New Year, New Semester, New Job!

First off, I want to say congratulations to everyone admitted into the 2014 class!! Receiving the good news about getting into LGO is one of my most memorable moments and I'm so excited for everyone who got to experience that this past week. 

It's been a while since I've posted so I'll try to recap what's been going on since my last entry.

Internship Wrap Up and Job Update:

My final internship presentations were well received by the working groups I was a part of at Intel.    Overall, the experience was a great one due to the topics previously mentioned in a few of my blog posts (networking and Shanghai) as well as having such a supportive manager and supervisor and learning so much from my working groups and everyone else I had the chance to talk to.

It ended on an especially good note because I was invited to return to Intel as a part of the ALP Rotation Program.  After learning about the program and talking to several people in ALP, I knew it was a great fit for me and would be a wonderful career growth opportunity.  I wanted to do Product Management post grad school, and through this program I will not only have a chance to try out a PM role but will also get to explore other functions and groups before deciding where I want to be placed at the end of the two years.  I started interviewing for a couple of positions at other companies and at a certain point decided to forego additional interviews because even though the opportunities elsewhere would have also been great ones, I knew ALP not only was a good fit but was also in the ideal location for me as well as a place I had already started building a network.  Because I am changing industries, I liked the flexibility of trying out a few rotations before my final placement.  I also liked the idea of going through the program with a cohort of MBAs from other schools who I could also learn from and get to know.

In addition to being excited about the program itself, it was also really great to accept this offer because when I first got into LGO, I was presented with a very generous fellowship sponsored by Intel called the Robert Noyce Scholarship.  This scholarship wasn't binding so it's a great feeling knowing that I wanted to work for Intel anyway and that I'll have the opportunity to give back to a company that has helped me out in so many ways.      

Spring Semester So Far:   

Spring semester has been a lot of fun!  I somehow ended up with only having classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the first half of the semester and have been taking advantage of my remaining time in the northeast by traveling almost every weekend.  Our last big milestone in LGO is the thesis we have to write based on our internship projects so I've been largely devoting my Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to thesis writing.  Aside from that, I've been catching up with friends and attending as many school events as possible.

Mediterranean Penguins Dinner!

Leo, me, and Limor at the Israeli C-Function, Purim Carnival

I've also been doing a lot of baking this semester and had some fun with leftover chocolate chip cookie batter I had. :)

Upcoming Events:

The semester is almost half way over but there's plenty to look forward to in the second half.  I'm going on the Korea Trek during Spring Break with sixty other Sloanies for a little over a week.  I studied abroad in Korea in 2005 and haven't been back since.  I was a bit torn on deciding to go because b-school provides so many opportunities to travel to new places but since I haven't visited for so long and the roster included a lot of friends, I knew it would be a great time.  I'm also looking forward to Sloan's annual British Virgin Islands trip at the end of May.  It's a trip where all of the second years sail around BVI for a week and celebrate the end of school.  In addition to those two trips, I'm also in the process of planning a trip over Patriot's Day Weekend (a 4 day weekend in mid-April).  The rest of the semester should be a lot of fun and I'll be sure to write about my experiences rounding out my time as an LGO.   

Shanghai

A few weeks ago, Pamela (LGO '12) and I got a chance to go to Shanghai to visit Intel customers.  The local Intel team did a wonderful job hosting us.  One of our customer visits included a line tour, and it was fascinating to see the manufacturing of notebooks.  Visiting all those plants during 1st year of LGO trained us well in making observations and asking the right questions relevant to our project topics.  Not only did the local team help set up our visits and meetings with customers but they also showed us around the city.  Throughout the week, we had dinners and got to sight see in areas including Hong Mei Road, Tian Zi Fang, Yuyuan Garden, and the Bund.  Pamela and I extended our trip through the weekend and also visited Xintiandi.  The combination of academia, industry, and leisure made this trip a great way to visit China for the first time.

