First in flight

Greetings from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Earlier today I made the five hour (traffic was bad) drive to Chapel Hill for the Kenan-Flagler Welcome Session. I joined approximately 160 other students who will be attending the July pre-MBA workshop. The morning presentation was informational, we heard from the director of MBA program, the director of the pre-MBA workshop, and the Dean of Admissions. We found out interesting tid bits about the school, such as our building (McColl Building) being named after a Kenan-Flagler alum that later became CEO of Bank of America. I guess this explains why there is a Bank of America ATM in the basement and the bank representatives set up a table downstairs trying to hawk checking accounts. There was an afternoon presentation by the vice president of information technology on computing on and off campus. This was followed by a tour of the UNC campus, we got our student ID (also known as the UNC One Card), swung by the old well where tradition holds that students take drink from the water fountain (originally this was literally a well) to get good grades, walked by Old East (the oldest building on campus), and tour ended on Franklin Street. We then had drinks at Pontana Bob's.

When I talk to other students I am reminded of just how small the MBA world is. There is another student here that I have been corresponding with over the past several months. I first met him in March when we both interviewed at the same school together. We both ended up getting rejected from that school and are now at Kenan-Flagler. There is another student I met during the Kenan-Flagler Experience Weekend. She lives and works very close to where I live and we were both convinced we've seen one another before but could not quite identify what the occasion was. When I ran into her again today, she remembered that we met in November at an essay workshop held by the local Kaplan office. She was on the wait list for Wharton but withdrew last week and is now set on Kenan-Flagler.