The (never ending?) Job Search: Part 4!

As I returned from Ghana there were a few tasks I absolutely had to get done within the first, oh, week. Probably top priority was figuring out what I was going to do for a job.

While I was in Ghana I checked my email a couple time for notice from either CA or Braver but had not yet heard anything. This left me still in limbo when I returned. I was really kinda hoping at least one of them would have gotten back to me to make the decision easier for me upon return. But alas, life is not that way.

I did however get my official acceptance into Babson's MSA program.

As I'm going back and forth with my decision, still waiting to hear from CA, I use that as a major factor. IF I get the job at CA and take it that will mean I don't do the MSA. The deadline to for add/drop is a week after returning so I really do need to make the decision within the week.

So I start by sending a follow up email to CA, then I organize a phone call with someone at Braver. The phone call had been in the works before leaving, sort of us a way of buying time and also to get some of my questions answered that would be deciding factors.

What it came down to is this:

• Everyone I interviewed with at smaller firms said people who leave end up going to non-accounting firms as their next step if they leave
• Everyone I interviewed with at non-accounting firms had started at accounting firms then switched over
• Everyone valued having a variety of experiences from the outset (in different industries, roles, etc.)

So then my two options would be

• Go to Braver for the (highly valued) public accounting experience and get the MSA/CPA credentials quick
• Go to CA for a rotation of accounting experiences and have the company pay for a Masters down the line

Now I know you (specifically MS) are sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for me to just say it, so here it goes:

(Insert dramatic pause here)

(Insert drum roll here)

Let's be real, there's no better way to get a Masters and I would much rather stay in Boston with the majority of my friends than go to Long Island. So Braver it is!

Want to know more about Braver? 

Here's the link to their website: http://www.thebravergroup.com/

And here's just an article about the company's CEO who happens to be a Babson alum: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/print-edition/2013/02/22/bravers-ceo-sits-high-in-the-saddle.html?page=3

I'll start work there in about two weeks and as of right now am pretty excited!

So then I went to Ghana

I spent two weeks in Ghana this past January. Before going I had been told that the program is a "life changing" experience. Honesty first: no, my life has not been drastically changed because I went to Ghana. However, it was an absolutely amazing experience.

First thing's first, a map of Ghana:

We flew into the capitol, Accra. Then we made our way west along the Cape Coast to Takoradi and Sekondi.

We were there to teach entrepreneurship to high school students. We also managed to do some work with the local community. The people we met were very welcoming and excited to have us around. The schools we taught in were scattered through out the Cape Coast and Takoradi regions. I taught in two which both happened to be in Takoradi. We were hosted by Reverend Andoh and his church community.

There were around 50 of us travelling from Babson (the largest cohort yet). We spent the first few days acclimating to Ghanaian culture and doing some touristy sight seeing. After that we had a week of teaching followed by the rocket pitch competition.

First stop: Ashesi University

Located just outside Accra is a small university that Babson has a really good relationship with. There are fewer than 600 students, so it's even smaller than high school. (Check out their website here). We started with a campus tour that took us around the courtyard, through the library, and into a couple classrooms. We were accompanied by student tour guides and a group from Harvard as well.

After the tours we sat through a lecture about the history and economy of Ghana. It was interesting to see the things the Ghanaians made a point of compared to what we had learned in our lectures with Dean Hanno and Professors Deets and Schlesinger before hand.

Next up was lunch. I was silly and didn't take pictures of the food while I was in Ghana, but it was fairly simple. We had a lot of rice and chicken, and some local fruits & veggies.

Then we got to sit back for a cultural lesson in traditional dance and music.

This made for a fairly easy first day to acclimate ourselves to the weather and time change.

The courtyard at Ashesi.

Ashesi's library

The cafeteria. It is essentially a covered patio with a kitchen.

Learning traditional dance & music

Second Stop: Sekondi

The next day was a travel day. We made our way from Accra to what would be our home for the rest of the time we were in Ghana: Reverend Andoh's church.