Yuyuan Garden

Networking at Intel

In some ways, I think I've done more networking while on my internship than during my entire first year.  It's been incredible being plugged into the LGO network within Intel.  As soon as internship started, we (me and the 2 other 2012 LGO interns) were encouraged to reach out to as many LGO alums as possible to learn more about their respective Intel roles and experiences and their individual career paths since graduating from the program.  I've learned far more than I thought I would have because of the accessibility to so many alums.  In some cases, some of them have provided additional contacts who have helped me with my project and others have connected me with strong leaders at the company who have shared very interesting career and life perspectives.  I've been really impressed with how receptive everyone has been to my 1:1 requests and how open they have been to telling their stories and addressing any questions I've had.  As I've started thinking more and more about recruiting and exploring what options I may have after graduation, the responsiveness of the LGO alum community in the Silicon Valley has far exceeded my expectations as well. 

Another great network the LGO interns have been plugged into is the Accelerated Leadership Program (ALP), which is a two-year rotational MBA program.  This past year was the first time the LGO interns were integrated with the summer MBA ALP interns.  Through the ALP network, we've had the opportunity to talk to several members from previous classes and to learn about the different rotations and experiences they've had at Intel. 

Between the LGO alum network, the ALP network, and the people I've worked with for my project, I've had a great introduction to Intel and look forward to the remainder of my time here for internship and any future connections I may have with the company. 

Rounding Out 1st Year

I have officially (well, as of last month) survived my 1st year of LGO!  I wanted to post about my internship but before I wrote about that, I wanted to share about my experience in one particular class I took this past Spring semester.  

Thermal packaging system on right

For our ESD.941 Operations Lab course, we worked on a logistics project for Cold Chain Technologies, a thermal packaging company located in Holliston, MA.  More specifically, we looked into whether or not refurbishment would be viable for one of their passive refrigeration systems.  After our team had several discussions with Cold Chain's Larry Gordon, President, and Bob Bohne, VP and GM, and a few others in operations and sales, we gathered the data they had shared and came up with a pricing model, logistics model, and process flow for them.   The project ended up being really interesting.  I enjoyed working with the second years on my team and learning more about logistics and how to build an optimization model based on the inputs.  I would say overall, the project was a success--the scope was manageable, the people we worked with were very responsive, and our final recommendations were well received.  Below is the LGO Cold Chain team with the President and VP of Cold Chain.

Left to right: Mike Donahue (LGO '11), Me, Steve Wessels (LGO'11), Kacey Fetcho-Phillips (LGO '11),
Bob Bohne (VP, GM), Larry Gordon (President)

I am now living out in Mountain View, CA and commuting to Santa Clara for my internship with Intel.  My experience so far has been great.  My manager, an LGO 93' alum, and my supervisor have been very supportive in teaching me as much about the group and company as possible, and working with me to determine what project I will be working on over the next six months.  I've felt a lot of support beyond my group as well.  There are several LGO alums at Intel who have been very resourceful and have helped immensely with the transition.  

It feels wonderful to be back in California.  Outside of work, I've gotten the chance to reconnect with old high school and college friends, and spend more time with Sloanies who I didn't get to spend as much time with throughout the busy school year.  Should be a great summer out here and 6 months with Intel.  :)

  

Spring Forward

Daylight savings time starts this Sunday.  Hooray for longer (and hopefully warmer!) days.

Congratulations to the admitted class of 2013!  I look forward to meeting all of you at your Open House and hope everyone can make it.  I had a lot of fun getting to know my classmates last year and given how soon after admittance the program starts, it's a great way to make the transition to moving here a lot smoother.  I would say some of the highlights to look forward to are:

* meeting the admitted class
* getting to know the graduating class and the year above you
* figuring out housing
* dance parties (there always seems to be one when there are a group of LGOs around)

Picture taken during our apartment search at Open House.  View of Cambridge City Hall from our balcony.

