The below text was not born as a blog post for broader audiences originally, but as something I wrote for the class yearbook a month ago. Given that my final exam just slipped into a lockbox without looking back, the class is about to gather for getting their yearbooks in beautiful printed form and to properly conclude the quarterly summaries tradition (see Summer, Autumn, Winter here) – I’m posting it anyway.
Not sure if and when I’ll have the energy to attempt a more comprehensive synthesis of this entire year, or should I even attempt, after the 57 blog posts…
And here we are, T-6 weeks to go until graduation, according to the nerve-wrecking countdown drumbeat I decided to keep in our weekly mailings and class meetings this quarter, against classmate outcry and complaints of increasing depression. Which in turn means, this is the last quarter summary in this yearbook, and the only one written without the benefit of the hindsight of how it all ended. On the other hand – if this book didn’t go to print tomorrow, you would not have received it by graduation. In a word – Spring which in nature often means the time of birth or the new awakening, tends to be in school life about mounting pressures everywhere and air thick of the upcoming conclusion.
As predicted after the last joint classroom moment in Winter, some of us Sloans barely see each other now. The last remaining core class, Operations, is broken into no less than six sections. Six! This is more than how many names of our classmates we knew just a year ago. And also the number of items in a pack several male classmates carried on their belly… never mind, I’m rambling now.
As a counterbalance we beat the world record of Social Chairs, electing some 10% of the students to fill that role. With several Partner officers also on board, they are now enough to fill an entire bus of their own to trek between events. And a bus they need, as we’re out and about – mini golfing, go karting, boating, beaching (I apologise, this is not a word, despite of the potentially vaguely familiar pronunciation), clubbing, gambling and who-knows-what-elseing as it is not all over yet. (Yes, we keep telling ourselves that, every day.)
Sorry. Focus. Spring. Back to school, still. Electives-wise, many of us already almost hit the number of units required for graduation by the end of last quarter and can take it easier with some 10-12 units and “free” time to deal with job hunting or just extracting the last of all the benefits this campus has to offer. The smartest amongst us have disguised the latter as academic units in themselves – the Golf, Swimming, Tennis and other potentially sweaty curricula must be seeing their peak Sloan participation of the year.
And then the slightly less smart, like your’s truly, a’re still struggling with around 20 units of fully non-physical academic load despite of the +32C degree (side remark: this means is somewhat less than 100F, but unfortunately that one thing I have not fully learned this year) weather, overly air conditioned classrooms that freeze your toes in flip-flops (another required translation: “thongs”, for those from Down Under).
Oh, and the big news is out – Stanford’s PR machine rolled out, on the web and through channels like Financial Times, the first unveiling of the freshly re-coined Stanford Graduate School of Business MSx Program for Experienced Leaders. Which in turn settles for good that ages-old back and forth between of all Sloan Fellows to date, of who can call themselves the “Best Sloan Class Ever”. In my humble opinion that must have gotten somewhat repetitive and annoying for all outsiders anyway.
So it does concludes with this Spring Quarter 2013:
We are the Last Stanford Sloan Class Ever.