Celebrating One Year of Blogging

Happy 4th of July everyone! Every year on an annual celebration, I remind myself to look back at the year passed and see what I’ve accomplished. It is very easy to always want to do more and forget to be grateful for what you have, so looking back makes me put things in perspective and stay grounded.

Yesterday, I thought about where I was last year on the 4th of July. Besides the proverbial barbecue, I also remembered that I was getting ready for the big transition to school. I was leaving behind six years in the workforce to start my b-school journey. I was nervous and excited at the same time. And it was also in July when Paul Pinckley, the Executive Director of Student Recruitment for the Full-time MBA Program announced that I was selected as one of the five students to blog about my b-school experience. I was excited to blog about the MBA program because I thought it was a good marketing initiative. Little did I realize that it was an initiative from which I was also going to benefit. How? Simply by allowing me to record my thoughts and experiences on a regular basis. Last week, I went back and re-read some of the earlier entries and just smiled. It was interesting to see what I was thinking a year ago or even a few months ago. Looking back now, I feel like this first year of b-school has been a truly growing experience. Let’s put it this way: a year ago, I did not know what I did not know. Now, I think I have a pretty good idea of what I know and what I still need to learn. For me it is clear that every entry marks my being one step closer to a wiser self.

And what exactly am I trying to say here and how does this apply to you? My suggestion is to keep a blog or journal of your experience. Write weekly entries. They don’t always have to be great accomplishments – you’ve read mine, I think we can all agree that they couldn’t be farther from accomplishments – but it will give you the opportunity to process your experiences and record them. It is part of the self-discovery process. Even if you think you know yourself very well, any experience will teach you more about yourself. Some lessons are not as apparent as others and sometimes it takes some time to see how a certain experience shapes you or how it influences the course of your life. I’ll give you an example:

You might remember that in the fall I had an interview with AT&T for a leadership internship position over the summer. The program is very well designed and offers great training. Just like other MBA’s across the country I wanted to be one of the AT&T interns. I was asked for a second interview – a very structured and tough interview – and then I waited for the verdict. Before I found out, I stopped to think about what I would have changed, if anything, if I were to have the interview again. I analyzed every question and every answer and decided that whatever happened, I knew I gave it my best and I wouldn’t have changed anything. I always say that everything happens for a reason. And it does, at least in my life. I didn’t get the position. I was a bit upset, but not disappointed. I knew that this closed door meant another door would open somewhere else. Also, as it turned out AT&T had to accept a lot less interns this year and none of the offers made to people I knew were in marketing. This experience allowed me to understand what I was really looking in an internship position: First of all, it had to be in marketing; second, it had to be a very structured program; third, it had to have supervisors with lots of experience in marketing from whom I could learn a lot and who were willing to teach me; and fourth, it had to offer a project that I could take from beginning to end. I found all that in a marketing analyst position with the Office of the Dean of the Fully-Employed MBA Program at Pepperdine and also in an online marketing and communications intern position with the Step Up Women’s Network, a national non-profit headquartered in Los Angeles. Again, a closed door opens another door somewhere else.