Finding out about the new incoming class as well as finding out about our internships have definitely been the notable LGO events of the semester so far.  I'll be at Intel working for the Customer Manufacturing Enabling group in Santa Clara, CA.  I just had my initial conversation with my supervisor the other day, and he gave me an overview of the group and what potential projects I could focus on.  Although the project I'll be working on is still TBD, I'm definitely looking forward to my experience at Intel and the exposure I'll get in this industry.  I'm also excited to be back in California. :)

On another note, Spring semester has been pretty different from the Fall.  I'm not as involved in as many extracurriculars this semester so I've been able to focus a lot more time on my classes, which is a good thing because I am taking two time consuming engineering classes.  The two I'm taking are 6.555 Biomedical Signal and Image Processing and 6.541 Speech Communication.  The first class, which fulfills my design requirement, is a good mix between theory and application.  So far in labs one and two, we've learned how to process ECG signals and speech signals.  The 2nd lab ties in really well with my other engineering class where we are learning about how speech is produced and the different sources that affect it.  If you're wondering how that is related to EE, we are studying the frequency/amplitude/time variant characteristics that result from varying speech pressures, constrictions, and velocities, which can also be expressed through equivalent circuit models.  The other classes I'm taking this semester include:

15.900 Competitive Strategy (this is an H1 class so it just ended today)
15.910 Innovation Strategy (H2 class starts after Spring Break)
15.401 Finance I (can't speak for the remaining of the semester, but I think they've been a lot easier on us this semester than they were to the finance sections last semester)
15.846 Branding (H2 class)
15.792 LGO Prosem
ESD.941 Tiger Teams (working on a logistics project for a thermal packaging company)

Next week is SIP week.  I'm signed up for ES.513 Design Inspired Innovation.  We don't have any Sloan classes during SIP, which is really nice because I have two midterms and a lab due for my engineering classes.  Should be a busy week before we're off for Spring Break!

MediaTech Trek: Silicon Valley

A few others have already blogged about our LGO Domestic Plant Trek so I thought I'd write about another trek I went on in the first week of January - the MediaTech Trek.  Before I do though, I thought it would be worth sharing at least one picture from the Plant Trek:

Don checking out a Tesla at the Detroit Auto Show!

Outside one of the Google buildings

I was able to go on the MediaTech trek because I am a member of the Sloan MediaTech club and also because the Domestic Plant Trek started on the second week of January.  There were about 25-30 of us on the trek, and the companies we visited in Silicon Valley included: Intel, Zynga, Charles Schwab, Cisco, Google, Facebook, VMware, eBay, and LinkedIn.  It was great to get more of the Sloan perspective of a few of our partner companies, as well as learn about some companies and their cultures that were more on the startup end of their life cycle.  It was also very interesting to visit all of these companies and to hear about the opportunities available to MBA students in the tech space.  Operations roles were always presented as potential career tracks we could follow, but other positions in product management, strategy, and business development to name a few were well represented as well.

Me and Limor at Facebook

For a few of our visits, we integrated with some of the Sloan E&I folks who were also out in Silicon Valley for their E&I trek.  Also, on one of the nights, we went to an MIT Sloan alum reception that was held at the Computer History Museum (go figure) in Mountain View so we got to see the rest of the E&I group, some of the alums who spoke at the companies we visited, and other alums who were from the area.  Overall, I had a great time visiting the companies, seeing Silicon Valley for the first time, and hanging out with MediaTech people on this trek.  The Silicon Valley portion of the trek was from January 3 - 5th.  Most of the group went on to visit Seattle for the remainder of the week, but I went back to Boston to tie up loose ends for plant trek and to repack for weather ranging from 20 degrees to 85 degrees, which was definitely tricky.  After having a few weeks off in December, things ramped up pretty quickly with all of the treks, InternshipFest, and InterviewFest.

By the way, good luck to all of those who interviewed!!          

