Hey Everyone,
No promises that I'm back for good and I'll blog more often. I've said that before and not kept up to my promise.
Been a few crazy past-few-weeks including, but not limited to, immigration/visa issues, vacation planning, GMAT studying, product releases, deciding to apply this year to career change decisions.
GMAT: So lots going on and honestly, I'm lost at what I should start with. Maybe, the best place is the GMAT since its most immediate.
I started (really) studying for the GMAT. A few hours everyday. I'm planning to give it in Feb 09. The deadline for the application is March '09, so I maybe cutting it close. But we'll see. This time, I'm spending more time ensuring that my math concepts are good and have been reading a math text book rather than going crazy trying to get 40 problems knocked out per day.
Decision to apply this year: I'm not getting any younger, really. That sort of shocked me. I also gave it a really long (and realistic thought) on what I want to do post-MBA. The truth is I want to stick to the software business and maybe just transition from being an engineer to more on the business side. Secondly, due to my visa situation, I have to do my degree part-time. We live in San Francisco and that leaves me with very few options of top ten schools, namely one school - UC Berkeley.
I've been researching their part time program and spoke to a few past and present students and also visited their info session. Haas seems right for me. They have all the classes I wanted, the class will be full of people who are in the software business (this has a down side to it that it may not be as diverse as a full time program, but I may be wrong here), I will not have to leave my current job, and what I learn in class can be applied at work and vice-versa.
Financially, it does make a huge difference. My employer will foot almost 1/3rd of the bill and we won't have to take as many loans.
I've started looking at the essays and also started forming skeletons of the essays and thinking of theme's I want to focus on for each essay.
Work: Been very busy. But that is something everyone says. Had my first product release as a team lead on Wednesday. A lot of weekends went into this release and its a relief that we got the thing shipped! This does help with my manager being very happy and will write a good recommendation (Haas needs a letter from the immediate manager).
I've also been considering transitioning from Engineering to Product Management. More on this later. In a nutshell, I'm in a limbo right now.
Vacation: Ah! This is the fun part! Before I made the decision to re-give the GMAT in Feb and apply this year, I went ahead and bought tickets. We're headed for a three week jaunt to the middle east to see (among other places) a rose-colored city and a city that has three western religions right by each other! We'll also climb up a fortress that has more than 2000 years of history. Any guesses? :)
The vacation does complicate the GMAT thing a bit. We're going in December (last week) and coming back in January (second week). A three week break might throw me off guard. My wife and I decided that we'll make sure that I spend 30 minutes doing something related to the GMAT everyday when we're there. That way, I won't completely lose touch. I think it should work out okay.
So that's life now. More later. Gotta sign off and hit the GMAT books again.
