European MBA Diary

I've... seen things you people wouldn't believe...

2008-02-14T10:25:00.005-05:00

"... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die."

So... I finally decided to officially close this blog. It's about time, right? I understand that my last post was more than 8 months ago... and one month before graduation. But every time I wanted to post something I always had this mixed feeling of not having anything important to write about and having too much. For instance, I am having that exact feeling right now! When I started writing this post the plan was 'ok, I'll just say goodbye and that's it' but now there are so many things coming to mind (graduation days, CPM, the part-time private equity job, my full time job!, my next holidays in the Maldives, my recently acquired TV :-), life after the MBA, MBA interviews (now sitting on the other side of the table), my recent conversion to the Apple world (bought a macbook and I love it!!), etc, etc, etc...) and I'm getting all stressed out :-))

But no, I'll stick to the initial plan.

MBA was over last July and in August I was already starting my new job. Which, by the way, comes very very close of being my dream job. At least, it puts me on the right tracks to get there! I joined a FAN-TAS-TIC media company (hint: this post had something about it) in London and am just loving it! My girlfriend has moved to London in May (don't remember if I mentioned this in one of my previous posts), found a job and July... and life has been really good!

So, this whole MBA thing has paid off beautifully! Hard work? Oh yeah. Expensive? Ridiculously. Tiring? Very.

But I'd do it again.

Goodbye, my friends! Best of luck to you all!

Ok... I give up!

2007-06-07T04:15:00.001-05:00

It really seems that I cannot post something more frequently. Again, the 2-month barrier has not been overcome! :) Now, the problem is that there are sooooooo many things to talk about that I don't even know where to start!

Ok... mmm... MBAT. We won! Again! Probably you already know that, as you may have read it in some of the other fantastic blogs. But I still had to mention it. Here's a pic of the basketball champions :)

What else?... mmm... CPM! As you know, I am only taking this course this term (Creativity & Personal Mastery). And let me tell you something, it has been amazing!! This is exactly why I came to business school. I came here with a goal of self-discovery, of finding out what I love and hate, of being happier with myself. This course is all that and much more. The best thing about it, in my opinion, is that everyone has the chance to be trully herself/himself. There are no egos talking, no masks being worn. We had a fantastic weekend retreat, two weeks ago, and it was a beautiful experience (well... the long nights with insance amounts of alcohol at the hotel bar also helped).

Besides that, we have had some excellent guest speakers. The highlight was last Sunday when we had in the morning Ben Zanders (author of 'The Art of Possibility') and Marshall Goldsmith in the evening (executive coach and author of 'What Got You Here Won't Get You There'... you can also check his blog).

Here's a pic from our special thank you to Ben Zanders. The guys standing are ready to sing something for him (loooooooong story!).

Finally, I am starting to feel VERY nostalgic. There's only like 3 or 4 weeks to go! Them it will all be over. The MBA, this school, my friends, this life, probably even the blog! These two years have been the best experience of my life. It's impossible to describe how wonderful it has been. A few weeks ago, when walking around Camden Town, I passed by this place:

This is where it all began!! This is where I came for a pre-admits weekend dinner, in June 2005 (when I met our friend Miss N). And it seems like it was yesterday. Man! I want to do another MBA! ...... I'll stop here... if I keep writing about this for 2 more minutes, I'll start crying.

PS: By the way, no more 'rsr.pt' ;)

Spring break

2007-04-05T08:08:00.000-05:00

It's still an improvement, but not enough. My last post was written 2 months after the previous, and this one I'm writing now was going the same way. Well, 1 month and a half is not bad. Could be worse.

Much has happened this term. I am now in cozy Portugal, enjoying the not so good weather, but the best friends, family and girlfriend. Feels good to be back.

I have to start by the most unusual thing. I was invited to join the Fixed Income team of a big big big investment bank! :D For those who know me, my answer shouldn't be a surprise (starts with 'N' and ends with 'O'). But anyway, it's always good to know that our experiences and skills have value to someone else. Basically, I have a great friend working for this bank and I asked him if they would be interested in having me for a couple of months, doing a part-time job. I will have class only on Mondays during Summer term, and am looking for something to do with the rest of my time - I need the money... BADLY! So, anyways, I was interviewed by three people and they liked me. Apparently, they liked me too much, because they said they would take me for a short-term project, only if I accepted a full-time position after August. DAMN! I guess that the biggest lesson from this episode is that networks do count. It is definitely the best resource for our job hunting adventures! There's like 200 people at LBS looking for a job like this and I, without wanting it and without applying for anything, got an 'offer'. Weird weird world...

Next... I am also in the interviewing process with a large fashion an luxury goods group. That's not media, I know, but it is still a cool business, right? I kind of see myself working in that area, in a marketing position. Having attended the excellent Mark Ritson's Brand Management class, I am sure I would enjoy working for this company! Fingers crossed for this one...

Do you remember my post about Rose Polidoro? I have kept contact with her and now I am very close of bringing her to LBS, for a presentation on the whole marketing strategy for The Lord of the Rings movies. Although it is still not certain, I would love to have her here! And I'm sure I wouldn't be only one.

Finally, I am looking forward for this next term. As I said before, I will only have one course: Creativity and Personal Mastery. Although I've heard mixed reviews and opinions, I am anxious and curious about it. I believe it will be the best way to end the MBA adventure.

Oh, and we will have MBAT again!! :)

Happy Easter everyone!

2 months

2007-02-14T18:52:00.000-05:00

Wow! 2 months since my last post. I guess my January archive won't take much space on Google's servers ;)

So, what happened this last couple of months? Well, after finishing my stay in New York (what a great time I had there) and being massively pampered at home during Christmas and New Year's eve (gotta tell mum not to cook that much), I finally returned to good old grey London.

I arrived just right the day before my first class: Brand Management. A fantastic course, taught by the not less fantastic Mark Ritson. Really good and I greatly recommend it. During that first week I also started the painfull process of flat hunting. However, since Brand Management is a block week course (every day, from 9am to 5pm), I failed miserably at it. Took me 3 weeks to find my new place - which is a fantastic flat, by the way, at least comparing to last year's standards... After mooving in, it took me almost 3 more weeks to get adsl installed. This felt like 3 weeks without contact with the outter world. No TV, no phone, no internet. I mean, I had internet access at school but... without being able to play World of Warcraft!! Next time please shoot me in the head instead! My girlfriend visited me for one week, which helped me to pass the time (... hhmmm... maybe I shouldn't have written that). And she also helped me organizing my room, which is always useful. Guys just don't do that kind of stuff, right?

Now I am taking 3 very interesting courses: Venture Capital & Private Equity, Financing the Entrepreneurial Business, and Negotations & Bargaining. I'm very happy with these 3. After my M&A course at Columbia I kinda developed this interest for deal making and structuring stuff in finance, so I'm enjoying VC and FEB. Furthermore, these courses will be usefull in a long term in case I decide to create my own business. I also sorted out (finally) my 2nd year project, which will be a cool cool project at Symbian.

And what else? Let's see... oh! Last week there was snow in London! Not some tiny brief flocks of snow. But reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal snow! I did the small movie below which shows our beautiful school in this rare white scenario (recorded with my new powershot, result of another good thing about New York: low prices).

Another small step

2006-12-14T17:08:00.001-05:00

This semester is done! After an exhaustive group project for M&A (you're not supposed to work on weekends if you're on exchange!!), an exam for Managerial Decision Making, another project for Media & Entertainment Marketing (about Shortbus, you gotta see this movie!), and another group project handed in yesterday about YouTube, I'm over with studies for this year. Now I have one week left to enjoy this great city, to do some Christmas shopping and to say farewell to the fantastic friends I've made.

So this is the right time to think about the last few months and come up with a list of the best and worst things about my exchange at Columbia.

The Best:

1) Friends. Mainly the other exchange students. What a fantastic bunch. Hope we'll keep in touch, guys!!

2) New York. What can I say about this amazing city? I loved it! The people, the skyscrapers, the glitz, the movement, the frenzy, the shops, the museums, the celebrities, the constant police sirens, the pretzels, the bagels!, the pizzas, the sushi, the nightlife, the rooftop bars, the cheap prices, the pastrami at Katz's, the yellow taxis, the central park, etc, etc, etc... Although it's not a secret that I do love London, New York has conquered a small part of me. I'm sure I'll be back. Hopefully, the photo above will help you to understand why.

3) Las Vegas. Oh yeah, baby! Fantastic place, impossible not to have fun. I had such a great time there that even the money I lost won't make me change my opinion about Sin City. Every one should go there at least once in their life.

4) The campus. I love the energy around it, the student life, the big buildings. This is the kind of place where revolutions are made. And where great parties take place :)

5) The courses. I had two of the best courses of my whole MBA. The first, which shouldn't be a surprise to you, is Strategic Management of Media. Excellent professor (Bruce Greenwald), very interesting subject, eye-opening ways of looking at the industry. The other WAS a complete surprise, mainly to myself: M&A. Everyone knows I'm not that fond of Finance, but this course was excellent! Again, I'd say that the main reason was the professor. Donna Hitscherich was superb. This is the kind of course where it can easily be so bad, so boring that you reaaaally need a good professor to make it interesting. And she definitely did it. Lots of work, though. But excellent learning experience.

6) Happy Hours! Improved version of hour own Sundowners. Why are Happy Hours better? It has free food and goes until 10.30pm-ish. Enough said.

The Worst:

1) Columbia facilities. I will never ever again criticize LBS! :) We have amazing facilities back in London, but I guess I had to see another school to realize that. The ridiculously useless library, the few study rooms, the inexistent computer labs, the chalk boards..... They really need a new place for this school.

2) THE COLD!!! During last Happy Hour, on one of my many smoke breaks, I noticed that I could barely feel my fingers. They were turning purple. Temperature: -5ºC!! Not even in London we have this cold! And then the building where I'm staying has an heating system that makes industrial ovens pale in comparison. You go from -5 to 45 in one second!

And that's it. There's not many negative points about this experience (and I really had to struggle to come up with these two). All in all, I had an excellent time here. I strongly advise every MBA student to take this unique opportunity and do an exchange somewhere. Not necessarily in NY, because the range of choices is amazing. Shanghai, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Barcelona, Cape Town, Milan, San Francisco, Paris, Sao Paulo, etc..... I'm sure you'll find something for you.

The Hubbards

2006-11-28T20:02:00.000-05:00

Glenn Hubbard, CBS's dean, has the tradition of hosting students who cannot travel home for Thanksgiving for a meal during the long weekend. This year, the meal was held on Friday and, after my name was drawn from the lottery - there's only 25 places available - I joined some other exchange students and headed to his house. This is an admirable initiative, I have to say, and unfortunately we don't have anything like this in London. As if having a free lunch wasn't good enough, we also had the opportunity to try some good turkey and have a chat with the dean. Cool stuff.

The day after, on Saturday, I joined another bunch of exchangers (actually, it was the same bunch from the dean's lunch) and headed to Washington DC. We spent the weekend there and had great fun! The city is not that fun - lots of museums, monuments, too formal for my tastes - but the nightlife seems to be really good! Either that or we were lucky. We went to a bar called KStreet and had a terrific time. As for the city's main attractions, Lincoln's memorial is awesome, Iwo Jima too, the White House is too far away and it would be impossible for Robert Langdon to steal anything from the Archives.

For a first Thanksgiving experience, this last weekend was not bad at all! Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving too! :)

The perfect job

2006-11-24T10:54:00.000-05:00

This week I had the opportunity to attend one of the best speaker events since I started this MBA adventure. One class I am taking here at Columbia is Media & Entertainment Marketing (a half-course) whose professor is, apparently, very well connected in the Media industry. He has been bringing interesting guest speakers every week, but the one this week was definitely the best. Just imagine having the following job title 'Director of Marketing for the Lord of the Rings movie'... WOW!!! Now that's a job! And that was the title of Rose Polidoro, our guest speaker.

Of course, listening from someone who worked on the Lord of the Rings movie is enough to keep me interested for hours! Hearing about how Peter Jackson handled the trilogy and funny stories from the set from someone who actually WAS there is an opportunity I couldn't miss. It was also reassuring to confirm that Media is an industry that badly needs business management knowledge and that this management is not necessarily an enemy of creativity. She told us how the marketing strategy for the movie was planned and implemented, starting from the initial engagement of the strong cultish fan-based (in which I proudly include myself) and ending on the strategic marketing partnerships and promotions. It was interesting to see that something so MBA as a marketing framework, like the 4P's, was followed by her team (it was actually on one of her slides!)

However, although the LOTR subject would be a strong reason to make me love this presentation, it wouldn't be enought to consider it as the best one ever. What made it really outstanding was Rose's enthusiasm and love for her job! She said that she 'never worked for a single day in her life'. Although a bit cliche, you could really feel how true this was, her passion for her job. After the speach she just staid there, answering question after question and her friends actually had to drag her out of the class room. She wanted to be there and answer all our questions. She worked in several other media segments (like radio) and told us that it was always like a hobby. The fun was always there! And as she said, this was what we should pursuit, our dream job, what we really love to do.

Now, I'm sure that there may be someone who REALLY loves investment banking or consulting. But sincerelly, from the tones of presentations I have attended from consulting and banking companies, I never heard a single speaker with the same enthusiasm as Rose's. That says it all, I would say...

- I wish The Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened.
- So do all who live to face such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

300

2006-11-17T02:20:00.000-05:00

Every year, there's one or two movies that I am really anxious to see. Sometimes it's because I love the book it is based on (the Lord of the Rings trilogy, A Scanner Darkly), and some other times it's just because I read about it or saw a trailer that gave me shivers down my spine (Matrix, Dark City, Ghost in the Shell). There is also the chance that I had just seen it at Fantasporto before worldwide release, but that's something more specific to my hometown... Peter Jackson's Bad Taste, anyone? ;-)

As I posted before, Sin City was one of the movies I was anxious to see last year. Having heard about a movie filmed on a shot-for-shot adaptation of Frank Miller's comic books just seemed impossible to go wrong (and it didn't!).

And now, there's this:

F*cking unbelievable! Based on another Frank Miller comic book, it just looks insane! I saw this trailer like 10 times in a row! Of course, the Nine Inch Nails song also helps making it look (and sound) amazing. This movie is based on a famous battle between 300 Spartans and the Persian army - for more information, check the Wikipedia entry - and again, it was filmed on a shot-for-shot basis. I can't wait to see it!

And people still wonder why I want to work in the Media industry!

Vegas

2006-11-01T10:27:00.000-05:00

The King is alive!!

2006-10-29T22:10:00.000-05:00

What do you do when your girlfriend is visiting you and it's fall break? You go to Vegas! Well.... I guess that every excuse is a good excuse to go to Vegas, but I just couldn't miss the opportunity. And I'm glad I didn't, because I loved it! What a fantastic city! That's my kind of place. The buffets are insane (I never hate so much), casinos are reaaaaaally big, the King lives there, dinner at the Stratosphere Tower is unbelievable, nightlife is as glitzy as it can get and... drinks are free. A city born for entertainment and great fun... and to loose money... a lot (mental note: got to ask KV for free poker lessons). It is definitely a place to revisit in the near future. Expect some nice photos in the next days.

As I said before, last week I had no classes. It was the fall break, a strange concept for LBS students like myself. But a great concept, I should say! One week off right in the middle of the semester and after the midterm exams is fantastic. Most students around here took the opportunity to travel around the US or even something more exquisite, like one of my exchange friends who decided to go on a cruise to Mexico.