Looking Back on the Fall Semester

Even though it's already February, Happy New Year!  Actually, I guess it's appropriate to say according to the Lunar Calendar.  :)

Before posting on more recent events, I wanted to blog my two cents on the fall semester.  As you might have already read in several of the other bloggers' posts, there was a definite contrast between the summer and fall semester both socially and academically.  A lot of applicants I spoke to over the semester asked how it's possible that we earn two degrees in two years.  I will admit that it's not a walk in the park.  Although the perspectives vary from LGO to LGO, there are definitely challenges faced and certain trade-offs (both good and bad) that need to be balanced in this program.       

Time was easily my biggest constraint in the fall.  Between all of the classes I was taking and clubs and committees I was involved in, I definitely felt like I was spreading myself thin.  For the most part, although I didn't do the greatest job in branching out, I'm happy with the relationships I've built through Sloan (i.e. my core team and Marketlab team) so far.  Below is a picture of my core team.  I only ended up being in three classes with them, but overall, I had a positive experience working in such a diverse team.  Between the seven of us, we represented San Diego, NY, Boston, Washington (state), Indonesia, Korea, and Brazil!

Mediterranean Penguins: Steve, Chris, Caesar, me, Luiz, Janet, and Giuliana

Best of Both Worlds

There are a lot of ways to get involved in the Sloan community, and by a lot, I mean for every professional, personal, cultural, and recreational interest you have, it is highly likely that you will find some club or group that shares your interests.  Going into the fall, I was already involved in a few LGO committees but knew I wanted to take advantage of the club opportunities at Sloan.  Because I'm interested in high tech, I joined MediaTech and MoMIT (Mobile, Media, and Internet Technology) as well as the Marketing Club and Sloan Women in Management (SWIM).

That may seem like a lot of clubs, but I knew my involvement in most of them would be pretty minimal given everything else going on.  More than anything, I wanted to be a part of these communities (and email distributions) so that if there was an event of particular interest to me, I would have the option of going.  So far I'm glad I joined them, because I've already had the opportunity to attend networking events for each one of the clubs.  Another big perk is that they've allowed me to integrate with the Sloan community on a more personal basis.

Of the four, I am the most involved in the Marketing Club, which has a semester long marketing project that members can participate in called MarketLab.  We're grouped together based on what project we would like to work on; I am in the group that is working with a roboticist in the Media Lab.  It's a good balance between using my technical background to understand his products and applying lessons learned so far in my marketing class.  I think my group is going to get a chance to tour the Media Lab next week, which I'm pretty excited about!

Overall, extracurriculars have definitely contributed to the highlights of my semester so far.  Being on committees and clubs in both the LGO and Sloan community has been one aspect of being able to take advantage of the broad opportunities presented to us in this program.

SIP Week & Fall Semester

First off, we're well into fall and it's so beautiful along the Charles.  :)

Last week was Sloan Innovation Period (SIP).  It was basically a week where we had a break from our Sloan classes and had the opportunity to explore classes in leadership and ethics.  Since LGOs still had engineering classes last week, we had different SIP requirements than the Sloanies and didn't technically have to sign up for any additional courses beyond the Core SIP Seminar.   

The Core Seminar titled "Ethics, Values, and Voice" was introduced for the first time this year.  The week started out with a case discussion on "BP and the Deepwater Horizon Disaster of 2010", was followed by a panel discussion on Ethics and the Financial Sector, and ended with class discussions on ethical frameworks and decision making.  I was enrolled in another SIP class, because I'm involved in a project called MarketLab, which I'll talk about in a later post, affiliated with Sloan's Marketing Club.  This class met Mon, Tues, and Wed evening.  Being out of sync with the normal semester schedule threw me off a bit, but overall, class discussions were interesting and for my MarketLab class, I enjoyed the time spent with my team members.   

