First Day Of Seminars

Day 3

I'll keep this one short.

Accomplishments for the day:

 - Bought a ticket to see Tiesto on June 2nd. I am very excited. I missed Tiesto last summer when I was in Moscow and he had a show flat in the middle of Red Square, and I was upset about that. But now I'm here in Rome, and fate would have it that he's performing 8 days before my birthday!
- Went out and got groceries. I cooked dinner (this was last night). I butchered it up - it was rough. I'll cook my pasta for an extra 5 minutes next time!
- I got lost on my way home from AUR. I missed my bus stop, and ended up riding all the way to the last stop (capolinea), with two bags of groceries in hand. It was quite the adventure. I ended up getting tired of walking around, so I called a cab. Sure enough, I was two blocks away (but the taxi driver took his sweet time circling blocks to get his well-earned 7 Euros).
- I found out that grocery stores in the area close at 8pm. Our at-home pasta dinner was a saltless, butterless culinary experiment that was only edible thanks to some tomato sauce that my Villanova roommates were able to borrow from friends down the street.
- I figured out what was wrong with my camera: I brought the wrong memory card! After I'm done typing this post, I'm going out to buy one.

First day of seminars:

- My first seminar is called New Product Development and Management. Taught by Professor Robert Sonnabend, it's a comprehensive, quick-paced class on creative thinking, market research, product creation (problem/solution type of deal), and brand marketing. We just went over the syllabus and talked in class to get to know each other. The teacher is very experienced in the business world: he has worked with over 1,500 business partners of about our age, he's done work for Raytheon and has an MBA from Babson. He's laid back and lets us relax in class, but he is going to keep us on our toes with quizzes and new information that we have to write down in class and look up at home. He's got an interesting approach to teaching and I wonder where the class will go from here on out!
- My second seminar is called Organizational Behavior in a Global Context. The teacher is Professor Marshall Langer. I haven't been known to say this since middle school, where I had an amazing social studies teacher who was an Olympic gold medalist from Japan's 1968 track and field event, but Professor Langer is a phenomenal person who is nothing short of being an incredible mastermind of easy-going communication. Without much effort put into high school and college, he earned an MBA from Wharton, worked on Wall Street, worked for a large advertising agency in England, and did about a dozen of other things in his career. What struck me as most impressive about him is his way of getting people to like him. He does not come across as manipulative at all, but he gets his way in almost every single situation. Unafraid to admit past mistakes, he taught us to be modest when we speak with potential business partners or interviewees, and to not be afraid to show weakness. Professor Langer also taught us how to take interest in other people's careers, and told us engaging stories of his personal and professional discoveries throughout life. At only 45 years of age, he left no option for us but to leave the class speechless. In one exercise, I volunteered to be asked questions in front of the class about anything and everything. He asked the class to pay attention to me as a person, and pinpoint their instincts, so they could talk about them later. After a fifteen minute "icebreaker" with the class, I got feedback on what people liked and didn't like about me. Their brutal honesty was incredibly rare. I was told by one classmate that they started zoning out at one point, which told me that they were getting bored. Another classmate asked about my business, and thought that my response was a bit pompous, and that it seemed as if I was trying a little too hard to impress them, and that I should perhaps speak of some things that I don't do too well (as opposed to only talking about what I do well). After my turn was over, another classmate did the same exercise. After she was done, she also got feedback about herself. then, Professor Langer asked, "If you were making a hiring decision, who would you hire and why?" One classmate said they'd hire me; another said they'd hire the girl who presented after me. We talked about why they had diverging opinions. This seminar is going to be one of the most productive ways I could spend time, and I almost feel bad that this program cost so little. Professor Langer's time and expertise are worth an exponentially greater amount of money, and it makes me feel very privileged to have access to knit-pick his brain for things that will make me a better entrepreneur.

Wow, this post wasn't as short as I anticipated. Let's call it a day here. Arrivederci!