This New York adventure is getting better and better every day. I even saw Will Smith on the 5th Avenue shooting a scene for his new movie 'I am legend'! I also decided to try Katz's famous pastrami (pictured below). Now that's a sandwich! Just look at the size of that thing! For those of you (like me) who never heard about Katz's before, it is where that famous scene with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal (the fake orgasm thing) was filmed.

And now, time to prepare for classes. These M&A questions are driving me nuts!!!! I prefer playing poker or blackjack at the MGM...

Life is tough

2006-09-29T15:31:00.000-05:00

These Happy Hours are killing me and yesterday was no exception. I guess that's why LBS keeps Sundowners from 6 to 8pm only... I'm glad I don't have classes on Friday, which allows me to fully develop my hangover vegetable existence at home.

Anyway, tomorrow I will meet my cluster (finally). There will be a dinner and after party with both 07 and 08 F clusters. Besides this cluster thing, the Italian club will also throw a party somewhere downtown and most exchangers will be there, which makes one dinner and (at least) two parties to attend. I guess that on Sunday I will be glad again for not having classes! The problem is that I will have to find some time to do my M&A write-up.

Oh! And I finally decided to put my photo on my blogger profile. I kinda miss KV nagging me all the time with "when do you get the courage to put your photo, man?". So, dude, here it is! Happy? ;-)

Ironic

2006-09-26T22:29:00.000-05:00

As a true portuguese and passionate FC Porto fan, I wouldn't survive without finding a place in NY to see the Champion's League match today. Unfortunately, FC Porto lost. It seems that the day when they recently won the trophy was ages ago...

Anyway, what would be the best place to watch the match? Newark! And it was surreal. It was like a small Portuguese vilage just landed somewhere in the US. That's not America. That's not New York. That's... Portugal!! :-) Banks are portuguese, shops are portuguese, streets have portuguese names, everyone speaks portuguese, cops are portuguese, the sheriff is portuguese, portuguese flags are everywhere. Of course, since the game was on the afternoon, I had to eat some bacalhau and drink a couple of Super Bocks. I also couldn't miss the opportunity to buy some good portuguese wines (pictured above).

Talking about business school and my career. After spending one year thinking about my future, after applying for a few consulting firms for a summer internship and not being accepted, after rethinking everything and realizing that Media is really where I want to go... I just received an email from a top firm, inviting me for dinner in NY to discuss opportunities. Isn't life ironic?

Happy Birthday!

2006-09-17T21:07:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I met my divine friend to celebrate her birthday. It was a great party and the bar was cool. Specially when they played the gong and offered free shots to everyone in the house! It was also interesting to mix NYU and Columbia exchangers. I love this thing about the start of classes, when you meet tons of new people every day.

On a side note, I still haven't felt that big rush that everyone mentions about the 'city that never sleeps'. I guess I've been clubbing to much in London... Or maybe I just haven't been to the right NY places yet. Fortunately I still have lots of time ahead of me to find out.

Today we went to the QS MBA World Tour Fair, at the NY Hilton Hotel, to represent the London Business School. It made me remember how excited I was a couple of years before, going to this kind of events and trying to find information about THE right school. I guess I prefer being on the side I was today, though... I'm in, I'm there, and it feels gooooooooooooood!

I'm also happy that the classes I'm taking are very good. I cannot stress how good the Strategic Management of Media professor, Bruce Greenwald, is. Of course there are some classes with huge workload (Mergers & Acquisitions) and others that seem more laidback (Managerial Decision Making).

Over & out.

Silence

2006-09-11T20:54:00.000-05:00

New York!

2006-09-06T16:09:00.000-05:00

After a very short holiday week in the end of August, I finally came to New York. I just arrived a couple of days ago so, between the jet lag and the shock of really being here, I'm feeling like I'm permanently hangover.

And it all started with an amazingly lucky story. For the ones who already know me, they would say that this is just one of my typical stories. In fact, similar things have happened many many times. And always with the same good outcome. Here's what happened:
- Arrived at JFK
- Took out the big A4 envelope with all my documents (passport, etc) to present at the Homeland Security desk
- In this envelope, I also had all my money for the next 4 months.
- Gave passport, visa, I-20, etc to the Homeland guy
- Everything was fine, so I went to pick up my luggage
- Went out, got a taxi, checked backpack for a map
- Noticed that big A4 envelope was missing... with the money in it!
- Yelled at the driver: "GO BACK!!!"
- Entered the airport running like crazy.
- Talked to the first police man "Hey! I need to get back in there! I left some papers at the Homeland desk!"
- Acknowledged that I had to find an airline (KLM) agent to escort me back in
- Tried to find a KLM agent. No one was there.
- Went to the information desk and said "Do something! Find me someone from KLM!"
- Got into ultimate desperate mode and started running everywhere, asking everyone to make a call, use the radio, etc... and get a KLM agent
- Almost losing hope, a girl comes in and asks "Can I help you?"
- Explained the story, she made 10 phone calls. No one could help her. WTF?!?
- Another guy comes in. "Hey, can you help this gentleman here?", she asked. "Sure!"
- The guy went back in
- After 5 minutes, he arrived with the big A4 envelope... and my money. 2 hours have gone by between losing it, and getting it back
- Gave him the biggest tip in my life.
- Went home, slept thinking "Shit! I'm really lucky!"

So, now it's business school time. Yesterday we (exchange people) had the orientation day, to go through the basic stuff and to configure our laptops. Today I had my first class (Advertising & Integrated Communications) and, although the subject is really interesting, the professor was not that good. I will probably drop this one. Later on, during the evening, I had my second class. Strategic Management of Media. And this one rocked! The subject is fantastic and the professor (Bruce Greenwald) is really good. Same quality level as Duncan Simester (my favourite professor at LBS... invited from MIT).

Here are some random thoughts about my New York / CBS experience so far:

- Cars: they're huge!!! Everyone drives an SUV or a car with a big trunk! It would be funny to see a Smart or a Yaris in here...

- The flag: it's everywhere. Every other building has an american flag. The underground trains have flags. Some buses too. These guys love their flag! :-)

- Clothes: Oversize is king. I've never seen so many people (guys, mostlly) wearing oversized t-shirts and baggy BAGGY pants. Man, I thought that was a 90s thing! And what about those nets these guys wear in their heads???? Funny stuff.

- Campus: it's a fantastic campus! My first thought when I saw it was how great it would have been doing my undergrad here. Big buildings, lots of people, nice green areas, I love the place. There's a Barnes&Noble bookstore on-campus with LOADS of school merchandising. Here's something for LBS to learn.

- School: Business School looks cool. Apparently, the main lobby went through some refurbishment works during the Summer. And it looks great. However, classrooms are not that great. Leg space is not enough for me ;-) and facilities / equipment is not as good as LBS. The room where I had the morning class even had a chalk board! Looks like primary school. I saw some better rooms, but it seems most are like the morning one. LBS is way better in this subject. Having said that, the campus completely compensates for these 'not-so-good' rooms. One curious thing is that, just like my friend Miss N, I still haven't figured out the logic behind the room numbers... Oh! Another important thing!! There's a CBS version of Sundowners! It's called Happy Hour and it's also on Thursdays. I don't know if I would survive my Thursdays without free drinks :-)

- New York: what can I say? I've only been to a few places but... what a city! It's very hard to describe how it feels to see New York for the first time. It's so... big, colourful, busy, cool... it's like being in a movie. And the fact that it is much cheaper than London also helps.

That's all for now. I will try to blog more frequently. About New York. And Columbia, of course. But more about New York ;-)

PS: Coming here was a great opportunity to go back to my favourite hobby: photography. If you guys know any hidden treasures and/or cool spots for taking some shots, please let me know!

Everything is getting ready... and my geekiness

2006-07-24T14:37:00.000-05:00

My New York adventure is going as planned. I've got everything set up: flight, housing, visa (the most boring 3 hours of my life) and bidding for courses. This bidding thing is funny and we don't use it at LBS. We use a priority rating method which, ultimately, should give very similar results. But the fun part in bidding is very related to the auctions stuff we learned in Microeconomy (hail to the great Marco Ottavianni!). How willing are you to pay for a particular course? Hmmm... Well, I chose two apparently popular courses (Managerial Negotiations and Strategic Management of Media) and the other are not so popular (at least last year there was free places for those courses). This allowed me to bid a lot for the popular ones and very little for the others (1 point is enough to be accepted if the course doesn't reach capacity).

I have also chosen the LBS courses for the 2nd year. Although I am still waiting for the results for both the CBS bidding and LBS allocation, here is how my next year should look like:

Fall Term - the marketing & media term
1) Strategic Management of Media
2) Marketing & the Internet (1/2 credit)
3) Media & Entertainment (1/2 credit)
4) Advertising & Integrated Communications
5) Managerial Negotiations (yeah, I know... not media related)
6) The Business of Film

Spring Term - the finance term :-)) (I guess I was drunk when I chose these)
1) Venture Finance & Private Equity
2) Financing the Entrepreneurial Business
3) Finance 2
4) Brand Management (yeah, I know... not finance... but it's a block week and I've heard the professor, Mark Ritson, is too good to let this one go)

Summer Term - the 'open your mind' term
1) Creative & Personal Mastery

and that's it. Wow, this Summer Term will be very busy! ;-)

But in fact my plan was to be done with the MBA by the end of the spring term. However, I really wanted to do this CPM course and it is only available in Autumn (when I'm in NY) or Summer. So, once again, I just couldn't let this one go. And I can still try to do some work or freelance projects to earn some much needed cash!! I am very curious about this course. If you haven't already read about it, then just pay a visit to my dear friends Miss N and Future Guru.

And now, for something completely different!

I hereby assume that I am addicted to World of Warcraft. Yes, the game. The f***king game! Of course, I can always say that this is part of my internship research on online video games... or else I guess this is just a manifestation of my inner geekiness. But hey! Here's my mage casting a mighty spell!! (omg... I am a geek)

The world is digital

2006-07-13T14:14:00.000-05:00

As I wrote before, my internship is about new media. Searching and analysing interesting opportunites for my employer to get into (or acquire...). My second week is almost over and it has been great!! I am looking at stuff like online video gaming, social networks, music, user-generated content and advertising. I mean, this is the kind of job that I'd do for free because this is what I read on my free time! But since someone decided to pay me to do that, then even better... ;-)

I decided to share with you some of my findings. You might already know some of the stuff below (as I did) but I think it shows how cool, funny, useful or just 'different' the web can be.

Subservient Chicken: Burger King's attempt at viral marketing. Just tell the chicken what to do! Try 'dance' :-))

Blog Maverick: Marc Cuban's blog. He's the owner of Dallas Mavericks NBA team and founder of HDNet. Very interesting reading! (on a side note, this guy apparently has made the largest e-transactio ever: $40 million for a brand new Gulfstream V Jet. And here I am.... wondering if I should buy a new digital camera or not...)

Netvibes: build your own homepage. Provides a clean, organized and quick access to you RSS feeds, search engine, email account, bookmarks, tasks, photos, etc, etc, etc... Cool stuff!

Digg: you all know this one, right? Submit and rank your news stories.

Wetpaint: wiki meets blogs meets forums meets social networking meets building websites

Watson: tired of typing 'google.com' in your address bar? Then this is for you. Make searches on the fly. This piece of software analyses whatever your doing on your pc and automatically finds and delivers the information you need. Oh! And it also searches in sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, Forrester, Gartner, etc!

Second Life: MySpace in a 3D virtual world with a twist. Cool! These guys are making SERIOUS money! Check out the BBC Newsnight broadcast made from inside Second Life. It's an excelent report.

42 Entertainment: Fantastic immersive marketing company! Involve your audience in a story is one of the best viral marketing tactics. Does anyone remember Halo's ilovebees.com??

Dogster.com: MySpace for dogs!
Catster.com: MySpace for cats!!!
Hamsterster.com: MySpace for hamsters!!!!!
Petster.com: MySpace for pets!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boompa: MySpace for cars!!!!!
Lawbby.com: MySpace for LAWYERS!!!!!!!!!!
AAAARRGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! STOP IT!!!!!
:-)

Musicubes: this is my favourite! Just build your music DNA, post it on your blog, MySpace, etc... and at the same time advertise for the BBC radio stations shown. Now, isn't this creative advertising?! Much more interesting and efficient than simple old boring banners (and shall I add Addsense?). Here's my musicube!

PS: Some sad news have come out recently...
i) Rocketboom is over (at least for Amanda Congdon)
ii) Syd Barrett (pictured above), the soul and genious behind Pink Floyd, has died
iii) my EMI strategy contact has left the company! Damn! Who am I going to ask for a job, now??

The dream is over

2006-07-06T02:00:00.000-05:00

Again from a penalty kick, again Zidane, again unfair. Portugal played better than France, had their best performance in the World Cup, but one unforgivable error will make them play on Saturday for the 3rd place... while the French, who spent most of their time defending, are going through to Berlin.

Congratulations to France... and a big thank you to the Portuguese players. You're the best!

World Cup! Go Portugal!!

2006-07-01T13:29:00.000-05:00

After a fantastic week in Portugal, I came back to London just in time to watch this beauuutiful thing! Portugal is in the World Cup semi finals!!!

Who comes next? Brazil or France?

Half done

2006-06-23T10:14:00.000-05:00

Yep, first year is over. Technically, I still have one more exam to do next Friday for Advanced Marketing Strategy. But it feels like holidays now. I am back in Portugal for one week and will be back in London just before the exam.

Man, this is such a strange feeling. One year... done! I have more gray hairs now then ever (which is kind of worrying...) And I feel that the second year will be very different. It will be a different stage of this MBA adventure. The hectic and intense first year experiences are behind us, now. My beloved Autumn stream A, those crazy first 4 months, Tatoo, meeting everyone for the first time at the Windsor Castle (the local pub), Santa Claus pub crawl, MBAT, the basketball team, my flatmates, falling asleep reading accounting books... It's time to give the place to the 08's. I just hope they'll enjoy it as much as I did.

Well, enough nostalgia. Good news! I got a job! And it's media related, so I'm happy! I'm gonna be doing new media market analysis for a big UK telecoms operator. I can't wait to start! Well, actually... yes, I can wait. Let me enjoy these sunny days in Portugal :-) Then we'll talk about the job.

The last week I finally did my shadowing project. And it was very interesting! The guy I shadowed was very helpful but, more important than that, he's working for EMI Music! I mean, I have a huge background in music (my engineering and MBA education together are approximately half the years I spent studying music). Working for a company like EMI would be amazing (apart from Spice Girls, Robbie Williams and things alike... well, at least Placebo are in EMI). I had the opportunity to meet the Head of Global Strategy for EMI and, as I said to my shadowing guy, that's the man I have to call for a job :-) Expect a call/email in the next weeks, dude!

On another note, things for Columbia are looking good. Visa paperwork is being taken care of, and housing is already confirmed. I guess I've said this a thousand times already but... I can't wait to go to NY!!! :-)

Now is time to work a bit on my AMS final paper, before going to the beach!

PS1: I know I promised some MBAT photos. And since I'm very lazy to upload my own photos, here's a great link. This is the website of our in-house 'unnoficial' photographer. Ben is an MBA2006 and maniac about photography. He took more than 4000 thousand photos during MBAT! :-) His website also has photos from many other LBS events. It's a fantastic website to get a feel of what the LBS MBA is like. Enjoy it.

PS2: The photo at the beginning of this post is of the MBAT winning LBS team. Can you find me there? ;-)

LBS Killer

2006-06-07T16:35:00.000-05:00

How to suddenly make 150+ MBAs go to school and attend all classes? Just create a killing game and make them use funny guns all the time!