SIP week is supposed to be lighter than other weeks but I think the week is just as busy for most LGOs.  Here's a comparison of my schedule:

Normal Week

SIP Week

Regular classes have resumed again, and I have to say, it feels good to be back to my normal schedule.  A few posts ago, I talked about the classes I was enrolled in for the fall.  Things have definitely changed since that post!  MIT's add/drop policies are pretty flexible and I have taken full advantage of them.  I ended up dropping my half-term marketing elective and my engineering course and adding another engineering course (15.093J Optimization Methods).  I made my add/drop decisions based on the time required for each class and how well I would or wouldn't be able to prioritize them.  I'm finding that one of my biggest constraints here has been time, and I'm constantly learning what my limits are in terms of what I can handle.       

Many of you out there may be going through the application process right now.  Becca Ford, LGO '10, wrote an awesome post with great advice regarding applications. I especially like what she wrote on essays.  She had a very realistic perspective and very helpful information on what to consider when writing them.  I got a chance to meet several prospectives yesterday during Ambassador Day.  It was great to see such a good turn out and such a strong interest in the program.  Good luck to everyone applying! 

Stay tuned...

How has it already been almost two months since I've last blogged?  So much has happened since the end of August.  Even though this upcoming week is SIP week, my schedule looks just as, if not, busier than my other weeks, so I think I'll write a mini series with updates starting next week.

As a reminder for myself, topics I would like to write about include:
SIP Week
Courses
Clubs
Cohort/Core Team
Being an LGO in the fall

Something I would like to mention in this post for all prospective applicants is that you should definitely try to make it to the LGO Ambassador Day and/or Information Evening on Monday, October 25th.  I went last year, and I thought it was a great way to learn more about the program, meet current students, and get a feel for Boston/Cambridge (it was my first time visiting the city!).

1 Semester Down, 3 to Go!

With 4 projects, 2 presentations, 2 project/simulation write-ups, 3 homework assignments, 1 test, and 1 paper, the last two weeks of the summer semester were pretty hectic to say the least.  But because so much of the work was group work, most teams pushed through the end by resorting to the divide-and-conquer method of completing all of the tasks.  Although it was hectic, the end of the summer was a lot less stressful than I would have imagined.

Following the final class and before our summer barbecue, we had an LGO version of the Oscars, where some of the awards worth mentioning included the Bobble Head Award (person who sleeps the most in class), the Game Show Contestant Award (person who is most likely to raise his/her hand in class), and the 1 Angry Man Award (person who was the most frustrated in class).  All of the winners received a colorful bow-tie in honor of our High Velocity professor, Steven Spear.  It was all in good fun and all of the award-winners were great sports.  :)  

All of the Summer Standouts!

One other thing I wanted to mention about the end of the semester was that we had a visit from the CEO of Flextronics, Mike McNamara, the Monday before school got out.  He was very down-to-earth and honest, and it was very interesting to learn about a company I wasn't familiar with.  The information he shared along with all of the Q and As definitely sparked my interest, and I plan to further look into what the company does.

Once the semester ended, I headed back home to San Diego.  It's been great out here as always - spent with amazing people in amazing weather.  This week is actually Sloan's pre-term week with review sessions on several of the core classes.  Because the LGOs have already taken a few of the core classes and because I wanted to take advantage of my vacation time, I decided to opt out of pre-term week.

As LGOs we went through our own orientation during the first week of June, but now we get to experience the Sloan orientation for about a week starting Monday, August 30th.  For orientation and throughout the Fall semester, the 48 LGOs will be evenly split among the six Sloan cohorts (a.k.a. oceans) and within those oceans we'll be sub-divided into smaller groups and no longer be working in our LGO summer groups.  I think Sloan sets up the groups so that no two LGOs are in the same one.  I'm looking forward to meeting my new classmates and the people in my cohort.  I'm also looking forward to the classes I'll be taking this semester which include:

15.010 Economic Analysis for Business Decisions
15.280 Communication for Leaders
15.311 Organizational Processes (often called Organizational Behavior at other b-schools)
15.516 Corporate Financial Accounting (all Sloanies and most LGOs take 15.515 Financial Accounting, but a few of us LGOs are taking this class instead due to a schedule conflict with an engineering class)
15.810 Marketing Management
15.821 Listening to the Customer (half-term course)
6.341 Discrete-Time Signal Processing

I'll also be taking two seminars:
15.972J Global Operations Leadership Seminar
15.972 Leadership and Ethics
 

It should be a busy semester, but I'm sure balancing the academic and social aspects of the program won't be a problem, as it wasn't over the summer.  Until next time!

