The last couple days have been very exciting. WVU beat the #2 ranked UCLA Bruins; I finished another brand paper; and Grant & I finally secured our second year project (see, we had one, but f#$king Opera Consulting screwed us and pulled out).
I’m uncomfortable mentioning the client until I discuss it with Grant & the client, but it’s pretty cool. The pay is comparable to my old charity salary, but the work will be interesting. The amazing folks at Infosys were also going to give us a project that looked pretty cool as well. Despite the terribly long time it took to find, what I’ve come to call, my graduation project, we were finally able to do it.
The challenge with this project is that it will require a fair amount of face to face contact. Yet, I am in New York. Once we got word that every other student at LBS already had a second year project and we were selected; I started searching for good flights to return and frantically reading through the NYU syllabi to see what type of penalty missing classes would incur.
There was a narrow range: one class, Competitive Market Strategy said – we understand you’re professionals (night classes have more part-time and exec students), while the rest either gave one day or none before there would be a grade drop. I’m not here for the grades, but I’d like the greatest chance of doing well so I hit the email trail.
Dear Professor, I have a second year project in London … it’s for academics … please understand.
To their credit, each professor replied saying they understood and to have a good trip. Wew! During this email exchange I also laid the ground-work for my early departure from campus thanks to a three week overlap between the end of the Semester (15 weeks) and London’s (10 weeks) summer term. Since it was all framed around academics – they understood.
My flight is booked (first flight on Virgin Atlantic). And, I’m ready to go back to Merry Ol’ England for a week to see my wife and meet the nice people who have asked for our strategic help. All in all, a good weekend.