Man, this is getting crazy. This week we started playing LBS killer (check the blog). Each one of us now have a gun like the one shown above and a target to kill. Of course, as every professional assassin, our kills cannot have witnesses. And believe me, this thing is reaching paranoid levels! :-) You can see everyone holding this orange piece of chinese plastic. I can't even go to my locker alone, afraid of being shot in my back! I already did my first kill. But there's some real serial killers out there with 4 or more kills already. They even follow targets to their home! :-)

Aaahhh! These bright young MBA minds. The next generation managers of the world!

Funny way to end our first year...

Joke of the year!

2006-06-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

Let me introduce you the little fellow in the above picture. His name is Tomas, the Toro. I met him last weekend, in Paris, during MBAT. He caught my attention because he had this sad look. He was not happy. And it wasn't from the hangover. So, why was he so sad? Well, he was IESE's mascot... and he was not enjoing it!

Things got worse when he knew that LBS had won the tournament. And then... there was light! He looked at the LBS guys and thought "that's where I should be!". He wanted to be part of that great team! Man, how he wanted to come to London!

Well, apparently he managed to escape IESE's tight control and authority (no one knows how...) and joined the LBS team on the Eurostart, back to London. And there he was, this last Thursday, having some pints at Sundowners, partying like an animal (well... he is an animal) proudly showing is brand new ID badge! Toro is in London now and... wonder of wonders, he is in the MBA 2008 class! Welcome, mate!

Of course, as a bright and proud student ;-) he has just created his own blog, where he will report all his adventures and travels while at LBS. I bet this will be a famous blog. Mainly in Barcelona.

PS: I still haven't forget the MBAT pics I promised to post. But between interviews, classes and studying for final exams, my free time has been close to none. Oh, and I will be DJing in this Saturday's party! :-) Can't wait for that!

Mighty, mighty London!!

2006-05-28T15:44:00.000-05:00

Oh yeah!!! We came, we saw and we conquered! We also rocked and partied (but more on that later). That's right, London Business School won MBAT! I'm not sure about which sports we won exactly, but here's a list of the ones I am aware of:

- Basketball (yeah baby!!)
- Volleyball
- Beach volleyball (pairs)
- Beach volleyball (4)
- Women rugby
- Badminton
- Ultimate Frisbee
- Swimming
- Squash
- Handball
- Tug of War
- Chess
- Cricket

In other others, WE KICKED ASS!!! :-)

I'm too tired to write a detailed description about this weekend, so here are some random thoughts on the whole event. A brief list of highs and lows:

High - LBS Band show on the opening night: the guys just rocked the place. Nasty punchy rock, serious stage divings, crowded mosh pit. Wild night. Everyone loved their show. You are getting better and better, guys!

Low - The bus drivers :-) Where the hell did HEC find these guys!! On the first competition day, the driver got lost between the HEC campus and the Basketball court which was within a... 10 minute walking distance. On Saturday night, most of us went to Paris to enjoy a good meal and go to an MBAT party. When I left the party, the bus was waiting for us but... it took 2 hours to get to HEC! Instead of the usual 30-40 minutes. The driver got lost in Paris.

High - HEC campus. I loved the place. Just beautiful and very relaxing. I'm not sure about staying there for one whole year, though. It could get a bit boring. But definitely a beautiful place!

Low - Food. FOOD! There was no food! Breakfast was only based on small croissants, coffee and orange juice... and which was not enough for everyone. You had to be there reaaaaaaaally early to get some. And the BBQ dinner party seemed like a refugee camp: hundreds of people battling for a piece of sausage or mid-cooked kebabs. Oh yes, and the food was not enough. Again.

High - The other schools. Great atmosphere! Highlights go to RSM for the nicest partiest people and to IESE for the loudest crowd. Well... Bocconi were actually the loudest, but they were using air horns and that's cheating ;-)

Low - I ran out of lows.

High - HEC organization. Apart from the lows mentioned above, these guys did a great job overall. It's definitely not easy to organize this kind of event with 13 schools, 2000+ participants and 26 sports. Congrats, guys! Thank you for the great weekend!

MAJOR HIGH - LBS Basketball team. I had to say this again. We are the champions! I love this game! Here's the trophy:

I will try to post more MBAT pics during the next few days.

Now is time to sleep...

Open weekend is over, but MBAT is coming!

2006-05-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

The open weekend was just fantastic! I admit that things got a little bit out of control (check the stage diving photo in Angel Angie's blog :-) ). But it was great meeting all those excited people from the 2008 class. Adding to that, and in my opinion, it was even greater because I still remember exactly how I felt one year ago. Coming to school, being asked 'where are you from?' hundreds of times, going to the MBAr for the first time, having a few drinks, and meeting those crazy MBA students (well... actually I think that the incoming students were a bit wilder than the ones this year... but maybe that was just me... at least we're trying to maintain our reputation, as reported by KV and his licking episode).

On another note, MBAT is coming!!!! Tomorrow we will get our brand new kits (LBS jacket and bag). The basketball team (actually, we have two teams) as been practicing a lot and we hope we will have a good performance on MBAT. Let's see if my next post will be to report our victory.

May the best school win.

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.
If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.
If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them.
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.

- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

PS: Obviously, I am also curious about the MBAT evening parties. If a simple open weekend at LBS can get crazy, I can't even imagine how a party with students from 10+ MBA schools will be!

IDEO, Tech career forum and Open Weekend

2006-05-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

1) Wednesday we had a cool presentation from Mat Hunter, IDEO's Global Director, Consumer Experience Practice. Very interesting stuff. I first heard about IDEO on a Managing Organizational Behaviour class, when we were shown a video tape with a IDEO team brainstorming and designing a new shopping cart. This design strategy and design thinking concepts are, in my opinion, much more interesting and successful ways of selling consulting services than the usual old-timer boring McKinsey Bain BCG ways.

2) Today was the Technology Career Forum. Interesting companies came on campus, to present some of the summer and full-time opportunities they have available. Activision, Skype, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, just to name a few. Not all of them have summer internships, but at least I got some good leads that I will 'actively' follow up :-) Great event.

3) This weekend is the MBA2008's open weekend. And I'm feeling nostalgic... It was already one year ago when I came to London on a Friday, feeling very anxious, and entered that restaurant to meet some of my current friends (that was also the day I was tatoo'ed for the first time :-) ). The day after that we had a reception at the school with the Dean and student representatives. God, how I was excited about all that! I had just been accepted by my favourite school and was about to start this MBA dream! It feels kind of strange now... mainly when work starts piling up and stress levels start to reach ridiculous levels and I forget that I'M HERE! This is why I was all that excited about one year ago. This was my dream! I'm living it! And I better make good use of it! Interesting how one's perceptions and emotions change. Anyway, the next time I feel like kicking my laptop and cursing everything I will try to stop for a couple of seconds and realize how fortunate I am. Not everyone has the chance to fulfill a dream.

I'm so envious of the new MBA class! :-) If there's any MBA2008 reading this, please take this simple piece of advice: live your MBA to the maximum. It's one hell of an experience.

PS: I volunteered to help on this year's Open Weekend. My role will be to meet the new class at a nearby pub, have some drinks and talk to them. My kind of job!

Batteries recharged

2006-05-17T03:55:00.000-05:00

I just arrived from a quick 5-day holiday in sunny Algarve (south of Portugal). Man, that felt reaaaaally good! The weather was amazing, the sea was fantastic as always, got a bit of a tan, relaxed, watched my team win the Portuguese football cup, had some great food... aahhhhh! I was born for this! :-)

Of course, I am trying to avoid the depressing thought that I won't have more holidays in the next year. And that sucks! I always had some time off in August. But this year, after Summer term I will (hopefully) start my internship and then, by the end of August, I will move to New York and re-start my studies (partying) at Columbia. After the MBA is over, I will have to take at least 2 weeks off!

Now, with my batteries recharged, I will face one more chaotic month. This term, things are getting a bit crazy: UEM (Understanding Entrepreneurship Management) is great fun but a lot of work, Advanced Marketing Strategy as just started, Macroeconomy assignments are on the way, and final exams for Management Accounting, Information Management and Macroeconomy will follow, MBAT starts in a couple of weeks, good parties coming up (and I will be DJing!), I'm now part of the Media Club Executive committee and... hunting for a summer internship is not over yet!!! All this will happen in just the next 4 weeks.

And now, maybe I should pay attention to my IM class ;-)

Collective LSD trip?

2006-05-09T05:35:00.000-05:00

This Sunday I had my own Salvador Dali's experience. What the hell was a giant mechanical elephant doing in the middle of Piccadilly Circus??!

Dude! Grooovy!

Automatic... screwing?

2006-05-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

This wednesday we had a field trip to Valeo, a manufacturing company located in Nogent-le-Rotrou (aprox. 150km from Paris, in the middle of nowhere). This field trip was part of our OTM course, which we had... last term. The trip should also have happened last term... but I prefer not to get started on this terrible organization from LBS. That's a biiiiig story. Not even to mention the fact that other streams got to visit BMW, Porsche or Airbus... however, I went to... Valeo [sigh].

Anyway. the trip had its ups and downs. Downs? The timetable and the boring factory visit. Ups? Paris, of course. Here's how it went:

4.30am: wake-up. Curse the school, the MBA, life in general.
5.00: get out of bed, shower, stop cursing.
5.30: meet friend and take a cab to Waterloo.
6.00: wait for everyone at Waterloo, and find out who's missing.
6.30: enter the Eurostar, study Management Accounting, sleep.
10.30: arrive in Paris.
10.40: take 'le metro' from Gare du Nord to Montparnasse.
11.05: buy sandwich, run to the train.
11.15: take the train to Nogent-le-Rotrou.
13.15: arrive at Nogent-le-Rotrou, have lunch.
14.00: presentation starts. Listen to french guy who barely speaks english.
14.05: drink two coffees.
14.10: slap face and avoid falling asleep. Drink another coffee.
14.30: factory visit starts.
14.45: meet plant manager (Portuguese! We're everywhere :-) ).
15.00: listen to boring talk about inventories and logistics.
15.30: listen to boring talk about kanban cars.
16.00: listen to boring talk about molding machines.
16.30: listen to boring talk about... automatic screwing! (that was the joke of the day).
17.00: realize that factory works on 3 shifts of 8 hours. Each worker has to work standing for 7.2 hours practically non-stop (two 6 minute breaks and one 20 minute break).
17.05: Ask why workers don't have bigger breaks. Look at a manager's grin saying "well... they have these 6 minute breaks".
17.06: engage discussion.
17.10: realize that everyone has left. Stop discussion.
17.30: listen to boring talk about quality. Suggest 'fatigue' as possible reason for random errors. Try to scream "7 fucking hours non-stop" when Quality manager says "ok, but why fatigue? that's what we have to find out."
17.31: feeling too tired to engage in discussion.
18.00: visit is over, go to train station.
18.30: take train to Paris.
20.20: take metro to Gare du Nord.
20.50: check in at dingy hotel, shower, curse.
22.00: have dinner at Le Procope
22.10: enjoy nice meal, wine, desert, whisky... relax.
01.00: have drinks at St. Germain des Pres.
03.00: return to dingy hotel.
05.30: wake up, shower, curse.
06.30: take Eurostart to London, study Accounting, curse, sleep.
08.00: arrive in London.
08.30: home, room, bed, curse, sleep.

So... in summary I spent more than 10 hours inside trains and 4 hours in a boring factory. At least the night in Paris was very enjoyable! And the group was great fun. Thank god for that!

I have to go back to studying Management Accounting, now. The exam is tomorrow morning.

No glove, no love!

2006-04-25T08:49:00.000-05:00

This was one of the lessons we learned today at Richard Branson's speach. Apparently, that's also what his son learned after one night with a nice girl, while on holidays ;-)

As you can see from this example, this was a very laid back event. At least for Sir Branson himself, who appeared in his best style (jeans and shirt). No chit chat, no small talking, just Q&A. The conversation ranged from how to build and control such a huge brand as Virgin, corporate social responsibility, his entry in the airline business and how he picks people (basically he prefers to promote from within the company, but if recruiting... well, it just has to click... and I admire that, no bullshit case interviews, no useless and long tiring processes... if you're smart and passionate, he'll see that in a few seconds).

All in all, a fun event. Not as inspirational as I was expecting, but it's always nice to hear these great successful leaders. I guess that it really goes down to charisma. And that, he definitely has. Tons of it.

Dean wanted

2006-04-17T19:25:00.000-05:00

As most of you should know, our Dean will be leaving LBS by the end of the year. If you want to apply for the position, just do it here :-)

Hmm... would they let me do it just as a summer internship? That would be cool.
"what did you do for the summer"
"I was a Dean!"
Niiiiiice!

Note: Laura Tyson, our current dean, is the lady on the photo. Not the dude with the green tie (it seems he's pretty famous, though...).

And the next one on the list is...

2006-04-11T10:41:00.000-05:00

... Sir (ahem!) Richard Branson! Now, that's cool! A few weeks after having same-old Bill around, now we have an opportunity to listen to this charismatic dude. Can't wait to hear what he has to say about succession at Virgin. Can it survive without him? Microsoft without Billy Gates, Apple without Steve Jobs, Dell without... uhh... Dell. Hard to imagine, right?

This term is at full speed now and, typically, courses go from the very interesting to the very boring. At top of the list is Understanding Entrepreneurial Management. I only attended one session, but it was so interesting! And there's some really good ideas being pitched by my fellow students (and me too). At the bottom is International Macroeconomy. Not because of the course by itself (which is quite interesting, in my opinion) but because of the professor. He's an invited professor, which is hard to understand why. I mean, he may be very good and very knowledgeable of macroeconomy (and he indeed is, according to is resume) but.... that's not how you teach, dude!! Constantly walking from left to right, mumbling words, hands on your pocket, eyes on the floor. Sheesh!

Job hunting is also at full speed. Just have a look at the following workshops which I signed up for: Technology, Media & Telecoms Job Club; Cald Calling & Relationship Building (at last, someone came up with a different way of saying 'networking'!); Job Search Strategy; Brand Me (as if I needed that ;-) ).

All in all, it seems that this is going to be an interesting term. Oh! And if I could find a job, it would be even better! That's not asking much, is it?

PS: I just added Malcolm Gladwell's blog to my list of 'Other Good Links'. This is the guy that came up with really cool books such as 'The Tipping Point' and 'Blink'. Have a look!

Where's the sun???

2006-03-31T19:14:00.000-05:00

Spring break is almost over. Unfortunately, it seems that I brought the miserable London weather with me to Portugal. It's been raining a lot! I was planning to spend a few days in the sunny south part of this country (Algarve) but I had to cancel it. Rain, rain and rain... I did have the chance to sink my feet in the sand, though. But it was too windy and too cold :-)

By the way, the above photo is not mine. I just found it in this nice website about my hometown, which has some really cool photos. Check it out!

Since I could not use my time for the activities that I was planning (lying in the sun, swiming or just doing nothing) at least I had time to finish reading DisneyWar. This book has everything: the boring part (some finance, some accounting) and the fun part (organizational behaviour, creative businesses). This is all about the trappings of power, group think, corporate politics, shakespearean drama, managers vs. creativity, leadership styles and, above all, dishonesty. What a great book! I really recommend this.

Well, Summer term is just around the corner. Lots of stuff coming up: interesting courses (namely, an introduction to entrepreneuship and an advanced marketing course), lots of parties (apparently it's almost impossible to find a free saturday this term at LBS, all are booked for some kind of events), my job hunting will still go on, MBAT will be huge and the World Cup is coming too!

Time to recharge batteries.

Break!

