight/taillight-less infractions so I bought a LED headlight and taillight at the local bike shop. I don’t ride over to CC that often, but it’s a good idea to be illuminated as much as you can @ night anyways. Maybe I should just wrap my bike with my Xmas tree lights.

Sweep the knee!!!

Trailer

As the thefts have increased, some people have taken matters into their own hands. Last month, bike messengers downtown caught two suspected thieves, teenage boys who attended a local Catholic high school, and stripped them down to their boxer shorts before taking their cellphones, backpacks and clothes.

Hurray for vigilante justice!

The article also brought back memories of when my bike was stolen right from under me. For those of you that haven’t heard this story before, a bunch of cholos* stole my bike one day while I was playing tennis. I didn’t think about locking up my bike because it was inside the tennis court right next to me. I couldn’t believe it was happening when the cholo walked into the tennis court and rode off with my bike. After I realized what was happening, I gave chase for about a block but gave up because 1) he was too far ahead and 2) what was I going to do after I caught up? Take him and his homies on?

Bottom line: Do not support those that lean like a cholo and buy the thickest u-lock and chain to lock up your ride!

*I didn’t realize that people on the east coast or people outside of SoCal in general don’t know what a cholo is until a friend who has been working out in NJ told me so. Here’s the def from urban dictionary for those of you who might not have had the pleasure of encountering one <clicky>.

I’m bringing this up because of this article I read about Panjiva, a startup that built a search engine that allows businesses to search for and vet suppliers. Part of their story is how they spent over a year building their search engine only to find out that it didn’t do what their customers wanted. Imagine if you were the VC who just gave them a $5 million infusion. Quote a commenter, “After months of development, it never occurred to either the Harvard guy or the MIT guy to test their code with a real query? An investor had to suggest it? Hello? This is not giving me a warm and fuzzy feeling about the folks graduating from America’s elite universities.”

Luckily for Panjiva, they went back to the drawing boards and cranked out a search engine that worked. Lesson learned: ask for feedback earlier in the development cycle. It’s a painful lesson to learn and one that we sometimes forget about in the heat of development. Just ask Google.

Coming back to my desk after checking out a piece of equipment at work, the last thing I was thinking about was my admission decision from Smith. When my Storm alerted me about a new email, I thought that I might have received another junk email from Patagonia telling me about the Winterfest sale. When I saw that it was from UMD, my mind went blank for a second. My excitement mounted with every sentence that I read until I got to the part that said, “Your’e in”.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic. The first thing that I did was email my gf about the news. The second thing that I did was ponder whether I should send a thank you letter to the admin folks and follow it up with a question about graduate assistantship. My attention returned to work however because I had to leave work earlier to take my sister to the airport.

When my Storm went off again, I was once again surprised that the email was from Smith. This time, the email was about an offer for graduate assistantship. At that moment, I got out of my chair and did some fist pumps.

So what now. I’m still waiting for the Owen and Broad decisions to roll in and I want to see what the offer is before I make a final decision. Meanwhile, I’m going to be making plans to attend the Admitted Student Weekend event @ Smith which is scheduled for March 5-6th. And with one admit on the books, I’m going to start looking into an exit plan for work and a plan for how to spend my time after leaving work.

Today was a good day. Things lined up just perfectly. Hell, I even scored a pair of shoes that was 50% off at Patagonia. Score!