It took us pretty much all day to get from Accra to Sekondi. I naturally stayed awake the entire time watching out the window. The scenery reminded me of a cross between Malaysia and South Africa. Overall it was poor, much like the townships of South Africa. Yet the communities seemed to be better kept than the townships, much like the rural areas around Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Along the way we stopped for lunch at a beach resort. It was a good chance to stretch our legs and take in the ocean breeze. Each of our travel days we stopped for lunch. Vacationing at these resorts would make it very easy to forget how poor the region is.

Then it was back on the road to Sekondi. Apparently every year Dean Hanno brings a group to Ghana the church has been renovated. This is probably very necessary as it was full quite a bit in the short time we were there. The compound was set up with two larger rooms downstairs and four small rooms upstairs. There was long hallway across the entire width of the building upstairs. We lined the hallway with tables and chairs and that was where we ate most of our meals. If the group was any bigger we would not have fit all at once.

Just a lizard chilling on some coconuts. No big deal.

A local Ghanaian community. People just going about their daily business

Naturally there are vendors at the resorts. They reminded me of the
vendors in South Africa with their crafts.

Third Stop: Tourist Attractions

No matter how much you try to immerse yourself fully into a culture, some tourist attractions are a must. They help understand part of the culture. In our case we did a canopy walk in the jungle and went to Elmina slave castle.

The canopy walk was very much what it sounds like: we went up into the jungle (not like deep into the jungle but to a touristy part of the jungle). Then we hiked along to an area that had ropes ladders set up to walk across something like 100m above the forest floor. It was fun, not really all that much to say about it, though.

The other adventure of the day was Elmina slave castle. We had all learned about the slave trade in elementary school, but we learned about it from a Western perspective. This was the rest of the story.

Before future slaves made the voyage to wherever they were "needed" they were brought to Elmina or another port. They were put in what really felt like an old prison, except for the fact that there was a church in the middle. The architecture was a weird mix of dungeon and old European. The other difference between Elmina and a prison was the fact that the people kept there had not committed a crime. It was really chilling to think about the fact that this was their last connection to their homeland. They didn't all survive the time they were held at Elmina, either. Yet it was clear that the Europeans who lived there led comfortable lives.

View from one side of Elmina. The slaves were held in dungeons and then
forced out straight onto the ships through "the door of no return"

Another view of Elmina: the top overlooking the neighboring community.

Fourth Stop: Reverend Andoh's Church

Since the next day was Sunday and we were hosted by a church, we all got up and went to one of the services. I always find it interesting to see how other communities worship. I think it says a lot about the culture. This wasn't a flashy service, but people came out in their Sunday best and filled the church. The churches in Ghana certainly were a major part of the community.

That afternoon was spent preparing for our week of teaching. That was partially lesson planning, partially organizing materials. We also had a break to read to the community children (which I particularly enjoyed, of course). 

This was really our final day to get acclimated, if there was any more need for it. The rest of the time we would be in school mode.

Hilary with some of the children. They came around quite a lot throughout
the week. I think they rather enjoyed having some extra playmates.

Teaching

As far as the teaching component of my time in Ghana went, I was fortunate.

I was able to teach every day, although the first day there was a moment it seemed we wouldn't teach. Our students were far too motivated to have us leave, though. Some of them had participated in the program during previous years.They even still had some materials that had been left behind. 

It was definitely a learning experience for me, though. I reaffirmed the fact that I do not want to be a teacher.

During the teaching week I would start each morning getting breakfast with the whole Ghana 2013 group. Then a small group would go by bus to Cape Coast while the rest of us finished getting ready and took taxis to our schools. Mine was about half an hour away. Some days Professor Deets and I would share the taxi with another group, others it was just us. Then it would be my job to teach the lesson of the day. The idea was that this was my only experience in Ghana so I needed to get the most out of it. One day we had a visit from Dean Hanno, who then took Professor Deets on an excursion when he left.