2006-03-19T15:51:00.000-05:00

Spring term is over. Yesterday we had our last 2 exams (Decision & Risk Analysis and Operations & Technology Management). It's amazing how fast this term went by! If you compare this with the Autumn term, the difference is huge. That term was sooooooo long and such an intense experience. I remember saying those were the longest months of my life. But this term... it's already over! It seems like it took only a few weeks! :-)

Now is time to go home, for 2 weeks. Just relax and try to enjoy some sunny weather. I miss the sea. I miss going to the beach. And I really miss that feeling of sinking my feet in the sand.

One third of the MBA is done.

Hey Bill, what's up?

2006-03-16T08:37:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's right. Mr Clinton himself is coming to our school for a speech! I was thinking about why he chose to visit us, so I came up with a few reasons. I am sure one of them is the right one:

He is enjoying his holidays in the beautiful warm sunny british weather.
He's meeting a friend, our dean Laura Tyson, who served as his National Economic Adviser.
Bill is going after Monica, but he got the wrong school (she's at LSE, dude, not London Business School!!).
He doesn't know that the milkround is over so he's still recruiting for some interns.
He wants to meet me and pay my tuition fees.

Seriously now, it is unfortunate that I won't be around on the day of his visit. It's right in the middle of our Spring break, so I will be in Portugal enjoying some real sunny weather. I kind of feel a bit sad for missing this. I would love to meet the geezer and shake his hand. Everyone says his presence fills the room and is really unique. Oh well, maybe someday when I'm rich and famous...

Start spreading the news

2006-03-10T15:36:00.000-05:00

OMG! The results for the International Exchange Programme (IEP) were released today. And guess what? I'm going to Columbia!! I'm so excited! I've never been to New York. Can't wait to go there! And the school has an amazing media curriculum, including an elective at the Columbia Film School (The Business of Film)!! How cool is that?! Now I have to choose if I prefer to go on Autumn (Fall) or Spring term.

On another note, today I attended the most interesting workshop since I've been at LBS. Maybe I should say the only interesting workshop, but that would be too harsh to other nice workshops I attended before. At least they seemed nice at the time, but they pale in comparison to the one today. It was called 'Individual Job Search' and it was given by a fantastic french geezer called Daniel Porot (MBA in 1966). Apparently, he's been in the Career Design and Job Hunting business for more than 30 years!! He's trained personally more than 12.000 individuals and more than 600.000 through his company. Check his website. This one has some interesting tips (but is still under development) and this one too.

This guy knows so many tricks and backdoor strategies to get interviews and jobs, that I wonder if he could really get any job he wanted! :-)

Although I already had other workshops on job hunting, cover letter and CV writing, interview techniques, etc... this one was much better. We really learned some great tips on all those subjects. The only problem is that this course is supposed to be taught in two weeks, so today we attended to one very condensed version of it. Nevertheless, it was very very good!

Time out!

2006-03-01T15:30:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I'm going home for the weekend. Thanks to Ryanair for having these ridiculous prices, from time to time. I also booked my flight for spring break for a total of.... 30 pounds. It's cheaper than taking a cab from where I live to Heathrow!! :-) The negative side is that Ryanair flies from Stansted and the cheapest flights are at 6.40am!!!!! This means that tomorrow I'll have to wake up before 3am to get the 3.40am bus to Stansted. I hope to get to Portugal alive.

As for things around here, everything is going great! Apart from the occasional flocks of snow that have been showing for the last couple of days, and just for a few minutes in the afternoon. It's very surreal... But yes, it is freezing in here!!

My applications for the international exchange have been submitted and results will come up on 10th March. So I hope to have good news by then!

Job hunting is still going. I have a couple interviews soon, one for a cool digital media company, and the other for an ooooooooooold hi-tec one ;-) Still waiting for feedback on my favourite application (shall I say the name? shall I not? Damn, I hate this big brother feeling!). Yahoo! is coming to town soon, although I'll miss their presentation. Reuteurs has some very interesting positions for the summer internship, so I will definitely apply for those too. Discovery has already posted for a corporate strategy role, which means that they might prefer ex-consultants. Not me, but still worth the shot. And I'm sure that someday Amazon and eBay will post something. So, still lots of options in the pipeline.

Well, it's almost 9pm. Time for one more 'Lost' episode and then go to sleep.

Milkround, exams and free tips

2006-02-15T19:49:00.000-05:00

The official season of company presentations (aka, milkround) for summer internship recruitment is over. And what does it mean? It means no more walking around in a suit, no more boring presentations, no more consulting companies trying to differentiate themselves using exactly the same sales pitch ("our most important asset is our people" is my favourite), no more stiff-upper-lip investment bankers, no more 20 MBAs circling a company representative doing some "networking", no more of that fried food every day, and no more marquee (which, funny enough, appears on the satellite photo above... btw, this pic also shows how cool our campus is!).

And what else does it mean? It means that the hunting season for proper jobs and proper networking has started. Following the advice of my tanned friend, I'm not gonna name companies in here... you never know who might be watching (more on that later). But there's a handful of companies which I'm very excited about. For the most dedicated readers of this blog, some of these places are more obvious than others... Nevertheless, job hunting has started for me. Went to visit one of those companies a couple of weeks ago (fantastic offices, amazing atmosphere), I got a meeting with a media director of another company, and I'm sure more of this stuff will follow soon. A piece of advice for the next MBAs: do your own work! Your dream job won't fall on your lap. The MBA is a fantastic tool and experience, but you have to go out there. And try to be focused...

[I admit I tried a couple consulting companies for the internship. I thought that their name would look nice on my CV ;-) It didn't work out, though... I didn't demonstrate enough passion for the job, according to some recruiters. Bingo! I'm an open book! :-) ]

This last weekend was also time for two mid-term exams. Operations & Technology Management (OTM) and Finance. So... no more finance this year!! Yeahh!!!!! Really? Well... maybe not. Although it's not my favourite subject, I've now realized how important finance is. In almost every company you're targeting (mainly when you're changing your career into a creative industry like media, design, etc...) you'll need to convince them about the added value you can bring, since usually these are not MBA-friendly companies. Finance knowledge is a very strong argument. The stronger this knowledge, the stronger the argument. Of course, strategy is another strong argument. And these can be great tools to use as a stepping stone into your dream company or job. So, I'm almost sure I'll take Finance 2. Just don't know if I'll do it next term or next year. The same goes for Strategy 2.

The other exam, OTM, was too easy. Maybe that's because I'm an engineer ;-) or maybe that's because it really IS easy.

Moving into more entertaining subjects, the major major major MBA event of the year is already warming up. I'm talking about the MBA tournament (aka, the MBAT). Business schools from all over the world will meet in Paris, in May, to try to beat other schools on every kind of sports (from rugby to basketball, from ultimate frisbee to salsa dancing). LBS has already secured places for 225 people! That shoud give you an idea of how huge it will be. And here's the second piece of advice of the day (I'm feeling generous today): be VERY quick to sign up for this event. I mean, the 225 places were sold out in less than... 6 hours!! And no one wants to miss this opportunity.

Applications for the international exchange are now open and due next week. Columbia is obviously my first choice. It's a fantastic school, it's in NY, it has a great reputation in Media and... some electives are at the Columbia Film School! What a fantastic experience that would be!! The problem is... there's like 200+ other MBAs thinking as I do :-) This is the most sought-after school for the exchange. For obvious reasons. Another option for me is Berkeley (Silicon Valley!) and I'm still trying to decide on the third option. MIT would be great, but they only have 2 available places... Maybe Chicago...

And now, here are 3 geeky tips:

i) Looksmart's Furl is a great tool to store and share those interesting webpages you occasionally find. More user-friendly than converting it to pdf's, I would say.

ii) Google keeps going with its buying spree. Now the victims were Measure Map, who have some nice features for our blogs.

iii) If you use Mozilla Firefox (if you don't, you should), Google Labs came up with an interesting extension, which "makes it easy to see what bloggers are saying about a page you're viewing in Firefox and even make your own blog post about it, all without leaving the page you're on". Nice!

That's all, folks!

PS: It seems that the recent LBS newsletter includes a selection of students' blogs, including yours trully. I want to make it clear that this is NOT an official LBS blog. It was my own initiative to start writing it and I'll keep posting whatever I want.

Next!

2006-01-28T06:56:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged! Here it goes! (sorry for the black humour photo.... :-) )

Four jobs I've had in my life:
- bar/restaurant piano player
- host of an industrial music radio show
- math tutor
- telecomms sales manager

Four movies I can watch over and over:
- Blade Runner
- Dune
- Lord of the Rings
- The Thin Red Line

Four places I have lived:
- Porto, Portugal (hometown!)
- Cascais, Portugal
- London (Hammersmith), UK
- London (St. Johns Wood), UK

Four TV shows I love to watch:
- Seinfeld
- X-files
- Black Adder
- Southpark

Four places I have been on vacation:
- Rome, Italy
- Mykonos, Greece
- Paris, France
- Isla Marguerita, Venezuela

Four Websites I visit daily:
- O Jogo (obviously ;-) )
- Google blog
- London Business School portal
- Pitchfork media

Four of my favourite dishes:
- Francesinha!! (visit Porto and find it out yourself)
- Prego no prato (steak, chips, fried egg)
- Bacalhau com natas (cod with cream)
- Seafood (any)

Four places I would rather be right now:
- Santorini
- New York
- Florence
- anywhere with my girlfriend

Four books I loved reading:
- iCon: Steve Jobs (Young & Simon)
- The Search (John Battelle)
- The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R.Tolkien)
- Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)

Four bloggers I am tagging (this one is tough, probably everyone has been tagged already...):
- RusGirl
- Futureguru
- Karibu
- John Battelle (hey! maybe he reads my blog! :-)) )

News cloud.... cool!

2006-01-22T17:43:00.000-05:00

I first read about it at John Battelle's blog. How cool is that?? A news cloud made of the most popular news tags! The bigger the tag, the more popular the story. Now this is a nice website to use as home page. It's an easy and quick way to have an idea about what's happening out there, every morning.

By the way, for those interested on Google and trying to prepare for their coming presentation & summer internship applications, I really recommend Battelle's book "The Search". I'm still reading it but it's so addictive!

And here we are again

2006-01-11T04:51:00.000-05:00

The holidays are over. No more 12-hours of sleep per day. Forget the Christmas presents and New Year's eve celebrations. Nice portuguese spas (I owe this one to my fantastic girlfriend... thanks!!), relaxing in jacuzzis, doing nothing, forgeting about b-school.... all belong to the past. Now is time to wake up again. Return to the chaos and hectic life of the past 3 months.

Xmas break did not start well though. I lost my flight to Porto because of a 30+ min delay on the ridiculous Stansted Express. I had to buy another flight ticket for the following day and man, was that expensive! The return to London was also not peaceful. The flight was delayed and instead of arriving home at 1am this sunday, I got there at 3am. That's Ryan Air... And I still had to write my Finance assignment to hand-it in before 10.30am on Monday!! I miss my holidays already...

Milkround is here. Lots of companies are making fancy presentations to lure this high-potential (eheh) crowd. Yesterday it started with Citigroup. I went there although I'm not interested in finance. I was just checking its corporate strategy division. Boring. Lunch was for free, though, and we got a free umbrella! :-) That's also a nice thing about the milkround: free food, free drinks, free goodies.

Today BCG is coming to town. Tomorrow will be McKinsey. Although all those big consulting and IB names are coming here, none has got me as anxious as the one who's coming next month: Google. Now that seems interesting!!

Tomorrow is the application deadline for Bain. I got my cover letter ready, as well as my CV. Let's see how it goes.

Classes have also started, of course. New core courses (Operations and Technology Management, Marketing and Decision & Risk Analysis) as well as an old one (Finance), now with a (ahem, I'm proud of this one) Portuguese professor, Joao Cocco. And he is great! According to the overall opinion (mine including) he is better than our previous italian professor. And he has a niiiice sense of humour :-)

Well, time to go back to my Marketing class.

It's over!!

2005-12-17T17:39:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe that the 1st term is over! After the double exam session last saturday (I still don't know how the MBA programme management office lets this thing happen... 2 exams on the same day is ridiculous) and after handing in my cool Economics final exam on wednesday, our academic obligations were over.

Or nearly over, as this last week was dedicated to Skills Development courses. However these were fairly simple and didn't stop us from having fun during the week. On monday the Portugal club went to a portuguese restaurant and I was delighted to bring with us our honorary member: KV (I hope you enjoyed the food, dude!).

There was time also for attending a fantastic presentation by Frederic Huntsberry, COO, Universal Pictures. I was a bit disappointed with the presentation made by Michael Grade, BBC Chairman, a few weeks ago. But this one was awesome. Lots of topics discussed: new technologies, movies, future sources of revenue, piracy, etc... By the way, Frederic admitted that a couple of weeks before every movie premiere, they send thousands of decoys over the internet (fake files with the same name as the movie) to fool illegal downloaders. Cool! I didn't know that!! :-)

After the two exams last saturday, we had the biggest funniest craziest party ever: Santa Pub Crawl!!! I'm sure most of you know what it is about. 400 hundred Santas partying in London. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few photos from that party.

Ohhh man... christmas break.... feels so good.... can't wait to go to Portugal tomorrow and stay there for 3 whole weeks. Relaxing. Completely oblivious to business school issues.

These were the 3 longest months of my life.

Top of the World! (not yet... but getting there)

2005-12-06T10:48:00.000-05:00

Let me just use this small break between my Accounting and MOB studies to post something quick. The Financial Times has just published an European Business Schools' Rankings and guess what? London Business School has ranked n.1 in Europe, for the second year in a row!

As someone I know would say: Score! ;-)

PS: When, oh when, will I ever see a portuguese school in these rankings??? I guess that not during my lifetime... unless I start my own b-school after the MBA. Hmmm....

Am I a good strategist?

2005-12-01T21:37:00.000-05:00

3.00am:

Just finished my take-home Strategy exam.
Have to handed it in tomorrow by 9.30am.
At 10am I have an Organisational Behaviour coaching session (sigh).
At 3pm there's an Internal Consulting Forum event to attend (it's mainly about corporate strategy with some good speakers).
I should be nearly dead by 6pm. Have to go home for a nap.
At 8pm we have a boat birthday party, along the Thames.

It's a dog's life.... but I love it.

Time to go to bed.

INSEAD weekend

2005-11-21T07:41:00.000-05:00

This weekend LBS invaded Fontainebleau. Basically the LBS basketball, rugby and women touch rugby teams played against INSEAD.

The final scores were kind of balanced, but with the overall victory going to INSEAD. The basketball team (where I play) lost by 2 points, the rugby teams lost one and won another match, and the ladies drew. But we'll have our revenge at the MBAT! ;-)

However, this was a fantastic weekend! Congratulations and a big thank you to all those guys at INSEAD who really put some effort on receiving as well. They drove us around the small Fontainebleau village, took us to a few bars and to an awesome party on Saturday. This party was held on a chateau (lots of these over there) which was soooo cool! Apparently, all weeks at INSEAD are dedicated to a country, and this was their Australian week. Saturday was the ending party. Here's a photo from the dining room (I took it with my mobile phone, so the quality is not that great):

Since their campus is located in a small village surrounded by forest, the way they spend their free time is a bit different from us here at LBS. There's only a few bars and no clubs, so they keep organising house parties and events in chateaus, like this saturday's dinner. Probably because of this, I got the feeling that they have a stronger community sense than we do here at LBS. When there's something happen, almost all 300 of them go there. Because they don't have anything else to go. Not like in here, in the middle of London, where we have hundreds of different things to do on a weekend. I guess this has some pros and cons, like everything. Maybe they get a stronger and closer group, but... that's ok for one or two months. I'm afraid that spending one year like that would be too much for me. However, they have the opportunity to do one term at the Singapore campus and they do use it to change their routine.

