Q1

Well, despite numerous warnings from second-years, I've over committed myself within days of starting Quarter 1. In an effort to remember all my commitments, I'll list them below:

Co-Chair of Wharton's Business Plan Competition - I was selected with another first-year to act as Co-Chair of the business plan competition held at Penn. We subsequently went through piles of applications and picked an extraordinary student management committee to help us put on the competition. This has required between 5 and 10 hrs per week of planning, meetings, and presentations. I actually competed in a half dozen competitions as an undergraduate and was able to walk away with some decent prize money which helped me expand my business, so I'm a real believer in learning and education that happens in these competitions. The picture below is of one of the info sessions we conducted. My co-chair is presenting here to about 120 students.

SBDC Consultant - I was one of 20 MBA's chosen to be a consultant for Wharton's Small Business Development Center. This is an extremely competitive program, so I feel honored that I was selected to work with them. We provide strategic and management consulting to local companies within the Retail and Restaurants vertical. I am working with a team of another MBA and a couple Wharton undergrads. My projects currently include advising an executive team with 100+ national franchises which is targeting improved employee retention and training, and assisting a restaurateur focused on increasing traffic and profitability. I've been spending 10-12 hrs per week on these cases.

Co-Founder of Wharton's Founder's Club - Along with a couple other entrepreneurs, I have started a new club for MBA's who were entrepreneurs prior to attending Wharton. We meet weekly as a group and have a theme assigned to each meeting. This week, for instance, the theme is e-commerce and I will be doing a 15-20 minute presentation on my business, presenting a case study where we discuss a problem my business faced and how people would attack the problem. We also listen to a handful of elevator pitches by other founders whose businesses were in the e-commerce industry. We also do mentoring for students wanting to start businesses (both undergrads and MBA's).

Entrepreneurship Elective/New Business - I took an elective class this quarter (on top of the Core and Lauder classes) and I'm glad I did it! The class is OPIM 651, Innovation, Problem Solving and Design. In summary, the class of 40 comes up with 400 business ideas in a specific industry (10 ideas per person). We then rate the ideas throughout the semester and slowly eliminate ideas until the best business ideas filter to the top. I am working on an idea with a great team and two of us are actually moving forward with the business and actually launching it in the next few months ... details to come.

Youth Counselor - through my church organization, I work with some inner-city youth a couple times a week. It has been a fairly large time commitment, but I'm glad I'm doing it. I spend the majority of this time working with two 14-year old twin boys and have really grown close to them. Last night I took them to the Franklin Institute to see the Body World exhibit and participate in a science presentation.

Father/Husband - of course I have a few extra demands on my time that most MBA students don't have ... I have a small family with two beautiful little girls. Although I don't see them as often as I did in the past few years, it is the highlight of my day seeing them in the mornings and walking my little girl to school.

I'm going to include some pictures I took around campus yesterday. I feel fortunate to be attending school at such a fine and beautiful university. Go Quakers!

The Quadrangle - University of Pennsylvania

Locust Walk

Class gift of '92 (which century though?)

1892 ... Sounds old, but Penn was 152 yrs old by then.

Benjamin Franklin - founder of UPenn, the nation's first university.

Ivy League! Since June 7, 1873, every class graduating from the University of Pennsylvania has placed an Ivy Day stone somewhere on the university campus and a new sprig of ivy is planted.

How I get to school (50% of the time - also enjoy the walk back to Center City)

Well, time to hit the books. It's hard to believe, but I have finals next week for Q1 classes!

Pre-Term

The last month has involved crash courses (Accounting, Economics, Statistics and more), career seminars, program introductions, THE math test, extracurricular activities, parties, the Leadership Simulation, the Learning Team Retreat, and, of course, Cohort and Learning Team assignments.


As part of Pre-term, Wharton bought 500 tickets to a Phillies game. It was a great game with a lot of home runs (mostly by the Phillies) and a ton of fun to see 499 classmates wearing their Wharton t-shirts!

The Learning Team Retreat started with a 6:00am bus ride into the Catskill Mountains of New York.

We arrived at Iroquois Springs to the cheering and screaming of our Leadership Fellows (2nd-year MBA's). I was skeptical, but open to the experience, and I have to admit that I had an absolute blast.

Cohort I was of course the weekend's dominant cohort.

We had to deal with a little bit of rain during the two days we were there, but fortunately the weather cleared and allowed us to participate in some of the outdoor activities that we scheduled.

There were a number of games and activities that allowed us to get to know our cohort better. This game above was actually the one where we were assigned to our Learning Teams (unbeknown to us until the game unfolded).

Canoeing was a fun part of a relay race which provided quite a few laughs. Before a team could start the canoeing section, others had to run, grab a paddle or life-jacket and spin around ten times. It was absolutely hilarious watching people trying to run back. I actually got to participate in the canoeing portion of the relay for my cohort and we won, which was rewarding!

This was one of the many activities which helped us work together and get to know our new learning teams. I need to track down a picture of me and my learning team, but it is a pretty cool group. There are six of us, 3 guys/3 girls, we come from Mexico, Singapore, Nigeria and the US, professionally, there are two bankers, a consultant, an economist, a real estate developer, and an entrepreneur (of course). Educationally, we were educated at Harvard, Yale, the London School of Economics, Georgetown, UNC and BYU. I couldn't be happier with my learning team and I'm excited for the next two years!

