Cornell Business Journal Retrospective
By Jeffrey Gangemi JGSM '09
Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: Features
The last two years have been anything but ordinary, and assuming many of my classmates are at least something like me, our paths absolutely anything but straight. With graduation looming just a couple of weeks away, now's the time to start reflecting on our time at the Johnson School. And when our esteemed CBJ editors approached me to write a retrospective piece on my time here, I struggled with how to fit two years of experience into one brief article. Luckily, as part of the first crop of Johnson School bloggers, I've got two years of blog posts to draw from. Here are some examples of my twists and turns over the past two years. Hopefully, this will bring back some memories for you - some good, some stressful, some as rewarding as they get. You can find the whole blog at http://forum.johnson.cornell.edu/blog/jeffgangemi/
Sunday, August 12, 2007
As a recovering journalist, volunteer, and die-hard liberal arts undergrad, I sometimes feel like a sore thumb amidst the marketers, salespeople, and finance gurus with whom I now surround myself at the Johnson School. But I've found many kindred spirits here already.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Today was the first full day of classes-Accounting, Economics, Finance, and Marketing. Sounds pretty standard for an MBA curriculum, right? Right. But yesterday, I still hadn't bought the books, nor had I confronted the reading and other preparation necessary for the first day of class. And what was this about having core classes start during orientation?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
This quarter (the second of the core) is tough! Finance is the hardest, most time-consuming, most frenzy-producing class I've ever taken. Strange thing is, I kind of like it. Strategy and Statistics are demanding, too. Put together, along with the quickly escalating responsibilities of clubs and other activities, time is really of the essence.
Though the frenzy of the first-year is tangibly real, it's not the way I'm choosing to live my life forever. And when it gets tough, or starts to seem that way, I remind myself of my personal values, which I spent this past weekend defining at an all-day Park Fellows Personal Mastery workshop. My Number One is my wife, who's also a talented singer/songwriter, a social worker, and the wisest person I've ever met. Shout out to Shannon!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
It's time to take a good, deep breath after an incredibly intense year. It's hard to believe I've been through the entire core curriculum and too many new experiences to name.
Just one note on the first year: I'm not a finance guy. It's taken a little bit of time to realize that, though I was pretty sure of this fact before I even came here. But everyone seems to get at least a little bit caught up in the drama and energy that surrounds the core finance course. That was all well and good, but I foolishly signed up for Financial Modeling, an elective filled with all sorts of former and aspiring bankers and analysts. I had a rough go of it, and it reminded me to keep a little bit to my strengths.
Friday, August 29, 2008
This is my first posting since the spring, when the unknown of my internship at Dun & Bradstreet beckoned me to beautiful New Jersey for a summer of HR strategy-related fun. Honestly, "beckoned" seems a bit of a romantic overstatement, as I now admit that my expectations going in were cloudy and less than superlative. But wow! I enjoyed my internship more than I ever could have expected-great people, great program, great supervisor.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
I wrote two posts ago about the course I've been trying to start here at the Johnson School-Creative Design for Affordability. Well, I'm happy to report that the dream of making this course a reality has finally come to fruition.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
After break, the class continued to exceed expectations on just about every level. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from some of our first guest lecturers, Jack Goncalo from Cornell's School from Industrial and Labor Relations, who discussed team dynamics and brainstorming; Bob LaPerle, a former Kodak executive who talked us through the rebirth of the one-time use camera; and Jack Yu, the head of human factors engineering at Kodak. All three of these gentlemen succeeded in knocking the class' socks off.
Of course, we've since come down from the clouds. Apparently, the Cornell risk management department has some concerns about the safety of the building that we plan to undertake, particularly as it relates to developing human-powered corn grinding apparatus. At times, I worry that we'll be derailed, and the goal of the course-actually getting our hands dirty to build real, working prototypes-might not be realized. But overall, I know that if we've made it this far, we can push through to the end and achieve success. It might take some creativity, but as luck would have it, we've spent the last five weeks learning to harness our creative juices and apply them to challenging situations just like this.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
As a recovering journalist, volunteer, and die-hard liberal arts undergrad, I sometimes feel like a sore thumb amidst the marketers, salespeople, and finance gurus with whom I now surround myself at the Johnson School. But I've found many kindred spirits here already.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Today was the first full day of classes-Accounting, Economics, Finance, and Marketing. Sounds pretty standard for an MBA curriculum, right? Right. But yesterday, I still hadn't bought the books, nor had I confronted the reading and other preparation necessary for the first day of class. And what was this about having core classes start during orientation?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
This quarter (the second of the core) is tough! Finance is the hardest, most time-consuming, most frenzy-producing class I've ever taken. Strange thing is, I kind of like it. Strategy and Statistics are demanding, too. Put together, along with the quickly escalating responsibilities of clubs and other activities, time is really of the essence.
Though the frenzy of the first-year is tangibly real, it's not the way I'm choosing to live my life forever. And when it gets tough, or starts to seem that way, I remind myself of my personal values, which I spent this past weekend defining at an all-day Park Fellows Personal Mastery workshop. My Number One is my wife, who's also a talented singer/songwriter, a social worker, and the wisest person I've ever met. Shout out to Shannon!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
It's time to take a good, deep breath after an incredibly intense year. It's hard to believe I've been through the entire core curriculum and too many new experiences to name.
Just one note on the first year: I'm not a finance guy. It's taken a little bit of time to realize that, though I was pretty sure of this fact before I even came here. But everyone seems to get at least a little bit caught up in the drama and energy that surrounds the core finance course. That was all well and good, but I foolishly signed up for Financial Modeling, an elective filled with all sorts of former and aspiring bankers and analysts. I had a rough go of it, and it reminded me to keep a little bit to my strengths.
Friday, August 29, 2008
This is my first posting since the spring, when the unknown of my internship at Dun & Bradstreet beckoned me to beautiful New Jersey for a summer of HR strategy-related fun. Honestly, "beckoned" seems a bit of a romantic overstatement, as I now admit that my expectations going in were cloudy and less than superlative. But wow! I enjoyed my internship more than I ever could have expected-great people, great program, great supervisor.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
I wrote two posts ago about the course I've been trying to start here at the Johnson School-Creative Design for Affordability. Well, I'm happy to report that the dream of making this course a reality has finally come to fruition.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
After break, the class continued to exceed expectations on just about every level. To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from some of our first guest lecturers, Jack Goncalo from Cornell's School from Industrial and Labor Relations, who discussed team dynamics and brainstorming; Bob LaPerle, a former Kodak executive who talked us through the rebirth of the one-time use camera; and Jack Yu, the head of human factors engineering at Kodak. All three of these gentlemen succeeded in knocking the class' socks off.
Of course, we've since come down from the clouds. Apparently, the Cornell risk management department has some concerns about the safety of the building that we plan to undertake, particularly as it relates to developing human-powered corn grinding apparatus. At times, I worry that we'll be derailed, and the goal of the course-actually getting our hands dirty to build real, working prototypes-might not be realized. But overall, I know that if we've made it this far, we can push through to the end and achieve success. It might take some creativity, but as luck would have it, we've spent the last five weeks learning to harness our creative juices and apply them to challenging situations just like this.
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