Now I'm just trying to recover from that crazy crazy party and starting to study for my finance exam (next saturday morning).

Media Summit, Tatoo, exams, strategy and home!!

2005-11-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

Long time since my last post (I have to get used to starting my posts with a sentence like this one..).

Many, many things have been happening around here. Of course, all my beloved fellow bloggers have posted about them. It's good they're not as lazy as I am...

The London Media Summit was terrific! We had some really good speaches (Luke Johnson, from Channel 4, and Victoria Barnsley, from Harper Collins, come to mind). The user-created content panel went beautifully (in fact, it was the pannel with the highest attendance!). I met loads of interesting people during this looooong day and, when finally I got home, I just collapsed. It was very tiring. Another interesting thing from this summit was the speach from David Jones, Microsoft. He presented a project they have in London called Life2 (Life 'squared'). This is kind of the ultimate hi-tec house. Everything connected to everything else, convergence is the goal in this place. Perfect for the lazy people like me :-) Microsoft invited some people from LBS to visit them soon and I joined the group. Can't wait to check it out! More on that later.

We recently had our first exam. It was the Managerial Economics midterm exam. Now this really feels like being in school again! That strange feeling about seating for an exam! :-) But this was a multiple choice exam, so it went ok. No reason to panic. Since the exam was on a Thursday, everyone just went to Sundowners afterwards. Nice way to get rid of stress. Actually, free drinks are always welcomed, not only after exams.

The Saturday previous to this last one we had, in my opinion, the most surreal experience around here: the Strategy Double Session! In few words, this is like a group crack-a-case session, for a whole day!! This is insane! Mainly because my group ended up in one of the smallest rooms around here! Class started at 10am, discussion went on in the lecture theatre until noon and after that... group work in that miserable room. By 10pm we were over (assignments had to be handed in before 10.15pm). When I (really) looked to everyone else in my group I just couldn't stop laughing: everyone was looking like psychopaths!! Red eyes, messy hair... you get the picture. It was just to much. If this is how consultants live, than I don't want to do it :-) However, since that Saturday was the day previous to my birthday (hurray!) we went to some club in London to.... get rid of stress... by drinking. Again.

This last weekend I went home. Left on Thursday and came back on Sunday night. It felt so good!!! Although we've been in here for just 2 or 3 months, it feels like I've been in this school for ages!!! It's a strange paradox: time goes really quick, it just flies, but... at the same time, it feels like I've been here for one year. Anyway, going home was amazing. Not thinking on Finance, Accounting or Strategy assignments was great. Being with my family and girlfriend was even better. Saturday night I joined some friends and properly celebrated my birthday (actually, it was not only mine but also the birthday of two other frieds of mine, which means that at the end we had more than... 110 invited people! Cool!). It was good to... get rid of stress... drinking. Again.

And this is all for now. I know I promised a long time ago some photos from Tatoo. I finally have them, so here they are. It was a tremendous party. It allowed us to... get rid of some stress... drinking. [I guess I should be worried]

I live.... again!!

2005-10-31T06:43:00.000-05:00

After 2 months of complete absenteism, yesterday I went to see a movie for the first time since I am in London (£8.70 for a ticket is crazy!! Mental note: I have to find out how I can get a NUS student card, those bastards did not accept my ISIC card). It feels good to have a life from time to time... Not having to think 24/7 on t-stats, R squares, porter's 5 forces, free chash flows, bonds, coupons, MOB audit, balance shets, P&Ls, price elasticity, market power, etc, etc, etc...

So, after buying Total Film magazine just to know what's going on, I realised that there are too many good films I want to see! Broken Flowers (Bill Murray has done it again, the guy is becoming huge!), Lord of War (any Nicholas Cage movie has potential to be great), Domino, Serenity, Murderball, Night Watch (russian sci-fi) and there's a Ghost in the Shell sequel!!!!

My pick went to Serenity, not for any special reason (well... it's sci-fi) but because it was the next movie showing when I entered the theatre. It's a great movie! Makes me remind of my geeky early years when spending days and days playing games like Wing Commander and X-Wing! :-) Serenity is based on a former tv-series (Firefly) that was cancelled by Fox network, without any apparent reason. It's a kind of sci-fi epic movie, a mixture between Star Wars (there's an Han-Solo type character) with Pitch Black, with great action scenes, good enough story (except the usual Holywood happy ending and feel-good shit) and amazing special fx. Overall, I really enjoyed it... and it felt so good being 2 hours without thinking about the school, just enjoying a good movie and eating some nachos (I don't do popcorn).

Ah! This is what they call 'work'??

2005-10-26T07:17:00.000-05:00

Things are getting crazier and crazier around here. Let me give you a brief description of my day-to-day life:

7.30am: wake up, think 'i hope it is sunny today' and how I would like to smeel the see, open the window, and see this miserable grey weather and drizzle.
8.15am: really get out of bed.
9:00am: buy a Red Bull.
9:05am: late to school... again. Everyone is saying I am always 5 minutes late.
12:00: lunch. Eat the sandwich and the apple I brought from home.
12:30: check emails. Do assignments (one of the 4 or 5 due next week)
14:00: class again. Or group work. Or individual work.
17:00: classes are over. Skype or chat with my special one, family or friends (I still don't have internet at home).
18:00: go to the library. Prepare classes for tomorrow and/or work on assignments.
22:00: library is closing. Go home.
22:10: have dinner.
22:30: continue work.
01:00: go to bed.

Shit! I don't have a life!!!
I was talking to one of my flatmates the other day, and we agreed on something. Being a student is nice, but we really miss our previous status! :-)) He was driving a convertible between Mexico in the states, I was living 100 meters from the sea, in one of the most beautiful cities in Portugal (Cascais), working from 10am to 6 or 7pm, going to fancy restaurants, great nights out. Damn! I don't even remember the last time I went to see a movie!!! (the fact that they're so expensive around here doesn't help either....).

So, what's happening now? Spent the last weekend working on Financial Accounting and Strategy assignments. Before that we had a Stats group assignment due on friday. Now I have an individual Stats assignment due this friday. Next week, on the 3rd November, we have a Managerial Economics midterm exam, and on the same day I have to hand-in a Finance assignment. On the 2nd is the Media Summit pre-conference dinner, and the 4th is the Summit itself! Meanwhile we still have to find a client for the Management Organisaional Behaviour (MOB) audit project. And we are already late on that. I'm gonna get crazy! :-)

But not everything is bad. Last week the media club organised a lunch with a guy from Sony Pictures Television (VP of Corporate Publicity). It was really cool because there was just 5 or 6 of us and him. This guy had such great stories! He knows a lot of celebrities and does lots of business for TVs and Movie companies around the world. I wouldn't mind doing something like that!

And another way to show that we also have lots of fun, is by showing some pictures. I know I promised to post some photos of the Tatoo and Talent Night parties. I still haven't processed the Tatoo ones, but here are a few from Talent Night (KV has some nice photos from Tatoo, and also a funny interesting post this week):

Hi-tec

2005-10-13T08:35:00.000-05:00

Some people have been complaining about how lazy I am. That my last post was ages ago. I've been extremely busy, guys! And my girlfriend was visiting me for the last 5 days. I didn't have time for anything else... right.... hmmm.....so... here it is! My new post! :-)

Actually, I'm at the school right now, in one of the lecture theaters, writing this on my iPAQ (I became too attached to it). I'm attending a somewhat strange but also curious event called 'Outer Mongolia or Bust'. It's supposed to tell us how to network more effectively... No further comments on that.

It seems the Media Summit will be amazing! Yesterday I received the confirmation that a big shot from BBC will participate in the user-created content panel. And we already have 3 other panelists! One of them is a podcasting comedian. :-)

As for past events my next post will include some photos from two really amusing events: the inter-stream football tournament (which my stream lost miserably... probably because I played) and the Talent Night (what fantastic talented people we have in the school!!!).

Oh! This weekend is Tatoo party! The Portugal table will be the place to be! Lots of good food and drinks. More on that later.

....

Great! We're having a break from this Mongolia event now. Time to go.

PS: KV, can you clarify what you said the other day about... very comfortable women lingerie??

PS2: we started already with the core courses. How can anyone actually enjoy Finance?! And Accounting?!?

Calling all Bloggers!

2005-09-29T13:27:00.000-05:00

As a Media Club member, I just joined the organization of one of the most important LBS events: the London Media Summit. I just couldn't miss this great networking opportunity! Besides, it will allow me to join this event for free ;-) and maybe go to the pre-conference dinner in London. That would be fantastic!

The Media Club is a thriving organisation with over 300 current students and 650 alumni, and one of the most active professional associations on campus. The Club provides an engaging forum for students interested in all aspects of media. We bring together television, radio, film, music, games, publishing, and new media firms with the talented students interested in these fields.

I was really surprised with the quality of the confirmed speakers. You can get this info from the event's website but, for now, here's who they are:
- Luke Johnson, Chairman of Channel 4.
- James Purnell MP, Minister of Creative Industry and Tourism (what a cool ministry!! :-)) )
- Victoria Barnsley, CEO, Harper Collins UK.
- Thomas Hoegh, CEO, Arts Alliance Media.

My job is to organise a panel (one moderator and 3 to 5 panellists) to discuss 'Organising User Created Content'. And this means blogging (eheh!), podcasting, posting pictures to websites, mobile internet sites, etc. Not my favourite media subjects (which are film and music) but still very cool. I may even get some nice contacts for the dreaded Shadowing project. For now we're thinking to contact companies like last.fm, google (blogger.com), apple (itunes), Emap, podshow.com, etc...

So.... to all the bloggers out there, and to all the readers of this blog, if you know someone who works in those areas and is UK-based, then please drop me an email or leave a comment! Every advice will be extremely valuable.

Elvis has left the building

2005-09-22T11:39:00.000-05:00

After yesterday's funny episode, promptly, but not that accurately blogcasted by my fellow KV (you cannot believe in everything you read ;-) ), today was the big day:

Jack Welch was coming to the school.

I mean... he's the man! Everyone talks about him around here! To be honest, I've never heard of him before coming to London Business School. But then I got curious and read his autobiography. This old geezer is definitely the kind of leader you would like to work for, or ultimately you would like to be like.

And, what did I learn from today's speech? Here it is:

1) Never give up. As a true portuguese, I always believe that there's another way to get things done, a backdoor. So, after NOT receiving an invitation for today's event (I was one of the unlucky one who did not get an invite through the ballot), I still went there. First, because I wanted to have his book signed; second, because I wanted to take some photos of the dude; and third, to try and sneak in the event. It turns out that I was lucky! I was just telling some friends that I was waiting for the event to start to see if there were any empty seats, when a lady from the organization heard me and said "Do you want to get in? Ok, what's your name?". Gets her phone and says "I'm sending a student. Let him in.". Niiiice!

2) Jack hates bureaucracy. Way to go, dude!!! Me too!!! :-)

3) Always choose a team to lead made of people smarter than you. Keep learning with those around you. Do not try to be the smart guy. It'll get very boring.

4) We now have a great brand behind us. So we have to grab the world by its ass and take it! :-) Jack's words. And how funny those words were!

5) Try and choose an industry that will most likely be dominant or develop a lot in the next few years. An example: biotechnology.

6) Candour. One of the most important virtues of a true leader. Be honest, straightforward, avoid discrimination, accept your mistakes, show sense of humour.

7) Jack is not that fond of business schools! :-) Although it was funny hearing him say that, it was not a surprise for me. "Too much strategy classes, too much marketing. Leading people! That's what you'll do in a few years. That's what you have to learn. Leading teams". Bravo to the man!

Yesterday we had a presentation from the Media club. I would love to work on the music and film industry! However, I am a bit afraid that this kind of career change is not that plausible. It turns out that it is realistic! When of the guys that spoke during the presentation was a former IT consultant and, however, just finished an internship at Sony. Cool!

So... here's a career plan. Internship in the music or film industry. Permanent job after the MBA at a consulting firm, but dedicated to the media industry. 2 or 3 years after, jump to a good job in the media itself. Sounds great! Is it doable? Yes. But... an even more difficult question: is it what I really want? Maybe. Hmm... 'maybe' is not enough. Hope I can define my career strategy as soon as possible!

PS: KV, you have to start saying something during classes! I want to post something about you too! Revenge is sweeeeeeet!

And the core courses haven't even started...

2005-09-15T14:00:00.000-05:00

Things have been pretty hectic these last few days. This is a really busy life! God! And I'm paying for it?!?! :-))

So... I'll try to describe how the last few days were. I'll make a topic for each day. That seems a nice framework for this post (I'm already gettting the b-school jargon all over me!! arrrghhh!!!!).

Thursday, 8th September: Away Day
What a fantastic day it was!! It consisted of some sport/radical/puzzling activities. Main purpose: test your limits and improve your team-work. And it's amazing how by the end of the day we really were a nice, consistent and friendly team! It was nice to see it developing throughout the day. Activitities involved Indiana Jones-like puzzles (lots of ropes and imagination involved), climbing walls, going up poles and jumping to a trapeze, eating, eating and eating).

And we did beat the stick!! ;-)

Friday, 9th September:
GLAM in the morning and afternoon. The afternoon part was really interesting. It was a group meeting with a personal tutor/counsellor/psychologist. It was very insightfull and revealling. We were supposed to end at 5pm, but left the room at 7pm instead. Nice way to learn our own strengths and weaknesses.

At night, some fellow students decided to give a party at their place. They were expecting something like 30 or 40 people, but I guess we were more than 80!! Great party, lots of drinks, wild dancing. I got home safe... but I don't know how.

PS: I met my third flatmate this morning. He arrived the day before but was already sleeping when I got home. So... when I woke up there was this completely unknown guy in my kitchen. Weird stuff. But he's a great guy!

Saturday, 10th September:
Basketball at 12pm. That one is really tough!! Besides the fact that the last time I played was like 7 years ago, the night before didn't help at all! Mental note: have to stop smoking (but keep on drinking...)

During the afternoon I did lots of online supermarket shopping with my flatmate. And at night went to a portuguese restaurant to watch some football. FCPorto is back on the tracks, it seems!

Sunday, 11th September:
Relax.
Come to school and prepare the classes for monday.

Monday, 12th September:
We started with the Ethics course. Although my divine fellow blogger disagrees with me, I found it really boring. It's too theoritical for my engineering mind. It's so easy to read a case about an ethical issue and say how would should behave. But when you're really living the situation, that IS hard. Do you defend your moral principles and put your job/career/family on stake? Tough question.

During the afternoon I had a study group meeting to draft our Team Contract. Yes! That's right! We have a contract to say how our team will work and behave, the goals to achieve and how resolve conflicts during the next year. Every team has one. I think this is funny, but interesting anyway. My favourite goal: 'to build everlasting friendships'. That's cool.

Tuesday, 13th September:
GLAM in the morning. One-to-one sessions with the counsellor. Again, it was really good. Good advices being given there.

The rest of the day was pretty much relaxed. By the evening we met at the bar (MBAr) to watch the Champions League games. FCPorto lost!!! Damn!!!! But at least the beer was just for 1
pound a bottle...

Wednesday, 14th September:
STATS!!!!!!!!!!!
ALL DAY!!!!!!!!!!!
HELP!!!!!!!

Anyway... it wasn't that hard. I found out that I still remember most of the things from college. I did even remember out to work with normal distribution tables!! :-) I felt a major geek.

The professor was great, though. Very funny and always trying to change a boring subject into something interesting. And I just love that icelandic Bjork-like accent! So cool!