Just thought I'd throw this picture in. My wife, kids and I went up to NYC one weekend and had a great time ... definitely an advantage of living in Philly (which is also a WONDERFUL city).

Spain and other July adventures

Due to the H1N1 (aka the Swine Flu), we had some unexpected changes this summer. Originally we were supposed to be headed to Mexico for the first part of the Summer Immersion, but due to Swine Flu fears the first month was changed at the last minute to Argentina. Fortunately, Lauder had previously done the Summer Immersion in Argentina and had some wonderful connections there.

Unfortunately, we were thrown another curve ball halfway through the immersion. Our partner university in Madrid chose to cancel our program because of the swine flu which many of us had contracted in Argentina (ironically). After some debate, Lauder decided to send us to Madrid but with a slightly improvised schedule and a new partner university. We had a great time in Madrid thanks to the sacrifice and hard work of our language professors and program coordinators. We were able to do around 8 corporate visits in Spain to companies like McKinsey, Bain, Afi, Magnum Capital, Grupo Vips, Caja Navarra, the Bolsa de Madrid, and FCC. We visited outstanding museums which boast works of Picasso, El Greco and Dali. On top of it all, we were able to take Spanish classes every day, wooohooo.

After the first week of classes, a few of us went off to Pamplona to participate in the Running of the Bulls. Pamplona was an amazing little city with a ton of character and certainly knows how to throw a party. As soon as we arrived in the city, we noticed everyone (from the old to the young) was wearing while outfits with red neckerchiefs and sashes. I slept a few hours in the car that night, but the rest of the crew pulled an all-nighter in the crazy streets celebrating San Fermines. Early the next morning we battled for street position in the running, but after an hour of pushback from the police, we were forced off the street. We later learned that the only people that start at the course are allowed to participate in the running. Regardless, we had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.




We spent the rest of the weekend in San Sebastian, a city on the north coast of Spain near the border of France. It is a beautiful city with a gorgeous harbor and beach. I was able to attend one of my church congregations in the morning with one of my traveling companions and was able to see some of the sights, castles, fortresses of San Sebastian.



Our second weekend in Spain was a couple days longer than normal, so we headed down to the Andalucia region of Spain. We visited the Alhambra in Granada, the oldest bull fighting ring in Spain in Sevilla, and the Straight of Gibraltar in Tarifa. I spent one afternoon on my own in Tangier, Morocco, which was a fun experience. I listened to the call to prayer and stood in front of a mosque as people entered, washed themselves and prayed.

Christopher Columbus' tomb

My first and last bullfight

Straight of Gibraltar

Alhambra, Granda

Plaza de Espana in Sevilla

Tangier, Morocco

The third weekend our entire group went to Barcelona on one of few Lauder sponsored trips. Barcelona is a beautiful city on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. We did a fun walking tour of the city and visited several several places that Gaudi designed including a beautiful home, a spectacular park overlooking the city, and the infamous Sagrada Familia which has been under construction for nearly 100 years.

Carriages wheels once scrapped across this corner

The Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

The last day in Barcelona, I left early in the morning with Greg to visit Andorra, one of the smallest countries in the world, which is nestled in the Pyrenees Mountains. I don't know that I had high expectations of Andorra, but I honestly loved it! The drive was absolutely beautiful and Andorra La Vella was charming and quaint.

The dangers of making a wrong turn in Andorra ...

After Barcelona, we were all given 4 days of free time to either work on our summer projects or travel. Five of us headed to Marrakech, Morocco to experience a little bit of Northern Africa and the Sahara desert. It was amazing to me how similar the architecture in Southern Spain (Sevilla/Granada) is to Morocco's. Looking at pictures, it would be difficult to tell one from the other. The Arabic influence in Spain is more apparent to me than ever after visiting Morocco.

Marrakech was a different experience for me. The first thing that has to be mentioned when discussing the city is the heat. With temperatures of about 115 through out the day, it is incredibly difficult to feel comfortable. Air conditioning is all but non-existent, so there is no way to escape the heat. I had been sunburned pretty badly in Barcelona, so I bought a typical Arab outfit that covered my arms, neck and head (plus it just looked so cool that I was practically looking for an excuse to buy it). After a long hot day, we returned to our hotel to recover. Three of us decided to hit the town again that evening and we found the secret to Marrakech. Everyone comes out at night! No wonder the streets seemed empty when we were walking around all afternoon. The streets and markets were packed with people. Outdoor food kiosks, traditional music and spice vendors filled the main square and created an intoxicating atmosphere. The snake charmers and monkeys were also out in full force.

The next morning we woke up early to begin our 7-8 hr drive to the Sahara. We first climbed the Atlas mountains and then dropped into the Sahara. We waited an hour or two for the heat to dissipate before mounting our camels and heading for the Berber camp which would be our place of rest for the evening. After a two hour camel ride and some incredibly sore behinds, we arrived at the Berber camp. We ate a typical Berber meal and then pulled our mattresses out of our tent to enjoy a star-filled night in the Sahara.






My month in Spain was a blast. Madrid was an amazing city that I hope to get to know better in the future and Spain and its surrounding countries are filled with natural beauty, wonderful cultures, and brilliant histories.