Back to School

It's great to be back in Philadelphia and pre-term has been a blast so far.  It's been insanely busy though.  I got back from India (where I was on summer immersion as part of my dual degree Lauder program) last Saturday, which was immediately followed by a weekend of moving.  If there's a way to walk into class tired on the very first day, it would be to come back from half way across the world and move an entire apartment while still suffering from jetlag!  I was exhausted by the time I got to campus on Monday at 8:30 AM.

Since my posts are being published in two places (my personal blog as well as Wharton Student Diaries), I'll digress and do a quick intro for my program once again.  I'm a Wharton/Lauder dual degree candidate.  That essentially means, along with my MBA, I'm also doing an MA in International Studies.  The MA consists of a country/language focus (India/Hindi in my case) as well as additional coursework in global business.  The MA portion also means that I started classes in May in Philadelphia and continued language classes in June/July in India.  So in essence, I've already been back to school for 3 months now.

So what was the first week like?  Well, on the first day we found out our cohorts, followed by orientation and introductions.  Our cohort was one of the better organized ones since we decided we wanted to do a social happy hour on the first day.  Yah!  On the second day, pre-term classes started.  My schedule was actually somewhat light since I took the Math Waiver Exam prior to arriving at Wharton.  There is a pre-requisite Math exam that everyone needs to pass in pre-term but since I had already done that, I was able to skip out of the math prep classes.  For any future students, make sure you do the same - it's a life saver in pre-term!  Other than that, I've had Stats, Managerial Economics and Finance classes this week.  Since I have a math background (Engineering to be specific), I've found them to be quite straightforward so far but I'm sure the difficulty will pick up in the second week.

Other than the academics, the social aspect is definitely in full swing.  Walk into any of the big name bars in Philadelphia this week and you're guaranteed to find at least 50 Wharton students!  I started the week similarly but decided to tone it back the last couple of days.  There's only so much one can go out in the first week!  Beyond the drinking, a number of student-organized events are also starting to happen - soccer games, golf, poker, theater, photography tours, etc...  The Wharton Class of 2013 is vibrant and excited to be here.  I'm sure it'll make for a great 2 years!