It was very much like a condensed FME, and very much like the Girl Scouts Camp CEO program I helped coordinate a few years back. The students came up with some creative ideas, some which could work and some which clearly would not work. Some students were better presenters than others which made their pitch overall work better.

But anyways. After that we would taxi back right around lunch time. After two days they needed someone to go to another school so my new friend Carly and I went. At this point it was Wednesday and so we had a really condensed teaching week with no planning. But it worked out fine. I only worked with that group for two days, then I missed the final day because I was still at my morning school.

My classroom: the library. We had electricity and snacks each day. We were
doing really well. 

Last day of school: class picture!

The Big Day

After a week of teaching each school was able to send a team of student representatives to the rocket pitch competition. Just as the program as a whole had grown to more Babson students than ever before, there were also far more schools & teams presenting than ever before. This meant that the presentations had to be split between two churches. Because of this there were also two rounds of presentations. The top teams from each church in the first round presented again in Rv. Andoh's church for the second round. Both of my teams started in the other church.

As both of my teams arrived I went back and forth between them to help them prepare for the presentation. I wanted, ultimately, to see the best work that they had done so far that week. While neither of my teams ultimately moved onto the second round I was impressed with how far they had come, especially the school that only had three days.

Then for the second round I was a judge. I sat along nine other judges listening to what were deemed the six best teams present that day, then scoring based on a few different categories such as creativity and feasibility. One of my bigger takeaways was to let the students dream big. Throughout the week I had certainly heard some ideas that simply weren't feasible, but focusing first on feasibility limits idea generation. While I questioned the feasibility of the team that took first place, their idea was certainly one of the more innovative ideas (they managed to make a light that was sensitive to the darkness and only turned on when there wasn't sufficient light outside).

One of my teams presenting bags made from yogurt wrappers.

Heading Home

The following day was our final day in Ghana. We were up early for church services, then made the journey back to Accra to catch our flight for London.

Once again we stopped at a beach resort along the Cape Coast for lunch on the way. It was a good chance to get one last moment of peace in Ghana.

Meanwhile, Dean Hanno was busy coordinating with someone who had accidentally taken the bags of one of the members of our group at the airport two weeks earlier (she was a trooper and managed to last the full two weeks without her checked bag). When we finally got to the airport she received her bag. It was kind of the happy ending to the trip...

except for the fact that our plane was still in London.

See, it was now nearly the end of January and, as it does in London, it was snowing and grounding flights. This meant that with just a few hours to go before we were supposed to take off our plane was not just in a different country, but an entirely different continent. We took to playing cards and games while waiting to hear what we were to do next and when we would make it home. Keep in mind that if our flight is canceled it's not easy to fit an entire airplane full of people onto the next flight, and it's not like there are frequent flights to London.

A few hours after arriving at the airport we are told to go through security (though from my memory we still weren't quite sure if that actually meant we would be leaving).

We get to the other side and still had to wait for a while (our plane still wasn't in Ghana). We waited, napped, and watched for our plane to land. It must have been nearly 2am when finally our plane landed and we were able to board.

Knowing Professor Deets would prefer not to sit in the middle of a row I switched seats with him (after taking Dramamine figuring I would just sleep the whole flight). Shortly after take off (I had gotten maybe an hour of sleep at this point) the guy on the inside (window seat in a row of three) got up so I let him out. He went back and forth for a while before it was determined that he wasn't experiencing air sickness, he was actually sick and running a fever.

Delightful.

But I stuck it out without complaining (and with a good amount of hand-sanitizer).

The leg from London was fairly uneventful. We were mostly fortunate enough to have enough time between our flight from Ghana and our flight to Boston that the delay really only shortened the layover. Professor Deets, however, was forced to miss his flight so we then all had to wait on word of if he was making it home that day. Then we just had to make it back to Babson and prepare (for a good number of us) for our 8am Advance Accounting class the next morning. We were kindly greeted by Dean Hanno first thing in the morning, too!

