Little 500 - An IU Tradition Since 1951

This week has been the traditional "Little 500" week at IU. Every year IU Student Foundation sponsors an intramural bike race for both men and women. The women's race is on Friday at 4pm and the men's race is on Saturday at 2pm. Many people come from out of town - whether they are alumni or not - to celebrate the race. Some people consider it a week-long party, while others (especially riders) take it very seriously. The plot of the movie Breaking Away actually features the Little 500, and tracks the "townie" team called The Cutters (who, in real life, have won the race the past few years).

Yesterday I went to the entire women's race in order to cheer on my sorority's team. We are huge Little 500 fans in my sorority, because our house has been in the top 5 each year since the race was begun in 1988. One of my friends has been training since her freshman year, and this was the first year she got to ride in the race - I was so proud of her! Her entire family brought an RV from her hometown of Kansas City in order to cheer her on. It was amazing. Two years ago Barack Obama came to the women's race during his presidential campaign, and we gave him a Theta Cycling shirt. We were joking around that yesterday he was wearing his Theta Cycling shirt and rooting on the Theta team. Our team ended up coming in 4th place, but the race was very close until the last 20 laps when Teter (the winner) pulled a half of a lap ahead of the pack. The final standings were:
1.) Teter
2.) Alpha Gamma Delta
3.) Delta Gamma
4.) Kappa Alpha Theta
5.) Kappa Kappa Gamma

We'll have to see who wins the men's race today! And I hope it doesn't rain during the race! The following are pictures that I took yesterday during the women's race:

An Easter Update

Happy Easter!

I got home this afternoon from yet another trip up to Chicago. This was my third trip back home in a month! I'm getting accustomed to a mobile lifestyle. This weekend I went home to see my family for Easter and to look at a potential apartment on the North Side of Chicago. It was fun!

I've been really busy with school lately. I've had a lot more reading this semester than I normally do, which takes up a lot of time. However, I've been trying to figure out different ways to stay healthy and fit, too, so I've been trying new exercise activities. For example, last week I took an intense yoga class with some of my sisters at a studio here in Bloomington. Then yesterday I went for a run around the track on Woodlawn Field (it wasn't a very long run, because I'm very out of shape). I've also been trying to recruit my roommates to play tennis with me, which we've done once. The weather has been beautiful, and it's fun to find ways to exercise outside.

April is going to be a really chaotic month with the Little 500 coming up. Three of my senior pledge sisters will be riding in the race, and I can't wait to cheer them on! I went to "quals" (qualifications) last weekend, and our team placed 7th. It was very fun to go out to the track at Bill Armstrong stadium and watch all four team members ride. I'm definitely looking forward to April here at IU!

March Madness

Hey There. A ton has happened this month so far, and I've been really busy with classes. I went to Tucson, Arizona for spring break last week, and I spent a large chunk of time doing a creative resume project for my consumer behavior class instead of bask in the sun. But I still have fun anyway! I went hiking at Pima Canyon, Sabino Canyon, and went for a day trip to hike at the Nature Conservatory in Patagonia, Arizona. I love hiking - especially when the weather is beautiful and the scenery is stunning. A lot of my friends went to Ft. Lauderdale, which I hear was fun too.

So good news - I accepted a job this month!!! I'm going to be working at InterCall in Chicago starting on May 24th. That's two weeks after i graduate! Real life is approaching very quickly.

Midterms went alright, but this whole month is very busy due to tests, projects, etc. I'm trying to finish up my IU career with an even higher cumulative GPA than I have now, so we'll see how that goes. I want to make sure I have the option to be accepted into an outstanding MBA program.

That's all of the update I have time for right now because I have to go read a chapter in my International Business textbook before my classes start at 2:30. I'll try to update again soon!

Midterms & Interviews

Spring recruitment season is upon us! Job recruiting, that is. I have not talked much about my job hunt in my blog because I like to keep it fairly private from firms, but I have been very lucky to have been preferenced for an interview by every company that I have been interested in that has come/is coming to campus. I have also been relatively picky about the firms that I chose to interview with, so I am excited that the ones I am interested in are also interested in me!

I was hoping that since spring break is a week later this year, midterms week would be a week later as well. NOPE. Midterms week is STILL right after my birthday. I had a great birthday weekend, but I had to study all day yesterday unfortunately. So my actual birthday was not exciting (Apart from getting a ton of phone calls, texts, and messages from my friends and family!). Today I have a midterm in my Marketing Strategy (M450) class, and tomorrow I have a midterm in my Honors Leadership Seminar (Z494) class. Then Wednesday I have a presentation about Branding for M450, Thursday I have an interview and a paper due in Western European Politics (Y335), and Friday I am driving up to Chicago for an interview. Next week is starting to get just as busy.

I'm getting excited for spring break and going to Tucson on the 12th! Last spring break ever - WEIRD.

Business Student Career Path Video

My birthday is this Sunday! I'm getting excited.

