The Adventure Begins

I have survived my first day of MBA Orientation! I have to say that from what I had heard I fully expected orientation to be a little more intense. Instead I felt like I was at REALLY social professional conference all day, especially since today we had to wear our suits. When it didn't feel like a professional conference, it alternated between kindergarten and church (I think praying at school will always be a strange concept for me. Add to it "talks" and doctrinal conversations and I felt like it was Sunday school for 4 hours.) At one point we were told to "be nice and smile". I wanted to turn to my neighbor and say "Seriously!" but I behaved, mostly.

We spent the morning sitting on extremely uncomfortable chairs listening to the MBA Director speak, followed by the dean of the school of business and wrapped up by the Associate Director. My ADD kicked in about 1/3 of the way through the 2nd speaker, so I was fidgeting for what seemed like hours (oh yeah, that is because it was!) Thankfully the 3rd speaker was at least entertaining. He made some comment about the single guys in the program needing to change their dating habits (used the old "definition of insanity" line.) It was pretty funny.

We then met with our teams (the class is divided into 3 sections, and each section is divided into 10 teams). Apparently they will be our BFFs after this semester. We will be spending 8-10 hours a day with them so hopefully we all get along. My group seems like it will be fine. We have 2 marketing majors, 2 finance majors and 1 supply chain/distribution major (he is doing a combined Masters in Mechanical Engineering along with his MBA.) I felt like I did WAY too much talking during our group discussion, but whatever. Nobody else was talking. I am REALLY hoping that they warm up. You know it is bad if I am the most animated person in a group at 10:30 in the morning. (granted I had been up for like 4 hours at that point, but come on! ) Me, the most animated? - this could make for an extremely painful 4 months.

After sitting for ever, we went over to the Tanner building (the morning events were held in the Hinckley Alumni Center) for Logistics training, our personal photo shoot (made bareable only because I got a stand of pearls out of the deal. All of the women got a pearl necklace and the guys got a necktie. Hooray for being a girl!!) and finally lunch. (I was STARVING but this point and I had a migrane because I was so hungry! You can't eat lunch 7 1/2 hours after getting up without serious complications.)

We ended the day with a chat in the Maeser Building about blending/balancing the religious education with secular. It was good. There has already been a lot of discussion about how we a blessed to have the BYU experience and that the tithe payers of the church are our "invetors" and we have to give them a "rate of return" on their investment. I am already kind of sick of hearing about it and it is only day one. There were several items that we talked about that were really good. One guy made a comment to the effect that the leaders of the church had decided to provide us with an education instead of building more temples, meeting houses, etc. He then possed the question to the effect of "what did you (the MBA admissions council) see in those of use that were admitted to think we were worth that investment?" The question that I then asked myself and that I am sure will be part of my exploration of the next few years and longer, "What does Heavenly Father see in me that qualifies me for this experience, and what will be/is required of me because of this opportunity?"

We closed out the day with a class picture (can we say "Elementary School?") in front of the Maeser Building. It was 100 degress outside and we were in the full sun in full on suits. It was miserable. I can't wait to see the squinty-eyed picture. It is gonna be awesome. I am not sure who decided that 3:30pm was an ideal time to take a picture, but they should definitely rethink that.

All in all it was a pretty good day. It is kind of strange to be one of 20 women in a group of 150 or so students. Tomorrow is leadership coursework at Camp Williams....this should be fun!