And thus ended my second adventure in Africa and first in Ghana.

Until next time :)

The (never ending?) Job Search: Part 1!

My fall semester was pretty much occupied by job applications, interviews, writing cover letters, reviewing my resume, and pretty much everything else that could go into a job search...on top of classes & trying to spend as much time with Parvati as possible before she graduated.

It was quite the process. Much more intense & overwhelming than I thought it would be. I expected to have accepted an offer by the end of October. After that I would get into Babson's MSA and life would be smooth sailing for the rest of the year.

Totally didn't happen that way.

I went through the process of applying to all the major accounting firms, as well as some mid size firms and rotational programs, but the main focus was on the big companies.

Silly me. 

While I got an interview almost everywhere I applied, and many second round interviews as well, there was apparently something missing. So I kept applying and interviewing. By the end of the semester I was starting to feel very overwhelmed as I did not yet have a job offer unlike almost every single other one of my accounting friends.

And I got wait listed for the MSA on a technicality due to having not officially completing the requirements since I had been abroad. This was an unexpected wrench. I had sat down with the professors in charge and walked through how to get everything done in time & in the right way. Yet I had apparently managed to miss the point where I can't officially get accepted until I have some of the requirements out of the way. But more on that in another post.

Some interviews were easy to get. There was one company I didn't even remember to apply to but career services (go Babson being really super helpful and on their game!) got me in anyways.

Others were more difficult. For one company I was sent options of times to interview, but was apparently slow on the draw and chose the more popular slot after it was already full. It took some negotiating but I managed to get an interview...that's actually a somewhat entertaining story.

So it was the Monday after Thanksgiving and I got an email from this really awesome company called CA Technologies (http://www.ca.com/). They had two first round interview times: that Friday in Framingham, or the next Friday in Manhattan. Naturally, you would think, I would choose the one in Framingham seeing as it's right down the street from Babson.

NOPE.

See, the interviews were four hour blocks which included an information session followed by a round of one-on-one interviews and a meet & greet. As a busy Babson student I couldn't work my schedule out for a four hour block on four days notice so I called and asked if there would be a problem with going for the Manhattan one. I was told that should be fine, so that's what I went with.

While waiting for the confirmation I (very excitedly) went to Feng to tell her I had another interview lined up (at this point you would think all my friends would be tired of hearing that, seeing as I'd had around 15 so far, but she was still really excited for me. My friends are simply awesome people). Instantly she went to work, without me even asking, on figuring out the best way for me to get to New York. A bus or train wouldn't work because if they were delayed I wouldn't have much turn around time to figure things out. So instead we opted for me to fly from Boston to New York. After a little hesitation from me, we bought a one way ticket to NYC on Jet Blue (LOVE Jet Blue now). We figured I could get back however I wanted after.

Then I got an email back from CA saying the slots were all full for that Friday, but the Framingham location still had plenty of space. Well, I'm sure if I absolutely had to I could have figured something out, but it would have been really inconvenient. I already had my travel arrangements secured so I emailed them back. After a few days of emailing back and forth, talking to close friends & family and career services we were at a stand still.

Friday passes, then the weekend and I'm sitting with a plane ticket that seems almost useless at this point. At very least, I figure, I'll take the time to visit Sarah Bhuiya and Ifreen while I'm in the city. So I get in touch with them and we agree to meet up. I knew then that if nothing else I would get to see some of my favorite people who I never get to see any more, at least not nearly enough.

Meanwhile, I'm arranging a going away celebration for Parvati. The whole ordeal is somewhat of a disorganized surprise. She knew we would do something for her; she had essentially told me I had to as her best friend (I was planning on it anyways, but still). For pretty much everyone Satuday worked best. So I let her go along thinking that's what we would do. But for me, I had no idea what state I would be in on Saturday, and I knew I had a LOT of studying to do for my exams which were on Monday and Tuesday (great scheduling :P). So I arranged for it to be on Thursday. The problem was, Feng and I had to leave for the airport at about 7am the next morning & Feng is NOT a morning person. So really Thursday wasn't all that convenient for me either. But I made it work. I got a few people together, including some throw backs to freshman year, and I'd say Operation Surprise Parvati was a success. Then we were quick to shoo everyone off to midnight breakfast (my careful planning got people out of the suite early so I could get some sleep).