During the lunch break we had a presentation from the Entrepreneurs club. It was nice, but not too informative.

Thrusday, 15th September:
UGM in the morning (Understanding General Management).
Now... that's what I'm here for!!! Give me management knowledge, dude! Great class. The professor was really good and we had a very interesting case to discuss (the rise of Honda). Next session will be about Apple. How cool is that??

Afternoon was the... boring Ethics. I definitelly don't like it.

By the end of the day with attended an event with a guy called Nigel Andrews. Former LBS student, former consultant and former GE employee. He worked with Jack Welch!!! And the passion he uses to talk about those times are amazing. Important advice he gave: choose a new job with an exceptional boss/mentor. That's probably the best way to learn great leadership skills. The guy now is a director of dozens of companies, is a venture partner in another one, and has his own private equity firm. Nice life, it seems...

And now... I'm going to the birthday party of the fantastic Miss N!! Why am I still in here blogging?!?

Oh my! More free time!

2005-09-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

Man! Things are starting to get busy! And core courses haven't even started yet!

Ok, there's many things to write about, but I'm a bit lazy today and there's no need to repeat information. So, I would suggest reading the excelent posts from the not less excelent DivineMissN, KV and Futureguru.

I do agree with KV on the CV workshop. It was great! And, at least theoretically, the whole process is amazing. Here's how it works: on that workshop we received 4 hours of advices on how to tweak our CVs; now, we'll have to submit our CVs until next tuesday to a specialist company hired by the school; they will read our CVs and submit feedback on how to improve it; after another review we'll sent it again to the same company which will then arrange some one-to-one appointments with us, in order to settle on a final CV version. This is cool! Bear in mind though, that this CV will probably not be used for every job hunting. We will have to make some changes in order to target different industries/sectors/companies.

Note: GMAT score should be included on the CV only if above 750. Damn! Count me out of that one!

Today I had my first GLAM session (Global Leadership Assessment for Managers) and it was great! The purpose of this course is to 'develop an awareness of the knowledge, skills, and attributes necessary to succeed in the global business environment' and 'identify key interpersonal and teamwork skills in successful global business management', 'share feedback'... well, the works.

Funny thing is, we received the results of a survey we did on summer, called NEO Professional Delevopment Report for Individual Planning (the name says it all). Here are some highlights of my scores (and personality):
- Calm, relaxed, carefree (eaaaasy dude!)
- Reserved, distant, cool (I prefer the cool part)
- Gregarious, prefers company (parties! bring them on!)
- Adventurous, daring, pleasure seeking (no more comments)
- Abstract, creative, imaginative
- high-self interest (you can't imagine how low my score was in terms of 'consideration for others'!!!! I'm the real SOB.)
- Arrogant, conceited (I don't agree with this one, though...)
- Outgoing, active, enjoys leadership roles (yeah! and money!!)
- etc...

Conclusion: I'm a relaxed arrogant proud MF who likes to enjoy life. Cool! :-))

Tomorrow we'll have an Away Day. That means some sports activities somewhere in the woods and another opportunity to meet everyone and socialize. Big problem: the bus leaves at 7am from school!!!!

Well, time to go home.

I'm tired!

2005-09-01T06:12:00.000-05:00

I just got a few free minutes to blog about London Business Scholl (not LBS!!! ;-) ).

Saturday morning I moved to my new place. How I missed that good feeling of being in your own room, with your stuff stored in its place, clothes, books, laptop, cds, shoes, etc... I'm still waiting for a reply from my goddam landlord, though, regarding the furniture. I'm sleeping in a single bed and I want to change it to a double bed (I need space...). However, the landlord wants to see what kind of bed I want, to approve (or not) the kind of furniture. Well, I hope he likes cheap IKEA stuff!

On monday we found out which streams we were allocated to (our 326-students class is divided in 4 streams). I got the A-stream, together with my fellow blogger KV. We're not in the same group, though. The 57 different countries represented in the 2007 class is permanently amazing me. It's so overwhelming! Just as an example, my study group has: one indian accountant with a tea family business, one australian management consultant from Sydney, one IT-consultant from Washington DC, one pharmacist-turned-physiotherapist-turned-investment-banker from Boston, one all-finance japanese from Tokyo... and me, the portuguese engineer. Now... this is going to be great fun!!! :-) I know that the US schools usually get the top ranking places, but there's no way they can be as diverse as LBS!

Thursday and Wednesday were filled with presentations, brain-washing sessions, and some really really good speaches. And I mean, reaaaaaally good! Mainly (and I bet all my classmates will agree with me, given the fantastic ovation at the end) from a guy called... Mohan Mohan Mohan. That's right, 3 times. A retired Procter&Gamble general manager, 64-years old but with such an AMAZING energy! I mean, I'm not half his age and the guy has much more energy than me!! :-) This is the kind of people who can inspire others. What a great leader he must have been. Brilliant character.

Today we're having a Career Services presentation, followed by another session with '3-times' Mohan. I'm looking forward to that. Later in the evening, we'll have a networking event with MBA allumni and... of course, drinks.

Drinks... We've been having pub crawling every night! I think I've never drank so many beers as in these last few days. Beer, beer, beer, beer and beer! It's beer everywhere!! Man, I need a whisky!!

PS: By the way, there's a Single Malt club in the school. I think I'll join them.

Finally, free time to post something!!!

2005-08-25T05:37:00.000-05:00

It seems like I arrived yesterday. It's amazing how time flies! I haven't seen the guys of the apartment where I am staying for 3 or 4 days! Always waking up at 7.30am and going to bed at 1am, after having a few more pints than I should.

Days have been completely spent on flathunting between 9am and 7pm, eating something and checking emails until 8pm, and then joining other MBA students at the pub. In the mean time, I still had to find some time to open an account at HSBC, get a locker at school, take care of the loan from the portuguese bank (more on that later), configuring my laptop and PDA to access the school's wireless network (now I can use Skype from my PDA, which is quite cool!!), and meeting loads of new people!!! BTW, I met another fellow blogger. I can perfectly imagine him walking around and surfing on sunny California (KV, thanks for the compliment! ;-) )

Finally, after a week full of exhausting days walking all over London, I have found a place to live!!!! It's quite nice, close to school (the distance is walkable) and very cheap. For London standards, obviously. But since I was expecting to spend a bit more on rent, I guess I'll have some extra money to use on travelling and parties. It's still twice the price of a beautiful apartment I rented last year on the most expensive area of Portugal, though...

Also, things with the loan seem to be working great (fingers crossed!). I talked with a friend who's managing a branch of a portuguese bank and it seems that they will give me a loan for the MBA. They don't even have this kind of products, but since I'm such a nice fellow.... And the beautiful part of it is that the interest rate will be lower than the one offered by HSBC!! I love when things work out this way! I feel like a should write HSBC a letter...

Oh, and the weather has been the usual british style: miserable! One day it's raining like crazy, the other it's sunny. I've already bought two umbrellas. Lost my first one on the same day I bought it. I'm not used to carry one of those goddam things!!!!

HSBC has done it again!!!

2005-08-17T18:33:00.000-05:00

This morning, before coming to London, I checked my emails. The decision for my HSBC loan reapplication had arrived. Denied. Again. Nice way to start this adventure!

Well... f*ck them!

It's time to start looking carefully to other alternatives. Anticipating this decision, Monday I asked for the Natwest loan application pack. I hope to receive it soon. Since I lived in London for three years, I think I'm eligible for this loan. Besides Natwest, there are a couple of portuguese banks that have post-graduation loans (however with maximums around 40.000 Euros and with higher interest rates).

I'm afraid I'll have to return to Portugal soon, maybe next week and just for one day, to sign some papers. But let's wait for Natwest first.

Parting is such sweet sorrow...

2005-08-17T18:31:00.000-05:00

... that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

...

I never thought it would be so difficult to say goodbye.

Well, I'm in London now.

I'm not worthy!

2005-08-14T20:29:00.000-05:00

I recently found out that one of my photos as been published on a photography magazine!! It's the first time! And the second time I sent them one of my photos, which means a nice average. Ok... I didn't win the prize for best photo... but it's always nice to see my name on a magazine! :-) It was published on the portuguese version of the Digital Camera Magazine.

This photo was taken in Porto, my hometown, in a very popular and beautiful place, called Foz, where the river Douro meets the sea.

PS: Holidays are over!! The MBA is very close, now! I can even smell it!

Free phone calls!

2005-08-02T06:48:00.000-05:00

Today I found out a new piece of software which may be a tough competition for Skype. It's called VoipBuster and it allows free phone calls for popular destinations!! And these include practically all European countries! Can't wait for the Pocket PC version ;-)

I've tried it and experimented a bit of the usual delay which can be annoying in a conversation. And for now the free-calls are limited to just 1 minute per call. But, to enjoy free unlimited calls, I just need to register and pay a one-time fee of... 1 euro!

PS: I mentionend before a book called 'The Man in the High Castle'. Now, I couldn't avoid posting its cover. How cool is this??

You're gone...

2005-08-01T06:37:00.000-05:00

Such a sad day....

My books

2005-07-25T14:02:00.000-05:00

Now that I have some free time, and after downloading lots of software into my iPAQ, I thought about posting something about books. I must confess I am not an avid reader. I'm more into music (I hear in average one new cd every day). And into movies (one or two per week). But I guess that every blogger has to write something about his preferred books! :-) So, here are my 2 cents. Music and movies will come on other posts.

Sci-fi. That's what I like. More than 90% of the books I read are sci-fi. Recently, I have been making an effort to read other "normal" books, like: The Road to Serfdom, by F.A. Hayek (boring and too radical); Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell (nice one. I'm not into self-help books, but his one is very interesting. It's about instinct, first glance, gut feelings.... cool), Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand (currently reading it and and enjoying it. If you have delusions of grandeur, like me, you'll like it :-) ). And next on my reading list are The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki and The Blank Slate, by Steven Pinker.

And now.... for the ones I reaaally like, here they are, some of my favourite sci-fi books!

- The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester: written in 1953 (!!!), it was the first-ever Hugo Award winner for Best Novel. I read somewhere that is was the Neuromancer of its day, and I totally agree. It has one of the most fantastic story endings I've ever read.
- The Stars my Destination, also by Alfred Bester: according to Amazon, "Bester's second novel is a fast-moving pyrotechnic extravaganza with enough bloodshed for Tarantino and enough social analysis for Marx". I couldn't have said it better. Very fast-paced.
- Hyperion, by Dan Simmons: Amazing story! I recommend all books of this saga! I would like to see this one on film. This book also won Hugo Award, for Science Fiction, in 1990.
- Ender's Game (The Ender Saga), by Orson Scott Card: another great saga! Some time ago I read that a movie was being filmed about these books. I don't know if and when it will be finished, though. But it's a perfect book for a movie!
- Dune, by Frank Herbert: A masterpiece. "Arrakis... Dune... Desert planet" :-) Hugo and Nebula award winner. In the words of Arthur C. Clarke "I know nothing comparable to it except The Lord of the Rings". Amen!
- Lots of William Gibson, like All Tomorrow's Parties, Idoru and, of course, Neuromancer (the birth of cyperpunk, winner of the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick awards).
- Almost everything by Philip K. Dick! Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (which was used for my favourite movie off all time, Blade Runner), Ubik, A Scanner Darkly, The Man in the High Castle (fantastic story about how it would have been if Germany had won the 2nd world war... and what a fantastic cover!!!).
- Flowers for Algerion, by Daniel Keyes: Another Nebula award, about a retarded man, Charlie, who is selected for an inteligence enhancement experience. The entire book consists excerpts from the journal he writes. Particularly interesting when Charlie realizes they way he was treated when a retarded, and the power he has after the experience.
- The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman: Interesting story about a soldier, a war-hero named William Mandela ;-), who, because of relativity effects, whenever returns to Earth, centuries have gone by, making him ever more isolated from the world whose future he was fighting for. Another Hugo and Nebula winner.
- I am Legend, by Richard Matheson: Very dark science fiction novel about vampires. Enough said ;-) Oh... it was written in 1954!!
- Behold the Man, by Michael Moorcock: Extremely interesting story about a man, who decided to time travel to Roman-ruled Judea of AD28, and meets Jesus, a retarded drooling kid. Without knowing it, he slowly starts assuming Jesus role in history, as we know (?) it today.

and finally...

- Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R.Tolkien: No comments... except that this is THE book!

PS: one of the MBA2006 guys at LBS is a sci-fi writer. How cool is that!? I have to meet him.

What's happening to London??

2005-07-22T07:21:00.000-05:00

I was shocked when I new that there have been more terrorist attacks in London, yesterday!!Apparently, four more explosions but fortunately, no one was killed.

And this morning, someone was shot dead near Stockwell station! The police shot a suspect of causing some of the bombings yesterday. According to some witnesses of this morning event, the suspect was wearing a "bomb belt with wires coming out". God!! Is London becoming the capital of fear?

It feels so good!!

2005-07-13T13:40:00.000-05:00

Today I got my ISIC card. Besides the fact that I can use it for discounts everywhere (movies, flights, london underground, etc.) .... I am officially a student! Again!! Aaahhh! If feels goooood! Where's the party tonight? :-)

PS: Never mind that I'm almost 30!

So many things!

2005-07-11T16:24:00.000-05:00

Where should I start?

Ok.... first.... HSBC loan. I sent today my reapplication. I am not being greedy anymore, so I applied only for the full tuition loan. Living expenses will be up to me to support. Which means that, if I want to take full advantage of the full MBA experience (parties, travels, tournament, nights-out, concerts, etc) I must look for a cheaper flat. Oh man... comparing with the £425 pw duplex flat I had when I lived in London, this means a biiiiiig change!! Talking about being a student again!

Second, I ordered yesterday my pocket-pc. After comparing three or four I liked, I chose the HP iPAQ hx4700. I believe I found a website that is selling this thingy for a very nice price (200 Euros cheaper than in a famous portuguese store). I can't wait to receive it!!!

Third, holidays! Ahhhhhhh!!!! How I enjoy this 'dolce fare niente'... And now, when the weather is so amazing, I just can't leave the beach. I will miss the sea... and the sun.

Fourth, I am taking care of other things before moving to London. First, I left my apartment today. Which means I am back to Porto. Living with my parents... Yeah, strange ;-) And I hope to sell my car this week. I am already feeling nostalgic!! How can someone (should I say, 'a man'?) be so attached to a car!!! I had it only for 2 years, but I will miss this toy...

Fifth, the games have started! I received recently some emails from the MBA Programme Management office. It seems that we have already tasks to do! There's like 4 or 5 forms to fill out for some core courses. One of them will be sent to my previous supervisor and three peers. And we already received some terms and exams dates. Can't wait for my iPAQ to put these dates in it! ;-)

Finally, the London bombings. What can I say which hasn't been said before? Sad? Yes. Horrible? Yes. Expected? Unfortunately, yes. When I moved to London, back in 2001, it was only 2 weeks after 9/11. Now, I am going again to London, a few weeks after this schocking event. Talking about coincidences... However, in 2001 I kept saying to my family and friends that I didn't know why, but i really felt safe in London. And I keep feeling the same way.

What a day!

2005-07-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

Wow! Talking about mixed emotions on the same day!

On one hand, this was my last day at work. Everyone was congratulating me and wishing good luck. In fact, I am just preparing myself for a farewell dinner and after-party (which will be the best part, of course...).

On the other hand, I received today an email from LBS regarding my HSBC loan application. It was rejected. Damn!!!! Well... I guess I was being to greedy. Now I'm going for some cost-cutting exercises, mainly regarding living expenses (I was budgeting for a montlhy rent which certainly can be reduced). Also, I was expecting to use like 50% or 60% of my own savings. Now I will have to use more of them. And finally, there's always my all-mighty and wonderful parents to help me with something which may be necessary.

