V-I-C-T-O-R-Y

Last night the two LFM hockey teams faced off for a second time (not typical, but the hockey scheduler made it happen). Luckily for the X class, the 09’s superstar Pete was not there. That left the X class with the opportunity of a lifetime…and we capitalized. Lead by Brendon Bielat’s two powerful goals, we won by a score of 2-1. Like last time, it was all in good fun and a group of people went out for drinks afterwards. I was way behind on homework so I could not go out this time, but I’m glad we got a chance for a rematch and I’m really glad Pete was not there.

Themed Parties and Facial Hair

This past Friday we had another themed LFM party. This one was a European theme in honor of two visiting Finnish students who worked with two LFM students on a project. While the party participation was high, the theme participation was lower than normal. I think most people thought about what modern day Europeans wear (which is quite similar to what Americans wear) so they could not think of any good outfits. But European is a very broad category…you could be a medieval knight, a peasant from the dark ages, a fancy dress from the Victorian age, an 1800s sailor or solider, etc. My wife and I went a little more stereotypical (should be read: offensive to an entire nation). I turned a woman’s skirt from the Garmet District (a thrift store/costume shop in Cambridge) into a Scottish Kilt and my wife went as a French person. When I get more pictures from other people I will add them.

You may also notice the reddish brown dirt on my face. LFM has another tradition called Mustache March. The basic premise of the contest is for everyone to grow a mustache over a four week period, starting from a clean shaven face. The first two weeks you don’t have to have your hair cut into a mustache (hence my beard). The last two weeks you must have a mustache. When you think about it, most people do NOT look good with a mustache.

As mentioned before on this blog, Tom Sellek's mustache is NOT included in the list of poor looking mustaches

Internships Posted! (Updated)

That vacuum you felt on Wednesday, February 18th, at 11:18 PM EST was 36 LFM students (plus SOs) collectively breathing in as they opened the word attachment listing the internship postings. Overall I think the interviewing and matching process went well and I would like to thank everyone who participated to make this happen for us. I am extremely grateful to have an internship (just talk to a number of 1st year Sloanies about where they will be this summer and they just shrug) and the fellowship that accompanies said internship.

After the initial vacuum, there were some celebrations…and a few sighs, groans, and moans. Overall, I think it is an excellent list. Did everyone get their first choice? NO! You can’t please everyone. When you are dealing with this many people, there is going to be controversy…but I went through each person/internship match and I would say that90% or more about 80% got an internship they are happy with. I can’t find anyone with a legitimately hard constraint (for example, a married person with kids that really needed to stay local) that did not get what they were looking for No longer a true statement.

Personally, I am thrilled with the internship that I got! I will be working with Novartis in Marburg Germany on a project involving the upstream process. For those of you (like me) who do not know where Marburg is, I have included a map.

The only negative about my internship is that it means that I will be separated from my wife for six months (she has a great job here in Cambridge and will continue to work here). No doubt that it will be tough for both of us, but this internship and program is such a great opportunity that the benefits outweigh the costs. We will do what we can to visit each other as much as possible during the process (I have to come back for mid-stream review and we are hoping to make one or two additional trips).

As far as the internship goes, I honestly don’t know what I am allowed to say about the internship (from a company confidentiality perspective) so I will say nothing for now. The class has two meetings next week with the LFM staff to discuss the internships in detail so hopefully I can post more about my internship after those meetings.

LFM Hockey

This past Tuesday (February 10th) the LFM class of 09 faced off against the LFM X class (I don’t like the use of the phrase “X” class…but it is what has stuck among LFM and so I use it). The game was a ton of fun and continues to be a great tradition of LFM. The game was evenly matched (as always the X class was held in there by the stellar performance of it’s goaltender Travis) with a good back and forth. Each class has a few hockey players and a ton of ankle benders. Those of us who can skate try to keep the game moving and fun for the rest of the team.

Side note...typically I am a goaltender (the guy in the pads pictured above) and goaltenders just stand there...so if any of my hockey player friends heard that I included myself in a group of people who "can skate" I would be laughed off the ice...but alas, I digress.

As I said, the game was a good back and forth (no team dominated) and both sides were pretty much evenly matched. The 09 class went ahead early in the game 1 to 0 and maintained the lead well into the third period when the X class tied the game up 1 to 1. With a few minutes to go the 09 class pulled ahead with a commanding (given the limited time) 2 to 1 lead and despite a valiant effort, the X class was not able to tie it up. Hats off to the 09 class, they were the victors of the big game!

Both classes after the game. Picture taken from Rodolfo's facebook account.

After the game a large group of LFMs from both classes walked to the Thirsty Ear (a bar on campus) and partied until they kicked us out. The two classes faceoff again on February 23rd and it promises to be another fun event.

What classes me take?