"Babson" waffles at Midnight Breakfast!

But that's not the point. I finally get an email back from the recruiter. Seeing as I was going to be in the city anyways they would work out how to fit me in.

Now the pressure was on. I had fought hard to secure the interview so I had to be at my absolute best so they would not regret coordinating with me. Going off of very little sleep (early flight + arranging a celebration for the night before = not the best idea for anyone who wants sleep) Feng and I made it off to the airport. I boarded my flight and was in the city within an hour.

Another side note, as soon as I really have a disposable income I'm flying EVERYWHERE. Planes freak me out a bit, sure, but the ease of a domestic flight and saving so much time is totally worth it.

I swear this same bird was at Logan when I took off for Korea!

Left too early to eat at Babson...so I got breakfast at Au Bon Pain before
heading through security.

The moment the stewardess brought out Dunkins I was in LOVE with Jet Blue!

I get to the city with hours to spare so I scope out the location of the office, then just kinda walk around a bit. I got myself some lunch, wandered through the city & some stores, then made my way for the interview.

First thing's first: find the building. Then, off to explore!

The wonderful thing about NYC in December: all of the
Christmas decorations!

I had never been in any of the NYC churches, so with time
to spare I figured I'd check one out. STUNNING organ!

Casual carrying a Christmas tree through the city?

#NOMS! Found the Hershey's Store! I went in later on but didn't take any pics

...and the Disney store. Always a kid at heart <3

So where to next? To see the Ball from Times Square, of course!

A wall of Hopes & Dreams, how sweet!

And to top the Times Square Ball? THE DISNEY STORE! 

"When you wish upon a starrrr!"

Found the princess castle!

"They say if you dream a thing more than once it's sure to come true"

Christmas in the Disney Store ^.^

SO excited about The Hobbit!

And in an attempt to top the Disney Store: TOYS R US!

Boxes of Nerds as big as my head!!!

Statue of Liberty made completely out of Legos...Awesome!

and the Hulk made completely out of Legos!

Throw back toys!

Nerves abound (again, PRESSURE) I walked in, hung up my coat, and mixed with the other candidates. I could go into detail of what the company does, what the position is, etc. or you could just look at their website (link above) because that is mostly besides the point.

After the information session we were all sent into the main reception area to mix with a few young workers at CA. We got the chance to talk to them, ask them questions, etc. I made sure to get some face time with each of them and ask at least one good question. I don't tend to be overly inquisitive, but I made it work in this case. Then I was called in for my one-on-one. For this I lucked out. The woman interviewing me reminded me of an older version of myself. We got along great.

I left feeling really good. If nothing else, I had put my best foot forward. The ball was once again in their court; I was once again in a waiting game. I had to make it through finals & prepare for Ghana. That's a lot to do, and I only had a few short weeks to do it.

This was also a night of closure. Like I mentioned early, I had plans to meet up with Sarah and Ifreen. The two of them never really knew each other, but seeing as they're both good friends of mine I figured it'd be okay to mix the two of them. We went to this neat little place that I totally might be able to find again...might.

The menu!

Salted Caramel Milk Shake: Delicious!

I had the chance to talk to Ifreen about her experience at PwC. What it came down to: she told me I wouldn't be happy there, or any of the major companies. They just aren't my style. At least not now. I needed to hear this. It was true, which I suppose I had known for a while, but I needed to hear this from her. Had I known how much I needed to hear this from her maybe the whole semester would have gone much more smoothly. Oh well.

So that's how I concluded the semester. And seeing as this post is already really long, I'll leave you wondering what happens next until maybe tomorrow?