What worries me is that now it will take another 4 weeks to get their 2nd decision!

Pray with me, please...

The life of a vegetable

2005-06-14T16:28:00.000-05:00

It's reaching unimaginable levels.
Something beyond reason.
It has spread all over my body.
No turning back, now.
Can't move.
Can't think.
Can't do anything.
Just breathe.
Slowly.
And counting for this damn month to end.
Need vacations.
Need the beach.
The sea.
Anything but this.

- in 'The Life of a Vegetable', by rsr.pt, during his last days at work.

PS: yesterday I made the transfer for the reservation fee. 6000 pounds. 9000 Euros. Oh god... I'm fainting again.....

Open weekend consequences

2005-06-07T13:59:00.000-05:00

I shouldn't have let them.
I knew it.
I knew it!!
I shouldn't have let them do it!!
I should have stick to the 'i'm alergic to it' excuse!
I knew it...
I really really shouldn't have let them stick an LBS tatoo to my forearm.
I knew something wrong was going to happen!

Tried to rub it of the next day, when taking a shower.
Ended up with an hairless squared area in my arm.
So ridiculous...

Or maybe...
... I should have read the instructions before.
Why the hell didn't I use baby oil to rub it off?????

Home, sweet home!

2005-06-06T19:32:00.000-05:00

Home, at last! What a long weekend this was!!

I went to London thursday night after work and woke up Friday early in the morning for the HSBC loan appointment. I then went for a quick visit at the school (what an amazing location!!) to take some photos.

Afternoon I went for a walk around London just to check if everything was in the same place, and found out this fantastic new Apple store in Regent's Street. Lots of laptops with free internet access and even a nice cool place to try many mini-speakers for the iPod (been thinking about buying ones).

Then it was the LBS dinner... and I arrived one hour late. Why am I always late?!?! This surely has to end during the MBA. Dinner was ok, though. I met some other accepted candidates and some pleople from the 2006 class. Then we went for an Asian party at the school. How was it? Let met just say that when I arrived there was a karaoke guy, singing Abba. I rest my case. Later on, I managed to meet some other friends in London.

After an insuficient 5-hour sleep, Saturday morning I crawled to the school for the Open Weekend reception. And what a fantastic day it was! Presentations by the dean, MBA staff, student's association, career services, 2006 class, programme management, a fantastic 'fake' lecture by the Decision Making teacher (the guy was sooo cool!), and all other goodies (lunch, pub crawling, dinner and after-dinner party). During all day, I met lots of interesting classmates, including some fellow bloggers (you know who you are). After the party, I met again some other friends... and went to bed at 5.30am.

On Sunday, feeling miserable, I went back to the school to pick up some things I had left there the day before and then went to Camden Town. I love this place and could not miss it this weekend!!

Finally today I payed a visit to Stamford Bridge to buy a Chelsea scarf for a friend and then went back to the school to buy some merchandising (yes, I know.... kind of nerd-ish... but they're not for me).

This Open Weekend stuff has surely got me even more anxious! I can't wait for the 29th August! I am sure the next 2 years will be amazing.

At last!!

2005-05-31T17:45:00.000-05:00

My HSBC loan application is complete!

Wow! I never thought it would be so hard to do this. But now everything is ready: translations, copies, etc. I also included a small document explaining briefly each item of the application. Hope it works... By the way, I have already scheduled an appointment for this Friday morning with the LBS Financial Aid person to give her personally all these documents and, hopefully, to go through them and check if everything is ok. Later on the day, we will have a pre-open weekend dinner, with many other recent admits and students!

And now, for something completely different: I went to Paris this last weekend with my girlfriend and loved it. Amazingly I had never been there before! But it was worth it (besides the high temperature - 34ºC - and even higher prices). I can't resist to recommend two very nice restaurants:

- Chez Papa, in St. Germain des Pres, near the Bel Ami hotel. Nice food, live jazz bands. Heaven on earth.

- Kong, near the Samaritaine department store. Very fashionable, superb design, great house and lounge music, and also nice food. Bar on the first floor, restaurant with glass ceiling and panoramic view on the second floor. Visit their website. I really liked this place!

On the way back to Portugal, I saw many IESE students at the Orly airport. I guess they were going back to Barcelona from the MBA Tournament in Paris. I definitely will try to participate in that tourment! I also saw one or tho guys with an LBS shirt, but I was really in a hurry and didn't introduce myself. Well, lots of time for that this weekend.

LBS goodies, the IESE time-lapse phenomenon and more...

2005-05-24T10:15:00.000-05:00

As already referred, LBS admits are receiving the latest edition of Time Out - London. Great idea and nice attitude from the school. Just a quick note for the cover with an amazing photo of Tate Modern (not the one below, though). Man! I can't wait to return to this amazing place!

On another note, IESE seems to keep sending me stuff with a huge delay. I refused their offer one month ago, but now I received a welcome pack, with lots of information about Barcelona and the school. It's not the first time something like this happens, which doesn't look good on the school.

As for the HSBC loan application, everything is being taken care of. I ordered the translations to a portuguese company for 500 Euros. To everyone reading this, you have to be extremely specific and choose carefully which information has to be translated. Or else, costs will rise to absurd levels. A brazilian translating company would do the same job for 350 Euros, but their delivery time is just too much (more than 2 weeks). I hope to send everything in the beggining of next week, or even take it with me for the Open Weekend and give it personally to the LBS Financial Aid department.

PS: My mind is increasingly out of my office. It takes great effort to keep working as I did, knowing that I will be out of here in a month, preparing for another phase in my life. There isn't much space for work now, when you're thinking about loans, London, school, housing, flights, selling the car, cancelling rents and utility bills, scholarship applications, landlord reference letters, negotiations with current employers and keeping on par with the increasing ammount of information published in the LBS portal.

Loan for a loan

2005-05-12T11:13:00.000-05:00

I have been busy with the application for the HSBC loan. Mainly because HSBC requires that all documentation must be officially translated to english. And this is where all the trouble begins! First, I discovered that if you want to do it properly, each translated document must be authenticated by a notary AND it must come with an Apostille (I guess this is the right english word for it...) according to the Hague Convention. And since we're talking about 20+ documents, I've been receiving quotations like 800-1000 Euros for the whole translation works and 60-90 Euros for authentication per document. Which gives a nice sum between 2000 and 2600 Euros!!!

Can I apply for a loan, to cover these loan application costs?

So, I've been trying some cost cutting in all this process. First, I know now that the notary and apostille stuff is not required. The only thing necessary is for the translators to sign and stamp the copies, as true translations. And, I've been also selecting text in all documents that I believe is not important for translation (publicity messages from the bank, company address and other details, utilities messages, etc). Let's see what comes out of this.

Oh! I also received an advice from a current LBS MiF student. He's brazilian and it seems that brazilian translators are much cheaper than the portuguese ones that I've been consulting (a total cost around 200 Euros!!). So, since the language is the same, and if the brazilian guys can post to Portugal all the translated documentation, I think I've found a winner!

Some thougts

2005-05-01T19:04:00.000-05:00

Long time since my last post. I've had extremely busy weeks. Working on an important tender, until 3 or 4am. It's not only consultants that work like crazy, it seems. From time to time, you can have it also in the industry market. At least, it was worth it. My company came up in the first position so it is likely that a multi-million euro contract will be signed in the next few weeks. Nice timing to leave...

Talking about leaving, last week I told one of the directors (Marketing) in my company that I will be leaving by the end of July. He was the one responsible for bringing me here, so I decided that he should be the first to know. I was a bit afraid of his reaction, but he was very understanding and happy for this step that I am taking. He congratulated me for being accepted by LBS and even said that he was sorry for not having done the same when he was my age. He's definitely a great guy. This week I'm going to my boss and to the CEO. I hope they'll have the same reaction.

A few days ago I received a letter from IESE, thanking for informing them that I will not attend the MBA. Nice attitude. Or should I say, 'at last' a nice attitude? For all the contacts I had with them before, I created an image about IESE which is not in the same level as LBS. For instance, after receiving the acceptance email, I receive by post a folder with some info about the school and noticing me that... they had received my application! :-) And it also mentioned the scheduled open days. May I say that the last open day would be... on a date previous to the reception of this folder?

Finally, I can't wait to see this movie!! I just love Frank Miller's Sin City series. Directed by Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller?? What a combination!!

"Worth dying for. Worth killing for. Worth going to hell for. ... Amen."

Must... not... buy.... Apple!

2005-04-18T14:58:00.000-05:00

I...
am...
trying...
really...
really...
hard...
not...
to buy...
an Apple...
laptop.

Must...
fight...
temptation!!!!

MUST... RESIST!!!!!

Casa da Musica, at last!

2005-04-15T09:01:00.000-05:00

The long awaited and controversial project known as Casa da Musica (House of Music) has finally opened yesterday, in Porto, with a Lou Reed concert. Here's a New York Times article about it.

Designed by the dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (Pritzker Prize laureate, responsible for other visionary designs such as the Seattle Public Library, the Grand Palais in Lille, the Netherlands Dance Theater and the Nexus Housing Project [what a cool name!] in Japan), it is indeed an extremingly beautiful building. A work of art.

But it is also one of the best examples of the usual portuguese bad management. Initially designed in 1998, Casa da Musica was approved with a 16 million euros budget and destined to be the most powerful, emblematic and symbolic building for the Porto 2001 - European Capital of Culture. The year 2001 passed by without its main symbol and, as I said before, it opened only yesterday after a 4-year delay and with a final budget of... 100 million euros! More than 6 times the initially expected.

Leaving these 'insignificant' details behind, this amazing building is destined to be one of the most important places for cultural events in Portugal. Already scheduled are concerts with the Philarmonia Orchestra, Nancy Sinatra, Joe Lovano and I also heard about a Keith Jarrett gig (although I can't find any confirmation in the Casa da Musica website, maybe it's just a rumour).

If you're coming to Porto, don't forget to visit Casa da Musica.

PS1: I didn't go to the oppening concert, yesterday. However, I would surely be there, if somehow someone had arranged for a lady called Nico to be side by side with Lou Reed, singing things like 'All tomorrow's parties', 'Sweet Jane' or 'Femme Fatale'.

PS2: This note has nothing to do with the previous post, but I just found this new Google logo. It's so cool!

World MBA Tour: The horror! The horror!

2005-04-14T15:25:00.000-05:00

After a very stressing day (negotiation meeting starting at 10.30 and ending at 20.00) I drove for 30 minutes to visit the World MBA Tour in Lisbon. After all, I wanted to meet some future LBS coleagues and some people from their staff.

I entered the room where the schools were, started looking around and didn't find LBS. Nor IESE. "Well", I thought, "they must be somewhere in another room." That was when I found my Bocconi interviewer (yes, Bocconi was there) and discovered that LBS and IESE weren't at the event! What the fuck?!?! After this extremely tiring day I came here for nothing??

Talking about disappointments! Why didn't LBS send someone to this event? Please don't tell me that they have too much work at this time. So do I, and I was there. And what about the other schools? INSEAD was there (and their stand was packed with prospective students, obviously). So was IMD, Bocconi, IE, Tuck, Kellogg, ESADE, etc.

And pleeeaaaase don't tell me that the portuguese market doesn't deserve it! LBS has a portuguese teacher. INSEAD has a portuguese teacher and had, not many years ago, a portuguese dean! Is this is how LBS wants to keep the first place in the FT european rankings!?!

Man, I am pissed off! And very disappointed. And dying for the Open weekend in June to show them my disappointment!

Interesting...

2005-04-12T12:10:00.000-05:00

I just came across these three posts. One is from Seth Godin's blog and defines 'creativity' in a very interesting and simple way (isn't simplicity a common characteristic of every good idea?).

The other one comes from Tom Peter's blog and presents a theory that our culture, a primarily objective left brain based one, is shifting into a culture based on more right brain activity, that is, on things like empathy, intuition, feelings, subjective...

Finally, HBS Working Knowledge describes how great managers discover each individual's unique talents. If you have ever had a manager that you liked, you'll know this is true. And if you ever played sports, you'll be so sure that this is true! Can I use José Mourinho as an example? Isn't he, probably, the best football manager of our time? And why? Using an analogy from this post, he plays chess with his players, while other managers just play checkers.

Well, changing to a more MBA-ish subject, I just sent my commitment fee to LBS. The first part of this self-investment has been made.

It's a clean sweep!!!

2005-04-07T09:02:00.000-05:00

Great stuff! I just received the final decision from IESE and I am in!!

Nothing about scholarships, so... I guess that my preference for LBS is going to prevail.

London, here I come! :-) I said I would be back!

Photography and music

2005-03-31T18:05:00.000-05:00

These are my two main hobbies. Is there a better place than London for photography AND music?

Here are a few photos I took during some concerts, while I was living there:

Mum @ Dingwalls (Camden Town)

David Sylvian @ Royal Festival Hall

Mercury Rev @ Royal Festival Hall

Sigur Ros @ Carling Apollo, Hammersmith

Goldfrapp @ Carling Apollo, Hammersmith

LBS offer pack

2005-03-29T09:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I received my offer pack from LBS (arrived by DHL).

Nice black leather folder with some goodies inside, including a cool business card case, magazines and brochures. It also included a business card from a current MBA spanish student. Apparentely, LBS has a tradition of using current students to contact recent admits and to clarify any possible questions. I guess that's the guy who's going to call me in a few days.

Nothing about scholarships, though...

LBS - I AM IN!!!!!!!!

2005-03-23T12:08:00.000-05:00

I just received a phone call from Tamsin! I'm in!!!!! Wow! I can't believe it!

She said this was a great achievement, because this round was very very competitive. Probably they say that every time, but... I don't care! :-)

Now I'm going to celebrate big time!

Fuckin amazing!

IESE interview - my job is done!

2005-03-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

At last! Today I had my last interview, so, I'm done! It's not in my hands now.

The IESE interview was done this morning, by video-conference. Opposite to other b-schools, IESE does not use their alumni as interviewers. Everything has to be done by their Admissions office.

Arranging this interview was a bit complex. As I said before, I couldn't find any "neutral" place with this kind of equipment, at a decent renting cost. I asked IESE if this could be done in person. After a few days, I received a reply saying that they were also having lots of difficulties finding an available interviewer to travel to Portugal. So, I finally suggested what I was avoiding: use the video-conference room of the company where I work (my superiors still don't know about my MBA application...). But everything went perfectly. I used our VC room and no one noticed :-P

As for the interview, it was really quick. Around 30, 35 minutes. It is strange talking to a TV set, but I believe I caused a good impression. It was very relaxed and the questions were not difficult. Some of these questions were:

Describe your responsabilities in a recent big project (mentioned in my essays)
How did you handle adversities in such a project?
Why I did you choose these 3 schools that you applied to?
What do you do in your free time?
Aren't you afraid that you'll be considered a bit old (31) after the MBA, to work in an hectic environment such as the consultancy market?
You know that, as a consultant, you won't see the results of the projects you've worked for. How do you see that?

Finally, I was told that, since during next week IESE will be closed for Easter holidays, I will receive the final decision somewhere around 3 weeks from now.

IESE interview invite (it's official!)

2005-03-11T12:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, now it's official! I received my interview invite for IESE!

But...

They said they want to do a video conference interview and gave me two possible dates. Problems: I can't find a place with video conference equipment and the time of the day specified for the interview is in the middle of the afternoon (which is impossible for me!).

Just sent an email asking for some alternatives. Let's wait and see...