The Flying V!

At the beginning of the program in June, we were assigned summer groups.  At first, I had a hard time understanding what exactly being in these groups entailed, but looking back at the last two months, I don't think I could have made it this far without them!  We meet several times a week, and all of our meetings start with a group check-in where each individual will share his or her input/thoughts on classes, assignments, plant trek visits or anything going on really.  Then we try to stick to the schedule we've mapped out for the next few hours.  Give or take a few times, I think we've done a great job staying on task.  We work on everything from group projects and assignments to simulation and case study analyses.     

     

Mike, Dan, Matt, Greg, John, and me

Our group, team five, is named The Flying V.  We got team shirts printed, and we wear our shirts on days we have leadership class.  In case the connection between the two isn't very clear, wearing the shirts on leadership days is in line with the theme of how a flock of birds have rotating leaders, which is something we also incorporate into our meetings.  We rotate through the group on who mediates the meetings for the week, and it's been pretty effective.  We manage to take the group name one step further by sitting in a V-formation during our leadership classes.  A bit dorky, I know, but I love it!  Today was awesome, because after our group meeting most of our group headed over to the Muddy Charles, the on-campus pub, and had a few beers while we worked on our Littlefield Simulation, which is a job shop simulation where we try to maximize our revenue through operations/production-related changes in a given amount of time.

At the Muddy Charles

We've worked in these groups for a majority of the summer, but last Friday we were assigned different groups for the day for the Leadership Reaction Course we did at Camp Edwards in Cape Cod.  Both Limor and Paul give descriptions on what the day was all about in their blogs.  Our team facilitator was Dr. Jaffe, and after it was my turn to play the leader role, he told me that I had a command-and-control style of leadership in that exercise, which I thought was interesting.  I had a great time working in a group with other members of my class.  We were also lucky enough to have Patty, the Program Coordinator, in our group!  

Sid, Amil, me, Daniel, Jose, and Patty

All in all, my LGO group experiences have been amazing so far, and it's bittersweet knowing that we'll be in new study groups in the fall when we're integrated with the rest of the Sloan first-years.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took both, and that has made all the difference.

So let me back track a bit now that I've posted an entry on some of the things we've been up to since the program started. 

I was working out in San Diego, which is where I grew up, before I moved out to the Boston area.  I went to UCLA for undergrad where I studied Electrical Engineering.  I had plans to go to grad school to receive my MEng in EE at Cornell after undergrad, but I decided to take the industry route instead.  Since graduation, I've worked at two different aersopace companies in various engineering roles.  Soon after I started working, I began to discover how little I knew about the business/program side of things.  I still wanted to further my studies in engineering, but learning about business was sounding more and more appealing to me as well.  I was debating between engineering and business schools for a while until I found out that business/engineering dual degree programs existed.  After doing my research on the programs out there, I found that LGO was easily one of my top choices.  By then I had already starting taking a few business courses part-time at local community colleges to make sure that an MBA was something I really wanted to pursue as well.  I took the GMATs (I had taken the GREs my 4th year of undergrad but wanted to apply to LGO through Sloan.  Note: I am not a naturally strong test-taker, so it took me 3 (!!!) attempts at the GMATs before I was happy with my score), applied, got in, and happily accepted my offer!