I forgot to make a post about what classes I am taking this semester so here is a quick rundown. A cheap excuse is that I just found out on Wednesday that I got into a class (I’ve been working the drop/add process).

1.155/2.963/3.577/6.938/10.816/16.862/22.82/ESD.72 Engineering Risk-Benefit Analysis: Why so many numbers? This class is co-listed for just about every engineering major out there. I definitely selected this class because it was one of the easier engineering classes (low work load). I don’t typically select classes because they are easy but I have two time intensive classes and i needed to balance out the rest of my schedule. This class is really about looking at the risk involved in complex systems (such as nuclear reactors). I get the feeling that it will combine risk assessment, statistics, cost/benefit analysis, etc.

15.281 Advanced Managerial Communication: This class will be extremely good for me, but I will be miserable half of the time. This class is with the same communications teacher that I had in the fall (if you read my fall review you know that I really enjoyed his class) and I expect more of the same. Communication is one of my weaknesses that I know I need to work on, hence I am taking communication classes. In this class we will practice a number of forms of communication that a manager will typically have to use. One of the events that I am looking forward to (or is it dreading?) is presenting to a hostile crowd.

15.402 Finance Theory II: This is one of the time intensive classes that I spoke of. We have class twice a week and in each class you have to turn in a 1-2 page writeup about the case you read and then discuss the case in class. The cases need to be prepared in groups (and they are typically difficult enough that you need a group to make sure nothing falls through the cracks) which adds to the time intensiveness. You can’t B.S. the case in class either (at least with the teacher I have). You have to have read the case and understand the calculations…and even then you’re probably not prepared…because you will be cold called.

15.521 Management Accounting: This class is about how companies work their internal accounting and how that information can be used (or typically misused) to make business decisions. I highly recommend this class for anyone who may work in any way with a manufacturing facility. We spend most of our time talking about the typical mistakes companies make (just like the company I came from) when using their internal accounting system to make business decisions. Good stuff.

If you can convince an auditor that there are either 27 or 29 beans (depending on what you would rather have) in this picture you are ready to be an accountant

15.615 Business Law for the Entrepreneur and Manager: Don’t let the title fool you, this is basically an overview of business law. MIT Sloan has two different versions (same teacher) with one that focuses on finance and one that focuses on entrepreneurs. The classes are almost identical, with a slight focus at the end. This one worked better for my schedule. This is a class that is good to have…solid advice about how and where to get legal advice once we return to the real world. While I planned on taking this class either way, I took it this semester because it is a low workload class (read some cases and show up…the professor does most of the talking).

15.792 Proseminar in Manufacturing:  This is the same class that we had last semester.  Companies come in and we listen to them once a week.

15.871/15.872 System Dynamics: This class is a great class at MIT. Most people want to take this in the fall with Professor Sterman (he literally wrote the book on System Dynamics, I know…I had to buy it for well over $100) but I could not get it in because of the engineering classes I wanted take this past fall (and as I’ve told you about before, we only get one fall at MIT). So far I like the professor I have so I don’t see what the big deal is and it should be a good class. The class basically looks at complex systems and how people interact with those systems. An easy to understand example (not the best example, but easy to understand) of what this class is about is forest fires. If we take the outlook that we want to put out all forest fires as soon as they start (to reduce/eliminate property damage) what we end up with is a forest that is packed with underbrush. In a natural system, small fires burn out this underbrush. So after immediately putting out fires year after year, the forest (packed with underbrush) eventually catches fire and soon we have a super fire on our hand that causes extreme damage and typically the lives of firefighters. By analyzing the whole system and the effects of all contributing factors we can see that we are better off with a number of smaller and controlled fires.

These systems are easy to understand afterwards, but how do we get better at understanding them before they are a problem

ESD.941 Tiger Teams: This class is an LFM/SDM class where a group of students go and work on a project for a local company (free for the company, minus travel expenses if they are not local). This class is a great chance to put into practice the skills we are learning here at Sloan. MIT’s motto is Mind and Hand (Mens et Manus for the Latin speaking readers) and this class is a great example of that. My team (me and two other ChemEs) will be working with a local chocolate company. I’ll update my blog when I know more.

Overall I am very happy with my schedule. I wanted Finance II on Monday/Wednesday to balance my classes throughout the week but I was not able to get into that section. Instead I’ve got two classes on M/W and four classes on T/R. The only thing I have on Friday is a recitation session (extra session with a TA where we talk about homework problems). It is pretty nice not having class on Friday. As I’ve said before, MIT loves they vacation.

Common questions from prospective students

We had a number of prospective students (future 11’s) in last week and I spent all day Friday (literally I was with prospectives from 8:30 AM to midnight) and most of Monday meeting prospective students and answering their questions about LFM. In this post I’m trying to cover the most common questions so that anyone interested could get my perspective on these issues (although I talked to so many of you I don’t know how many prospective students haven’t heard my opinion).