LBS interview

2005-03-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had my LBS interview. I was invited by the alumni to go to his house. It took 1h30 and it was very intense (at least, comparing with the Bocconi interview). It had the usual questions and other ones more interesting. For instance:

present me your current company and what would you change in it?;
why did you do your GMAT two years ago?;
do you think your short-term goals (consultant) will help you on your long-term goals (entrepreneur)?

This last one was specially difficult, because I had one opinion (yes) and he had another (no). In part he was right: the profile for a consultant (following rules and doing what they're told) is different from the entrepreneur's profile (more liberal). We spent some time discussing this, but finally I was able to reach an agreement, since I told him that the type of company that I would like to have would be in the consulting market. So, previously having been a consultant would surely help me on creating my own consultancy company.

Before the MBA he was working in the company where I currently work! So he gave some tips on dealing with this company, if I have to leave this summer in case I am accepted. That was very usefull.

Another observation: it is incredible how our curriculums match! He has the same degree, same specialisation and worked for the same company. He said that this was a coincidence, but I think LBS did this on purpose.

At the end of the interview, he didn't give me any special feedback, so I'm a bit worried. Just said that the interview is a part of the application process, a way to check (or not) some characteristics of my profile that LBS understood from my application. However, I still would like to know how much the interview counts in the overall application...

14 days and counting...

PS: The 5 minute presentation was the easy part of the interview.

SDA Bocconi - I'm in!!

2005-03-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

Just received an email from Bocconi. I was accepted! Now, this was a reaaaally quick decision:

I sent all documentation by post on the 8th Feb, and received the interview invite on the 14th.
Was interviewed on the 6th March and received the acceptance email today (9th March).

Well, it's good to know that now I do have a backup plan, in case I don't get admitted to LBS or IESE.

Bocconi interview

2005-03-06T18:20:00.000-05:00

Today I had my interview for SDA Bocconi. I met the alumni, italian and now working in Portugal, at an Algarve hotel lobby (yeah, nice place for an interview!). He was really nice and seemed to enjoy meeting a portuguese interested in that b-school. His curriculum also seemed impressive: finance, consulting and now, since he prefered to adopt a more laid-back worklife, created his own marketing company in... Algarve. However, he didn't seem to know my application as well as I bet the LBS interviewer will.

So, the interview was very casual and simple. No unexpected or complex questions. Just the basic: tell me about yourself, in what role do you see yourself in a team, why an MBA, why now, why Bocconi, short and long term goals.

Since the interview was very laid-back, it's difficult to say if it was great or not. But I think it went ok. At least, I'm now expecting to be accepted by this school (despite the 1:6 acceptance ratio).

This wednesday will be much worse, I suppose: LBS interview.

HBS / ApplyYourself screw-up

2005-03-03T12:44:00.000-05:00

Apparently, there was a major screw-up involving Harvard Business School and the ApplyYourself website. Someone found out a back door which enabled all applicants to check the status of their applications! The method was explained in the BW forums, and promptly deleted by the moderators. However, it can still be found in the PowerYogi blog, another LBS R2 applicant.

Here's an official statement (not very polite and too authoritary for my tastes... as if all high-potential leaders are 100% ethical) sent by HBS, after this mess:

The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. We aspire to achieve this mission in all our activities, and our admissions process reflects our commitment to the highest standards of integrity.

Earlier today, we sent the following e-mail to all applicants currently in the admissions process:

We understand that some users of ApplyYourself, the on-line application and decision notification system we employ, have inappropriately attempted to access decision information about their own applications before the specified notification date. We take this abuse of the ApplyYourself system very seriously. Such behavior is unethical and inconsistent with the behavior we expect from high-potential leaders we seek to admit to our program. We want to assure all applicants, however, that:

HBS decision information housed within ApplyYourself is neither complete nor final until our application notification dates
The application information that all applicants and recommenders submitted to us has been, and continues to be, secure

We appreciate your interest in Harvard Business School, and we want to underscore to all our applicants our commitment to make and communicate our admissions decisions in the most rigorous, fair, and secure fashion.

Sincerely,

Brit K. Dewey, Managing Director of MBA Admissions & Financial Aid
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field Road
Dillon House
Boston, MA 02163

If not a real one...

2005-03-03T05:14:00.000-05:00

... I hope to have at least one of these, after the MBA. :-D

Said and done - LBS Interview

2005-03-02T17:12:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist and sent an email to David Simpson, explaining my situation. I just had to wait 10 minutes for his reply, with the contact details of my interviewer! Amazing!

Now, let's prepare for this thing...

Photos, at last!

2005-03-02T07:21:00.000-05:00

Finally, I have my own web space (through Yahoo! / Geocities Free hosting) which will allow me to post some pictures in this blog. As a great photography fan, I obviously agree that one picture is worth a thousand words (or more, If I am the one writing them). In fact, I hope to post here some photos of and during the MBA... if I am accepted.

To celebrate this new feature in the European MBA Diary blog, here's one photo illustrating one of the 2004 major events:

:-)

Yeap! That's right! I'm a huge FC Porto fan! Like it or not, this is the strongest portuguese team. And I was there, last year, in Gelsenkirchen, living this fantastic day: the 2004 Champion's League Final!

LBS interview update - nothing yet!

2005-03-02T06:54:00.000-05:00

I am freaking out!!

I still haven't received the contact details of my LBS interviewer. Furthermore, I just sent an email to the MBA Marketing & Admissions officer responsible for my region and... he is out of the office until this thursday (March 4th)!!! WTF?!? Do they go on leave on such a busy period??

I've read on the BW forums that interviewers are being asked to send the interview report to LBS by the 14th March. This leaves me only next week to receive the details, schedule and do the interview, and hope that the interviewer sends the report on time!

I'm really considering sending an email to David Simpson...

IESE - TAP and... probably shorlisted?

2005-03-01T13:30:00.000-05:00

1) I received an email from IESE on the 24th February with a username and password which allows me to check the status of my application. I also had to fill out a CV form on their website.

2) The deadline for R3 is today, but according to the Track Application Process (TAP) webpage, there are still some missing items like the transcripts, diploma and CV!! I sent an email to Teresa Byrne (MBA admissions officer for my region) and apparently everything is ok.

and...... check the interesting part of her reply:

"I've received your documents yesterday. Tomorrow I'm out of my office all day but next Wednesday I will send you more information from our side, regarding your application. I'll send you the details for organising an interview with your, but I still need to get the agenda from the interviewer."

What the fuck does this mean?!? :-) Is she saying that I have already been shortlisted for the interview?? Is it possible that she leaked some information? That certainly would be nice! According to BW online, IESE interviewed 61% of their 2004 applicants. Not as selective as LBS, but still good news.

Barcelona is on its way

2005-02-21T17:21:00.000-05:00

Today I sent my IESE application via Embark. Tomorrow I'll post the additional documentation.

PS: Just contacted my Bocconi interviewer. Will meet him on the 6th March (Sunday morning!!!).

LBS interview update

2005-02-17T08:30:00.000-05:00

I just received an email from the LBS Marketing and Admissions officer for Latin America and Europe, confirming that I will receive my interview contact details shortly.

It also confirms that the interview will include a 5 minute impromtu presentation. The interviewer will provide the topic.

The clock is ticking...

SDA Bocconi - interview invite

2005-02-14T12:29:00.000-05:00

Today I received an email from the Bocconi admissions staff, with a contact of an alumni who works in my country. The guy works 300km away from where I live, but I guess it's better than having to travel to Milan...

According to BW, it appears that Bocconi interviews 80% of its full-time MBA applicants. So, being invited for the interview is not an important achievement as in the LBS case (58% selectivity), but it's good news after all. A small step towards being admitted.

PS: Bocconi Admissions sent me another email confirming that my GMAT score had been found. I don't know what happened, but at least everything is now ok with my application.

SDA - GMAT report missing?

2005-02-14T08:56:00.000-05:00

I received an email from SDA Bocconi confirming the reception of my application. However, apparently the original GMAT result is missing. This is very strange, as I included the code of this school when I did the test in 2002.

Just sent an email to ETS to find out what's happening.

LBS shortlisted

2005-02-10T12:51:00.000-05:00

I received my LBS interview invite today!!

Another long wait until the 24th March... :-)

LBS info session

2005-02-08T10:13:00.000-05:00

Last week I went to an LBS info session in Lisbon. Boring... If I didn't know before hand that that school is really good, I wouldn't be convinced by that presentation. I remember an INSEAD presentation I attended to in London in 2002 which was completely different and more stylish: the location, the presentation, the allumni, etc. However, probably this is an unfair comparison because the LBS session was not entirely dedicated to the Full-time MBA, but also to the other post-graduate programmes (mainly the MSc in Finance).

When I asked about the difficulties of getting an HSBC loan for the full tuitions and living expenses, I didn't get an exact answer. Just the typical british way of avoiding the issue. Something like "60% of our students are financed by an HSBC loan". Yes, but... how much money did they ask for??

Milan adventure has started

2005-02-07T09:34:00.000-05:00

Today I posted my application for SDA Bocconi, my 3rd choice. Fingers crossed.

Meeting with IESE adcom

2005-02-03T06:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I met an IESE MBA Admissions associate director. Not a proper admissions interview, but rather an opportunity to ask some questions about the IESE programme. The guy was himself an IESE alumni (finished his MBA 2 or 3 years ago and was invited to stay and work for the MBA Admissions department).

The interview was very useful. Also, very laid back and casual. He seemed interested on my profile and happy to know that I was going to apply (well... that's his job, I suppose... I would be happy if some company would buy my solutions, too).

Here are the main topics about this meeting:

IESE is going to have 8 new full-tuition scholarships. This is great news, in fact!
The loans provided by Sabadel (?) bank are guaranteed and the maximum one can borrow is for the full tuition. Also good news, given the rumours about problems between other b-schools (INSEAD and LBS, for instance) and the banks they work with.
The main consultancy companies recruit on-campus and for positions all around the world.
The program has no 2nd year project.
Pre-enrollment courses are included in the MBA cost (he didn't seem very convinced when he said that...).
Admissions decision will not be given only by the deadline date. It will be announced until that date. Different process from LBS, it seems.

My story (episode II)

2005-02-02T08:15:00.000-05:00

So, in September 2002 I repeated the TOEFL (although it probably wouldn't have been necessary, since I was living in London for three years) and repeated the score (293). I must say that my current plans are to leave the engineering industry and start a new career in... consulting. Yes, that's right. Will these plans change during the MBA? Probably. :-)

Then I started researching for which schools to apply. Here's a brief description of that process:

1) London Business School

First pick. Great school, great reputation (now considered nº1 in Europe by the Financial Times 2005 Rankings), very interesting program allowing me to experiment different types of jobs (shadowing project, summer internship, 2nd year project), great list of recruiters (McK, BCG, etc.). Furthermore, I want to return to London! It's an amazing city and I certainly wouldn't mind living there forever. Another advantage: flights are becoming increasingly cheaper between Portugal (mainly from Porto) and London.

Application has been during stage 2 (R2) and I am now waiting for the interview decision, which will come out on the 11th February. So, fingers crossed.

2) Instituto de Empresa - Madrid

At first, this was probably my second pick, mainly because of the consistently good position in the FT Rankings. I then started researching about this school and tried to get in touch with students and alumni that could give me some useful feedback. There's an interesting thread about this school in the Business Week forums titled 'Bocconi, Instituto de Empresa or RSM'. I don't want to repeat everything in that thread and other things that I've found in spanish forums. However:

it seems that IE is not considered as good as IESE or even ESADE in Spain;
it is extremely good in entrepreneuship;
it is considered an 'MBA factory';
the recruiters list is not strong, for what I need;
the exchange program is very poor;
according to their Strategy Consultancy Day, the involved consultancy companies are not the ones I am looking for (yes.... McK and BCG).

I have my application complete and ready to be sent. However, I still am not sure if am going to apply for that school.

3) SDA Bocconi - Milan

This seems to be an interesting european school. However not ranked as high as IE in the FT Rankings, and not in the top positions in other rankings (like Wall Street Journal and Business Week), it seems to have a nice reputation in Europe, mainly in Italy (obviously) and in the UK. Here are some things that caught my attention regarding SDA:

Although it's only a 14-month programme, it includes a 2-month internship or in-company project;
Nice list of recruting companies and of companies involved in projects;
Even fashion and automotive companies recruit at SDA (which may be extremely interesting!);
Great exchange programme;
It's in Milan! I love Italy and.... last but not least, my girlfriend will probably move to Milan in 2006.

My application is ready and will probably be sent this week.

4) IESE - Barcelona

Due to some disappointing information I got from IE, I decided to go for the top in Spain - IESE. It shares some good characteristics with LBS: good reputation, nice programme, great recruiting companies list, very interesting location. It also shares the most negative LBS characteristic: very VERY expensive!

Since my decision to apply for IESE is very recent (January 2005) I still don't have lots of specific information about this school (the type of information that you can't find in the brochures). However, I was able to arrange a meeting for today, with one of IESE's MBA Admissions Associate Directors. He is coming to Portugal for an Information Session scheduled for tomorrow and I will meet him later today. I hope to get more information about IESE and will certainly post something here in this blog.

5) RSM - Rotterdam

Another school that I started researching after changing my opinion about IE. I still don't know much about this school, but it seems very similar to SDA Bocconi, in terms of european reputation, placement records and programme. I finally received the email of an RSM alumni (another portuguese fellow) and will probably contact him in the next week or so.

And this is where I am now.

My story (episode I)

2005-02-01T17:30:00.000-05:00

In 2001 I was working full-time in London on a specific project... and already bored with my engineering career. It was then that I started thinking more seriously on an MBA. After visiting an MBA Fair in London in 2002 and after reading 'Getting the MBA Admissions Edge' (great book, btw) I decided to apply for INSEAD and, probably, to LBS. However, due to the longer LBS program, I later decided to apply only for INSEAD (2002 September intake).

Here are some advices on preparing your application:

1) GMAT

Prepare very early!! I did my first GMAT on September 2001. However, I didn't like the results (630). I had used two books to study for the test:

'Cracking the GMAT': great book with great tips
'Barron's GMAT': very poor book. Reasonable math and english review, but lousy practice software.

I then bought 'The official guide for GMAT Review' by ETS, and practiced a lot! This is an essential book for everyone studying for the GMAT! In October 2001 I did the test again and achieved the desired result: 710.

2) TOEFL

Since I was working in the UK, this was an easy one. 293 was the result.

3) Essays

Very very important: write a true and unique story. Make yourself different from other applicants. And show initiative. Also, don't hesitate on using editors' services to correct your grammar and make your essays stand out even more. I used the EssayEdge.com editors and would recommend them every time!

After carefully preparing the application for INSEAD, I sent the entire pack on December 2001. Later that month, I received an email: I had been shortlisted for the interviews! Groooooovy!

But...

My interviews sucked big time. First one was with a finance guy, french. The guy did not smile even for once during the interview. However, I know now that I wasn't prepared enough. I did not have a specific and strong argument for the main questions "why MBA" and "why INSEAD". The second interview went a bit better, with an HSBC Strategic Marketing director. She even gave me a guided tour through the offices (f**ckin amazing building in Canary Wharf!!), but again... I now realise that my story and motivations were not strong.

So, in January 2002 I received the final decision from INSEAD. Obviously... ding.

I was devastated and truly disappointed. Also, it was late to start working on applications for other schools. So, after considering my options, I decided to stay in my job and earn some more money for the more expensive LBS MBA. Later in 2004, my work in the London project ended and I had to return to Portugal. It was time to start thinking again on the MBA.

(continues...)