Although working in aerospace provided me with great work/life experience, I came to LGO hoping to explore potential opportunities in product management, specifically in consumer technology -- a career path that seems like it might be a better fit for me.  I also came into the program knowing that I'd be exposed to so many new ideas that, although my initial course of action will still be focused towards product management, I'm open to other opportunities that may come my way as well. 

For my EE coursework, I'm planning to take classes in digital, image, and audio signal processing, which were the topics I was most interested in towards the end of my time at UCLA.  For my Sloan electives, I'm planning to primarily focus on marketing.  I'm interested in connecting products to their end customers and am hoping that a more technical background will alleviate some of the disconnect that seems to arise between the varied perspectives of those in engineering and marketing.  More to come on current courses and courses I plan to take in the fall in a later blog; for now, I should get back to preparing for a case we're going to go over in class tomorrow.

The First Seven Weeks

We're seven weeks into the MIT LGO program and so much has already happened.  I realize that one post won't do the last seven weeks justice, but I thought I'd at least share a few of my favorite parts of the program thus far.

At the end of our first week, we went to Thompson Island Outward Bound - a day filled with team-building activities.  We spent the first half of our day on a ropes course (pictured below).  The last time I did one of these was in high school.  I went my sophomore, junior, and senior year to the same ropes course in Julian, CA, and I remember how each year progressively seemed more challenging than the previous one for some odd reason.  I was nervous and excited to attempt the Outward Bound course.  Sure enough, the moment I started climbing and realized how small and unstable some of the holds were, I wanted to be back on solid ground.  I slowly made my way up.  I was the second to last one to go in my group, so I had had plenty of time to plan out how I was going to get to the top.  I had decided and planned to take the cargo net route.  I managed to get past that portion of the course ok, but by the time I got to the last part of the climb, my arms were tired and shaky and I was scared.  I waited a bit to regain some strength and pushed through the rest of the course.  I definitely developed a small fear of heights over the years, because as soon as I got to the top, I was fine sitting down but only forced myself to stand since I had made it all the way up there.  It felt awesome reaching the top, but I think it felt even more awesome coming back down.  :P

Thanks to my team for being so encouraging and for all the helpful tips along the way!     

The Challenge

Starting my climb

Making my way to the top

Reluctant and tired

 Feeling safe sitting down

Hooray!

All of the class simulations we've had so far count as another favorite of mine from the first seven weeks.  Continuous and lean improvements, 6 sigma, and inventory, backlog, and demand have been a few of the applied lessons learned through all of the simulations.  Having had little to no background on all of these topics, I definitely feel like I've experienced a steep learning curve throughout these simulations and in several of the other classes we're taking this semester.

Another significant event I wanted to write about in this post was not directly program related but was a day spent with my fellow classmates; it was spending the 4th of July at MIT's Sailing Pavilion.  A few of us got there earlier in the day to stake out a large enough area for all 60+ LGOs, SOs, friends, and family who made it out.  It was a great day followed by the most impressive showing of fireworks I have ever seen. I even managed to tag along with a few others on a sail around the Charles during the afternoon.  Below is a picture of me and my roommate, Limor, another LGO '12, sitting at the deck of the pavilion on the 4th.  

Finally, the CLGO visit was a very notable part of the summer so far as well.  It was so great to meet our Shanghai Jiao Tong University counterparts.  The BBQs and nights out with the CLGOs were a lot of fun, and the shared discussions were invaluable.  Hearing their perspective on the program and on business was very interesting and definitely left an impression on me.

If you are an LGO inquirer, you may have received an email that a fellow LGO '12, Jason Chen, wrote.  He did an awesome job summarizing the LGO program thus far and also added his own testimony.  If monthly program updates are of interest to you, I'd definitely recommend signing up for them: Request for Information. (As one of the co-chairs for the New Student Recruiting Communications subcommittee, I couldn't help but put in a plug for the program.) :)

Thanks for bearing through my first entry.  It was a bit of a long one, but I'm hoping there won't be a seven week gap between any future posts.