A Day in the Life of a 1st Year MBA
Hi, I’m Alex Gulsby, a first-year MBA student focusing on Entrepreneurship and Marketing. Before beginning my journey here at CU, I worked as a freelance writer in the Outdoor Industry. I studied Communication at Texas A&M University and launched my brand, , shortly after graduating. I landed at CU because I love what I do and want to find ways to better grow and enhance my business. But who knows what I might discover along the way?
Follow me through a day in my life and see what it’s like to survive the first semester of MBA curriculum at the University of Colorado.
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Morning:
6:00 A.M. - Like all of the world’s greatest sociopaths, I am a morning person. Thankfully this is a good trait to have as a business student. My first meeting of the day begins at 7:30 A.M, so I wake up on my first alarm and take some time to watch Fox Business while I make breakfast.
6:30 A.M. - How long can a single person survive eating nothing but scrambled eggs and drinking exclusively black coffee? I’m still searching for my breakpoint.
7:00 A.M. - After a quick shower, I hop on my bike to get to class. “The Hill,” the steep strip of road outside the business school building, is the worst part of my day and ensures that I always show up a shade too sweaty for any occasion. Helmet hair for life.
7:30 A.M. - Yesterday, I received the best phone call since beginning the MBA program - my acceptance to join the Deming Center Venture Fund team, a student-run investment fund that supports emerging companies in the Boulder area. Today, after proper introductions, we talk with Jay Hirsch, Managing Partner at . Jay leads his own early stage venture fund and shared with us his background, hard lessons learned over the year, and the important things to look for in a potential business.
8:30 A.M - I have until 10 A.M. to take care of some housekeeping items. This includes a trip to H.R. to complete my Student Employee documentation because next week, I begin grading undergraduate papers for CU’s Business Communication professor. I answer a few emails afterwards, organize my calendar, call my parents back in Texas, and plan a check-in call with the Deming Center High Growth Venture team.
10:00 A.M. I’m meeting with my team to put the final touches on a presentation tomorrow. As part of our Socially Responsible Enterprise class, we will be discussing ExxonMobil’s capacity to fulfill both an ethical duty to climate change and its fiduciary duty to shareholders.
Midday:
12:00 P.M - We break for lunch. I bike home and grab a sandwich on the way. I planned to watch the Blasey-Kavanaugh Hearing during my break, but you know what sounded way better? Binge watching three episodes of . Yes, this qualifies as work/life balance.
2:00 P.M. - First class of the day! Financial Accounting with professor Henry Laurion. We spend nearly three hours talking about long-term debt and issuing bonds and break down the contents of the case study due today.
5:00 P.M. - The beginning of Thursday Happy Hour is always spent in our Professional Development class. We listen to a presentation on effective interviewing skills until 6:15.
Evening
6:15 P.M - I am homeward bound for the day, with no official plans for dinner. My boyfriend Taylor, who is also a first year MBA student, is heading off to a woodworking workshop at the Idea Forge, CU’s innovation facility. After four years of living long-distance, we began this program together and are living our best entrepreneurial lives. For him, that means lots of product development application.
7:00 P.M - Two...three...four more episodes of The Office play in the background while I make edits to our presentation. Normally I would take this free time to go to our class TNO (Thursday Night Out), but tonight I’m pooped. After some studying, I drink some tea and settle into bed by 9:30.
9:30 P.M - You have not lived if you’ve never tried Lavender Aromatherapy Spray on your pillow.
A Day in the Life of a 2nd Year MBA and Evening MBA student coming soon!
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