My roommate showed me this video this week. Warning - there's a lot of curse words, but it is hilarious. It's a video making fun of four major b-school career paths: Investment Banking, Branding, Consulting, and Non-Profit. I think it's hilarious, and there's a great shout-out the the 3 C's and 4 P's that I love so dearly. Enjoy!

Bloomington Week In Review

The first week of testing is over! I had three exams last week, and one yesterday morning. It's been pretty chaotic. They were all pretty hard.

Also this past week Bloomington has gotten a ton of snow. Not enough to cancel classes (unfortunately haha), but enough to force me to wear my snow boots to class every day. Many girls wear Ugg boots to class, but I own straight-up snow boots. They're really warm and dry. When I was walking home from the Union Starbucks Monday night at 2am, I crossed the bridge over the Jordan River, and the view was stunning. It was so late that I couldn't hear a sound, and all I saw was the castle-like IMU building, a semi-frozen Jordan River, trees with snow-covered branches, and a blanket of completely untouched snow. I literally stopped for a few seconds to just take in the beauty, and remind myself why I love IU's campus so much.

On another note, I'm working on developing a creative resume for my Consumer Behavior class. The rough draft is due next week, and I hope it turns out as good as it sounds in my imagination. I'll keep you posted. I don't want to describe it yet, since I haven't started making it.

This past weekend my sorority had our initiation of our new members. I missed it last year since I was abroad, and it is so cool to be reminded of all of the ritual. My sorority is 139 years old at IU!

Yesterday afternoon my Honors Leadership Seminar professor cancelled class and had our entire class attend the Elinor Ostrom lecture at the IU Auditorium instead. She is a Political Science professor here at IU, and she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics last fall! She presented herself very well, and seemed incredibly intelligent. President McRobbie listed off all of her activities and accomplishments, and the list took about five minutes for him to say. It was very inspiring.

My Mom is coming into town this weekend. It's so weird that this will be my last parental visit at IU until my graduation day! This year is going by so fast!

Heavy Workload In D302

I'm not going to lie, I have been completely overwhelmed by my International Business class this semester. I guess you could say that it is smacking me in the face to start preparing for getting my MBA eventually.

So far this semester I have:

• Read 5 chapters in the textbook (approx 30 pages each, with text and 2 case studies/chapter)
• Read 110 pages of small-print articles and case studies (an entire "reader")
• Read an outside Harvard Business Review case about CEMEX
• Taken a 50-question multiple choice exam on Monday
• Written an 11 page exam review guide for extra credit
• Read a 37-page scholarly article and written a 5-page reflection paper
• Prepared and presented a team country analysis presentation on South Africa
• Taken a "syllabus quiz"
• Prepared a pro-con document about 10 articles concerning South Africa
• Wrote a team country analysis brief on South Africa

With that, I have a team Case Analysis exam tomorrow during class and an online homework assignment due Sunday night for the class. Let me emphasize that this is only our FIFTH week of classes - meaning I have been to that class only 9 days. While I feel that I'm learning a lot, I also feel like I am unreasonably behind in my other four classes. I hope the workload slows down a bit for the rest of the semester.

Today during my Poli-sci class my teacher asked the class why taxation and borrowing could be bad for funding a country's growth. I think he just wanted a simple answer, but I felt when I raised my hand that I could have gone on for days telling the class about how borrowing can lead a country to be insolvent if they use too much leverage to fund expasion. I even started talking about how that occurred during the Asian Financial crisis several years ago. Since this is a Western European Politics class, I think he was completely overwhelmed by my response. At least I'm applying what I'm learning in International Business, though, right?

Presentation Today

I have a big group presentation today in my International Business class. The topic that we are discussing is consideration for Foreign Direct Investment by Multinational Enterprises (MNE's) in South Africa. I hope it goes well!

"Mission: To Enjoy Life As A Hedonist"

My 4pm class got cancelled today! Now I'm at home, and I'm going to try to cross things off my to-do list.

I really enjoyed my Consumer Behavior class today. The class is very psychologically-oriented, and I feel that it helps me understand my relationships with other people better. Thus far in the class, my professor has explained how humans are hedonists by nature, where they want pleasures and avoid punishments. Today, we talked about how no two people have identical experiences, so to expect others to have your beliefs or values would be futile. What I got out of today's class was that the only way to build rapport with others is to respect people when they disagree with you.

Since I am on the Student-Faculty Relations Committee for the Marketing department at Kelley, I was excited to see that the survey we created was sent out yesterday. It asks students about their current opinions of the marketing department, and how they feel changes should best be made. Some ideas that I like a lot are a.) to create more 1.5 credit hour classes that allow marketing majors to learn about more topics, b.) to create a way for marketing majors to connect more easily with marketing Kelley alumni, and c.) to put more marketing classes as pre-requisites of I-Core, so a student does not wait until Junior year to experience marketing. I hope there can be some outstanding changes made in the department, which will result in the department becoming even more respected internationally than it already is. (U.S. News & World Report ranked Kelley's marketing program #6 overall and #5 for public universities in 2009)

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting as many fun pictures or videos lately as you may be accustomed to. I'll try to work on that.

