Home Stretch?

As promised I said I'd talk about the work that we do as LGO's.  Summer seems to have gone by so fast yet slowly at the same time, there have been weeks that have felt like AN ETERNITY where there are simply not enough hours in the day to get your individual readings done, work with your groups, participate in committees, and somehow manage to get some sleep or have a social life.  This isn't all together surprising as it IS in fact a dual degree program at MIT.  But alas here we are something that somewhat resembles a home stretch....

Sleep...take it when you can get it

There are about three weeks left in the summer and while I've had an absolute blast thus far, I'm some combination of tired, excited, scared for the next three weeks.  These weeks include a Stats helicopter project, an interview and process write up for high velocity, a leadership paper, a class production of Antigone (not making that up...), a Lean culture paper, assorted plant tours to local businesses, a simulation write up for Ops Management, a Systems Optimization final project and an "individual timed homework" (I'm sorry Professor Ashlagi but that is a TEST, I don't care what you call it).  In addition there are some individual homework assignments, readings, and case studies that remain as well but that gets you the gist of it.

Seems like a lot...and it is...  But that doesn't paint the complete picture of what it means to be an LGO student.  At the end of the day the LGO is about WAY more than time you spend in class (but that is important too).  The committees you take part in, plant tours you attend, CLGO's you meet, the small groups you work in will all teach you something and add valuable knowledge to you.  But it's not free, it comes with a cost of your time and effort.  A LOT of time and effort...

So why do this?  Why the LGO?  Is it worth it?  A lot of people will say that graduate school grades don't matter, an MBA is just a check mark, everyone gets A's and B's anyway...  So why work hard?  What's the point?

Shotguns in normal hands...
Assault rifles when Lizzie and JS hold em..

While I don't have the complete answer for that I do have some thoughts.  First being, put 48 dual degree MIT students together and there aren't a lot of slackers.  If anything I'd say we can easily get caught in the trap of working too hard.  Putting that aside, I think you get out of the LGO what you put into it.  The amount of knowledge in an LGO classroom is astounding and diverse (same goes for our opinions).  None of us came here for a check mark, none of us came here to "get through it."  We came here because we want to expand our technical knowledge, we want to grow as managers and engineers, we want to be leaders.  And it's this drive that will carry us through these last three weeks of long days and nights where sleep is a precious commodity (the week off afterwards is also a good motivator...).


On a final note...it's easy to get stressed out and worry about school and lose sight of things.  We all do it.  But even though we work hard, we play hard.  And nothing will cap off a Wednesday evening like 3 dollar pints at BHP, shooting hoops, and mowing down bucks...

Independence Day on the Sailing Pavilion and CLGO's Vist

Summer has been busy and that's not going to change anytime soon.  Independence Day was an absolute blast, I've lived in the Boston area for three years now and this IS THE PLACE to watch the fireworks.  Everyone was out on the MIT sailing pavilion, we had food, drinks, sailing, (mildy inappropriate) card games, and of course amazing fireworks.  The view was fantastic, the only way to get closer was to be on the barge that was launching them (don't do that).  I could tell you what happened Paul Meggs decided to go nuts with his SLR and created this gem (if pictures speak a thousand words then this thing is an encyclopedia of how to party on the 4th of July)




After we all sufficiently recovered our guests from China arrived.  19 CLGO's are here to visit Boston.  Day 1 some LGO's took them around Harvard and Cambridge from some sight seeing and dinner.  Day 2 the CLGO's got experience Steven Spear in all of his High Velocity glory and we got some multicultural interaction in.  Turns out you can communicate quite well without being able to talk to them....this is not a comment on any language barriers (they speak English quite well in fact), we LITERALLY weren't allowed to talk to anyone while we played cards.  Again dinner and drinks happened all over the city with our guests (some of us went to Sacco's in Davis Square and it's heaven).  And finally Saturday came and with that so does a Fort Awesome party (for those not familiar, Fort Awesome is the customary house for LGO house parties).  The CLGO's were all about learning American culture via our BBQ and drinking games and taught us some of theirs as well (lots of yelling and drinking involved there as well).

All in all it's been a great weekend, some of LGO's/CLGO's are out berry picking as we speak, I on the other hand needed to sleep for a change.  But we still have yet to send the CLGO's off in style.  Tomorrow brings the Amgen/Bose plant tours and a farewell party later on in the week.

Eventually I will talk about school WORK in this blog....because it does actually happen..