What is the Grading/Workload like at MIT? So this is NOT official Sloan or MIT policy, but I truly feel that you have to try (and I mean go out of your way) to get a C or lower in a non-core class. This has been my experience with Sloan classes and engineering classes. Now this does NOT apply to core (your first fall) classes at Sloan. In core, 40 % get As, 50% get Bs, and 10% get Cs. After that, it seems like everyone gets an A or a B. Please don’t let my statements make you think MIT or LFM is easy. It just boils down to the fact that to have been accepted to this school (and the LFM program) you probably have a different perspective of what a full-day is and what the minimum expectation level is…and that is saying something because you are competing against other people who did engineering for their undergraduate degree.



So what does it take to get a C here? You have to skip more than a couple of classes (some teachers don’t take attendance/class participation…it just depends) and not turn in a majority of your assignments. If you show up to every class, talk once in a while (I rarely speak in class), and turn in all of the assignments (even if you do a sub-par job) you will get a B. This has been my experience with Engineering classes as well. Now I am sure you can go out and find incredibly hard classes where half the class fails, but in general that is just not the case. MIT is incredibly open that way. Most teachers understand that sometimes you are just in a class because the subject is interesting and you might want to know more and sometimes you are completely engrossed by a topic and you want to spend 5 hours a day reading about it. The workload can be whatever you make of it. If you just want to breeze through a class, do a little light reading, and turn in a paper or two you can do that and get a B. If you want to deep-dive into something and spend hours with the TA perfecting your homework, you can do that as well and you’ll probably get an A. The level of commitment is up to you (understanding that the minimum is attending class and turning in every assignment which is maybe a couple hours per week per class).

Describe the interaction with LFM 09s, Sloan students, and Engineering students. This follows the MIT model of being whatever you make of it. Personally, I don’t know half of the names of the Sloan students from my fall ocean (an ocean is a group of 60 MBA who you share core classes with). I also don’t know any of the engineering students (aside from group members) in my engineering classes. But it does not have to be this way. I know a number of students who are heavily involved in Sloan activities (for example, participating on the Student Senate) and are good friends with a number of Sloan students. I also know a few LFMs who are fully engrossed with engineering and are taking many more classes than are required. The choice is up to you. The great part of LFM is that you have the option of choosing your commitment level to each degree and the networks from each school.

What are the living expenses like? Depending on where you are coming from, Boston can seem quite expensive. To me (coming from the middle of nowhere Florida) it is VERY expensive.



This is the first site that came up when I typed “cost of living Boston” in Google. You can type in your current salary to get an idea of how much more expensive Boston is compared to where you currently live. If you are coming from New York city or somewhere in California, you might find Boston’s prices to be quite pleasant. The no-nonsense answer is that Boston is an expensive place to live while you are living off of student loans. The good part is, the payback is awesome. This is a link to Forbe’s MBA payback calculator. Instead of MIT’s $76,694 tuition and expenses figure, enter your LFM tuition and expenses figure of $45,000. For you post-MBA salary enter $110,000. This is pretty close to the average LFM exit salary. All these numbers are not exact, but it is close enough to get an idea.
What is the best part of LFM? - The best part about LFM is (in this order)

1) The summer with your LFM class and the relationships you build. When you start LFM you are pretty much the only students on campus (sure the doctoral students never leave, but they are always doing research…and the only other students on campus are the Sloan fellows and they are as busy as you, so you will never see them). You spend all day in the classroom with the same group of students (the same room actually, you stay and the teachers swap) and in the evening, you hang out with the same LFM students. This happens because you don’t know anyone else in Boston. The whole group is new to the city and dying to have fun together. For more on this, please read my blog about the transition from summer fun to Sloan fall.

2) The breakout/lounge area. The LFM and SDM departments share a large office space in E40 and within this area is a kitchen, individual desks, lockers, breakout rooms (this is key!), and a lounge area with a couple of couches and tables. This may not sound like anything special, but it is awesome. This area is shared by 100 LFM students (50 from each year) and a handful of SDM students (my wife is trying to get me a better number). The other 700 Sloan students (350 from each year) have to share a hallway and some random offices.

This picture describes what it feels like when you are trying to find a place to meet with a Sloan group just after class gets out

This is why MIT is building a new building (E62)…and while MIT claims that they will not increase the size of the incoming classes, my bet is that they will not be able to resist the money…and will increase the number of students until they are over utilizing the classroom and breakout room capacity. Back to what we have at LFM…those breakout rooms and the lounge area are awesome, and this is evident by how we are always having to kick Sloanies out of our rooms. Not that we mind sharing with the area with them when they are working with an LFM student, but the partner companies pay for that space and it is not right for them to use it without us.

3) The access to both the Sloan and Engineering network, facilities, teachers, etc. This is more or less discussed earlier in my blog post.