IU College Students and Twitter Usage

One of my roommates just told me about how a guy she likes has a twitter account. She herself has a twitter account that she never updates, but instead only follows friends, news, and companies on it. It got me to think about the different ways students use Twitter that I have noticed at IU (among my friends).

I feel many of my friends follow companies such as J Crew and Forever 21 on Twitter, and are fans of them on Facebook. In that way, they can find out about any deals going on at the store. When it comes to following other people, though, I feel it's much more common just to follow one's close friends. Unlike on Facebook, you don't want to be hounded by someone's constant tweets if you've only met that person a couple of times.

Speaking of constant tweeting, I feel that relentless tweeting is more common among adults in the workforce than any of my friends here at IU. I could only name a handful of my friends who update their Twitter more than once per day. With that, many of my friends update so rarely that they have not tweeted anything new since last August (most likely from the increase of academic responsibilities). I'm more of a "couple times per month" type tweeter usually, because I don't think to go on Twitter often, or update from my phone. In fact, I still have not taken the time to figure out how to use twitpic to submit pictures from my Blackberry. I find it interesting that college students love Facebook, but are basically "late adaptors" when it comes to Twitter. You'd think that with a lifestyle so on-the-go, college students would be even more likely to use Twitter than their office drone counterparts. However, that is not the case (based on my experience of course, with no real research to back up my claims).

I've embedded the Twitter account that corresponds with this blog into the side panel on my blog page. It appears that sometimes the widget doesn't work, but hopefully the kinks have been worked out.

Back In Action

It's raining today. My roommate and I woke up this morning thinking that it must be warmer outside, since there is rain and not snow. My definition of warmer is not 33 degrees. Luckily I look at the Bloomington hour by hour on weather.com all of the time, so I was not under-dressed for the temperature. However, the funny thing is that I was wearing a white coat, holding a cup of coffee, and holding an umbrella over my head as I walked to the Union just now. When I had to sneeze, the coffee went all over the sleeve of my white coat. Typical.

I have begun all of my classes for this semester, which seem to require a lot more reading than last semester. I really miss yoga. My classes this semester are:
D302 - International Business: Operations of International Enterprises
Y335 - Western European Politics (my only PolySci class)
M405 - Marketing Strategy
M450 - Consumer Behavior
Z494 - Wells Honors Seminar in Leadership

I just ran into my friend Cale (aka the IU Homecoming King), who is sitting next to me at the computer lab right now. He says, "Peace out, Kelley School!"

It's Bid Day!

Not only is today the first day of my final semester at IU, but it's also bid day for sorority recruitment!

I don't have my first class until 2:30 today, but I woke up at 9am regardless. I ran a couple errands, printed out two of my syllabi, bought a course packet at the Union bookstore, and now I am sitting in the Kelley computer lab waiting for my class to start. I have two classes from 2:30 - 5:15...and then I plan to race back to Theta to hear the reading of who is going to be in our new pledge class!

This past week has been pretty chaotic. Not only did my computer get a blue screen and need to have its Windows operating system re-installed by IU's UITS program (thank goodness I had most of my files backed up on an external hard drive), but it was also recruitment week. I got back to IU on Tuesday, got ready for recruitment on Wednesday, and then was a senior leader at 14 party and 8 party. Yesterday my house had 3 party, and then our recruitment committee submitted our "bid list" last night to the Panhellenic Association to say who we wanted to give bids to in order to invite them to join our sorority. We plan to have a new pledge class of 39 new Theta women. I'm pretty excited to find out who they will be! There will be bid week activities this week too, which I hope the new Thetas will enjoy. Overall, this week will be pretty exciting.

My Very Last Day of Winter Break...Ever

It is difficult to believe that today is my last day of winter break. That is, until I (hopefully) get my MBA I suppose. But, suffice it to say, I am a tad melancholy. As I sit here at my desk at home eating a bowl full of Peppermint ice cream (my favorite holiday treat), I can't help but reflect on how fast my career at IU is going.

I have participated in a lot of exciting activities during this break to note. I flew to Tucson, Arizona to visit some of my family before Christmas. Then after Christmas I attended several parties to celebrate a family friends' birthday. He is a corporate CEO, and he rented the Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier to celebrate turning 50! I had a blast, not only because it was sports themed, but because the party also had a few celebrities! Neal McCoy performed with his band, and I also got to meet Bo Derek, Rob Schneider, and John Corbett. There were some Olympic medalists there as well. The party made me hope that some day I can be a successful CEO (or businesswoman in general) who can afford to fund such a fun 50th birthday celebration.

Tomorrow I am returning early to IU to finish sorority recruitment. Tomorrow afternoon I move into my new room (I will be living with three other girls this semester instead of five others). The following days consist of 14 Party, 6 Party, 3 Party, and finally...bid night. Bid night is when we get our new pledge class! It's always fun to see the bus full of new Thetas arrive at our house. Hopefully the temperatures will get warmer by then, so we can take pictures outside!

Here's some pictures of the celebrities I met this past week:

Happy New Year!

I hope you had a great New Years this year, and I hope that this new decade will bring great things.