It's Tough, But Somebody's Gotta Do It

There are only 3 weeks left of this first year and I definitely feel the stress now. There are so many projects and papers due and so much group work that I feel like four weeks is not enough to finish everything. That, coupled with my other responsibilities of co-running Pepperdine’s chapter of Challenge for Charity, working with the National Association of Women MBA’s (NAWMBA) on developing their brand, and following up on different internship leads, leaves me no other time to breath.

With only a few days left to finish our E2B marketing plan and finance project, tempers are getting shorter and shorter. The good thing about these extensive projects is that you are forced to learn how to deal with different characters with sometimes different priorities and under a
tight schedule. And you’re supposed to make it work so you can carry out the task you were given! This is probably one of the most important take-aways from business school.

Sometimes though we take breaks. Very short, but we still do. Or we mix business with pleasure. Last week we had an online game to do for our Technology class. Because the game was called Root Beer, my team and I got together to play the game and have Root Beer floats. Work hard and play hard, right? Yesterday for example, a bunch of first and second-year students went to Santa Monica for a Beach Battle. The event was organized by C4C and about 10-15 children from CLF joined us to play volleyball and build sand castles. Breaks don’t happen very often these days, but we need to keep our sanity. Three more weeks to go!

Catching Up

I’ve been running behind on updates on this blog because it’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks. It’s not an excuse, it’s the simple reality of having no time for anything else other than school. Well, to be fair, I managed to sneak a weekend trip to Vegas for my sister-in-law’s birthday.

But let’s bring you up to date with what’s been going on lately. A couple of weeks ago, Net Impact and The Value-Centered Leadership Lab (VCLL) organized Social Enterprise Week (SEW). It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences at Peppedine. I had the opportunity to help bring together very smart business people whose organizations are driven by ethics and social consciousness. Some of our fellow MBA’s discussed their business ventures and how they got the ideas and funding. We had food provided by the Green Truck. And the week ended with Running the Malibu Waves Race, organized by Challenge for Charity (C4C) and benefiting Southern California Special Olympics and The Childrens Lifesaving Foundation (CLF). The race was a great success and the winners received certificates decorated by children that CLF is helping.

What else is going on? I’m still working on getting an internship. Many MBA’s - yours truly included - are feeling grateful that being in schools protects us from potential layoffs. At the same time, the state of the economy is making it more difficult to get internships. Many companies are faced with having to reduce the number of interns, or are taking the same number of interns but can’t afford to pay. Now more than ever your network is your best asset. And if that doesn’t work, then select a few companies that you are really interested in working with and call them to see if they’re taking interns this year. Because I want to work in marketing, I chose three marketing agencies that fit my professional and personal interests and called them. The responses have been positive so far and I’m hoping to work with one of them. I’ll keep you posted.

I Fuel Good!

Last night, my husband and I went to see Fuel. I heard about this documentary by accident. I saw an internship posted on Pepperdine’s career services website and I got in touch with the company that produced the film. As it always happens in life, one conversation led to another and last night, I’m at the AMC theatre in Santa Monica expecting to see just another documentary. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was more than that.

Josh Tickell, the man behind the project, has spent more than ten years of his life finding a way to replace the oil we are so dependant on with something else that is renewable and nontoxic. And as it happens so many times, the answer was right there. It had been invented many years before. We all heard about it. And not only that, but some European countries were already using it. It was diesel fuel. Yes! The original one, that is. The one that Diesel himself invented, the one that was made out of vegetable oil: biodiesel fuel.

Then what stood between Diesel’s invention and its use on a large scale? Well, it was Rockefeller, Standard Oil, Exxon Mobil, interested governments and partnerships. I won’t spoil all the fun for you, I would just suggest you go see Fuel and form your own opinion about it. It recently won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary and through the energy of supporters has made it to a cinema near us. It is definitely a documentary worth seeing. It will first make you angry and then hopeful because it doesn’t just show the problem, it also offers solutions!