What are the negatives of going to LFM over Sloan? The two negatives about attending LFM rather than just attending Sloan are (in this order)

1) Having to move to Boston so quickly. This is tough. You find out that you get into LFM sometime in early March and you have to be setup (enough to get dressed and do homework) and living in Boston before the first of June. That is not very much time to find an apartment/house to rent. All I can say is that when you get into LFM, we (the students of the class before you) have an open house session where we do our best to help facilitate the move. We were there just a year before so we usually have good advice and sometimes we are looking for sub-letter or just someone to take over a house that is often in the LFM family.

2) Missing the fall semester. There are a number of classes that are only offered during the fall semester. Your one and only fall semester (assuming you are on-cycle) is your core semester. During core, you are taking a number of classes with the Sloanies. As an LFM, you are allowed to take additional classes (something 1st year Sloanies cannot do) but you only have room in your schedule for a couple of classes. You may choose to load up on Sloan classes but it is usually a good idea to get some of your engineering out of the way. Engineering classes tend to be tougher (or at least more work intensive) than Sloan classes. You really need to balance out your engineering classes because you’ll be writing a thesis during your last semester at school.

Balance is KEY!

All I can say is that if you really want to take certain classes that are only offered in the fall (or you just have to be on campus for fall recruiting when you look for a real job) go after an off-cycle internship (internship spring-summer instead of summer-fall).

How collaborative is the MIT/Sloan environment? Extremely. I don’t know what else to say. Don’t get me wrong, we have our fair share of assholes…everyone had at least one (two if you go to Harvard)…but the jerks are a minority. Almost everyone here wants you to be successful and is willing to help you. Fellow students are always willing to explain a problem to you or help you with your homework even though this could potentially inflate the average and hurt the helping person’s grades. Some of this may come from the laid back attitude on grades I mentioned earlier, but I don’t think that matters very much. Students going into consulting are very concerned with their grades (some consulting companies ask for your grades all the way back to high school…your high school grade in pre-calculus is how to separate the good consultants from the bad ones), and you still find those students willing to help anyone. Most Sloanies even practice interviewing with each other, even though they are going for the same internships.

How easy is it for my spouse/Significant Other (SO) to find work? I believe all of the LFM 10’s spouses/SOs that wanted to work are currently employed. Having said that, the economy is tough right now. I would just say that it is feasible for your spouse/SO to either stay at your current residence until they can find a job or move to Boston with you to look for a job. I know people who successfully did both. I even know of some people whose spouse/SO stayed at their current residence for the full two years. Tough, but it can be done.



How flexible is Sloan/MIT with classes? In general I would say that both degrees are very flexible. The first semester (LFM summer) is decided for you…you have no flexibility. This is done on purpose so that the entire class is together all summer, and so you can complete your two degrees in two years. Also, there are no other students on campus, so what else would you take besides the LFM classes? The next semester is your fall core. As I described earlier, you have the option of adding a few classes (completely your choice of which classes). After that, there are more or less no rules. Some of the engineering disciplines (especially ESD) are more strict that others, but in general you can take whatever you want. I know someone taking supply chain classes and getting credit toward their chemical engineering degree. MIT takes the opinion that you are an adult, you know what you are interested in and what you want to get out of school, and you will take the classes that best help you achieve your school goals.

How do you picking an engineering degree/do I need this degree (pre-req) to get a SM in X? In general I would say don’t worry about this. When it is all said and done, you really choose about four of your engineering classes (you can always take more, but most people don’t)…and like I said in my flexibility paragraph you can mix-and-match from just about any discipline. As far as prereqs go, this is really case by case. One of our ChemEs was an EE in undergrad. He had to write a 1/2 page paper about why he wanted to switch and they said ok. Overall, just don’t worry about which engineering discipline. You can take whatever you want.

Don't sweat it

Random School Rankings

So a blog that I freqent about Florida Football recently posted a little blurb about where the University of Florida and the SEC ranked on certain school lists posted by the US News website.  Don’t get me wrong, I know these lists are just someone’s opinions about the schools (I’m sure they use actual numbers, but depending on how much value you give to certain parameters like tuition costs, ROI, graduation rate, etc. you get a different list of “best” school)…but it is always cool to see your school at the top.

I can has rating?

That is the cool thing about the LFM program at MIT. Where did they rank MIT’s business school (Sloan)? 4th behind Harvard, Stanford, and Penn (Wharton). That is pretty good company to be in. How about MIT Engineering? Well obviously it was 1st followed closely by Stanford, UC-Berkley, and Georgia Tech. Again good company. What is LFM? It is two masters degrees from one of the best schools in the country with two of the top rated programs. And did I mention that it’s subsidized? If you have an engineering (or science) bachelors degree and you want an MBA…or you just want two years away from work (which will immensely accelerate your career while you are not working)…why wouldn’t you go to LFM?