What DO I want to be when I grow up? October 23, 2007

No, seriously. Isn’t school supposed to be a time when I get to, you know, stall a little? Immerse myself in my studies, meet some cool people, not think about what comes next for a few months, maybe, you know, “network” a little, if ya know what I mean…? Er, wait, what do I mean? Networking? Huh? Well, so here we are, in the third week of October (which, by the way, what???) and it’s Career Week at ESADE. The purpose of this week is to introduce the people who are interested in Investment Banking and Consulting to their potential future employers, which means lots of presentations from very impressive people from very impressive companies. (In my case, this means my potential summer internships.) As I have mentioned, I’ve already concluded that i-banking is a big ol’ NO, so I find myself sitting in consulting presentation after consulting presentation and largely thinking, eek!, I’m not ready for this! But I have to be ready for this! This is why I’m here! But I’m NOT READY!!!! It’s terrifying. I’ve mostly concluded that I’ll be doing my summer internship in a consulting company, if they’ll have me, hopefully in London or here in Barcelona. Great. This means submitting my resume and cover letter between November and January, and then doing 2-3 rounds of interviews, each round having at least one, but probably two, interviews. And these interviews? Scary, terrifying, and completely intimidating. Why? Because they’re “case interviews,” which means they present you with a case that you then have to work through during the freaking interview. (The question will be something like “our client is a commercial leasing and maintenance company for trucks, tractors, and trailers; overall truck registrations are down 2.2% year over year, but revenue for the client has remained flat; design a growth strategy for them.” What? So then, after they present this terrifying question, it’s up to me to come up with the right kinds of questions to arrive at an eventual answer. Riiiiight. Yeah, after a few months of business school, I feel totally prepared to do that. Sure. Of course I do. Obviously.) So anyway, while I feel in many ways inspired by all of this, because it’s so exciting to think about what comes next, I’m much more prepared to think about the theory of what comes next than the actual practice of it, if you catch my drift. And as for what I want to be when I grow up? Ummmm, I’ll get back to you on that, I guess…