Boston Recap

The gf and I went to Boston for the long weekend / her birthday. Atop the Prudential Center after dessert she cried as she graduated to fiancee. Pretty excited about that!

As for Beantown - it was great to us. We did most of the touristy things, and a few not so touristy. Back Bay / Copley Square was pretty cool at night - lots of restaurants and bars. Thanks to the Chilli Duck for some good Thai food, and The Globe for giving us a menu as a momento of our trip.

Thumbs up for the Boston Duck and the USS Constitution tours, both which were way cooler than I could have imagined. The Sam Adams tour isn't bad either, if you like beer. Oh yeah, and go see Fenway if you get the chance...hopefully you'll get Steve as your tour guide!

Here's a picture of Ralphie - our traveling dog - and John Harvard's statue.

CFA - All Day, Everyday

Not that I don't already know most of the material on the CFA Level 1 exam, but I am spending the last weeks heading into it making sure I know the material. I'm putting in 8-12 hours a day - going over the stuff with a fine-toothed comb. It's not actually as bad as you might imagine, since most of the material is interesting (not the Tax stuff, however...)

Fortunately, there is a fun trip with the gf to Boston coming up later this week where I can forget about it for a few days. Beantown - here we come!

Easy Mac

Easy Mac with vegetables - one of my favorite meals on a b-school budget. 10 times better than ramen, at only 2 times the cost :-)

A Quick Thought

I really hope that the gentleman on State St. playing the 5 gallon buckets with his drumsticks is using the money in his tip cup to buy some drums.

ASAP Placement from UW-Madison

Placement this year at graduation for ASAP'ers is quite strong. Places employing ASAP '06 grads:

Fidelity - buy side - Boston, MA (2)
UBS - sell side - NYC, NY (2)
Heartland Advisors - buy side - Milwaukee, WI
American Century - buy side - Kansas City, MO
Waddell & Reed - buy side - Kansas City, MO
State of WI Investment Board - buy side - Madison, WI
Passport Capital, LLC - buy side/hedge - San Francisco, CA
McDonnell Investment Mgmt. - buy side - Chicago, IL
Green Street Advisors - buyside - Newport Beach, CA

There are still a couple to go, but the remaining students are close to finding homes. For a list of firms that employ UW-Madison ASAP grads: http://www.bus.wisc.edu/asap/employers/firms.asp

As for my class, 2007, 9 of 11 of us have internships, and there may or may not be a 10th hiree here in a couple of weeks.

So things look pretty good, and the rumor is that the incoming class of 2008 is taking shape very nicely. This will be the third class that is part of the MBA program, but I believe the 38th ASAP class to come through UW.

In the meantime, the new MBA building project has begun. The adjacent building - where the new building will be created - is being demolished as I type.

Great things happening here at UW!

And so, Baltimore it will be...

I'm not sure what all the rules are about posting where I'll be working and whatnot...but I can say that I'm really excited to be headed where I am for the summer. It is in the heart of Downtown Baltimore at a firm that invests primarily in Private Equity, but also has a hedge fund business. My excitement was mostly subdued on Friday when I visited the firm - however my insides were incredibly excited.

Now, there's still work to do - the CFA Level 1 exam is on June 3rd and I have probably only put in 50 hours of studying outside of the MBA core.

I'm Done! (with year one)

My last exam was not my best moment as an MBA student, but I am now a 2nd year student. Party Time!

Actually, I did party it up for 3 whole hours, then I came home and fell asleep attempting to watch TV at 9:05 and slept nearly 12 hours before waking this morning.

I apologize for getting lazy with the Oros Speaker updates. It's a shame, too, because the last two speakers were Barry Alvarez - former football coach at UW and now the Athletic Director and John Morgridge, former CEO of Cisco Systems. Both of these guys were funnier than expected and pretty insightful. Barry talked alot about motivation and leadership, and John discussed the culture at Cisco and how it helped fuel its success.

At any rate, early next week I should be able to tell you all whether I will spend my summer in Baltimore or Minneapolis.

Observations at UW-Madison

1. The undergrads are pretty hot
   
2. No, they're really hot
   
3. There may not be a better feeling than getting an opportunity to kill time on the Union Terrace with a beer on a nice day
   
4. Us MBA's stick out on campus like Barry Bonds at a little people's convention
   
5. Marketing people get jobs really, really early
   
6. Finance people get jobs really, really late
   
7. They all wind up being really good jobs