Down 13 spots..

The FT Rankings came out today and they aren’t good at all. Rotman placed 40th this year... Down from placing 27th last year. (Rotman only participates in the FT and Business week business school rankings).

It is a small blow to the Rotman brand globally, as the FT rankings are the most global and diverse, unlike the Business Week rankings that are more US focussed.

What did we do wrong? The dean sent an email to the entire school discussing the ratings. You could tell he wasn’t pleased. Good reason too. The ranking drop was due to the ‘weighted salary increase’ category. Apparently it has to do with the fact that the starting salary for the class of 2004 was higher than the past year, etc..

The ratings that surprised me: LBS is 2nd. Indian School of Business placed 20th A lot more English business schools made the list.

I realized that after his email at 9:06 AM, not a single email was sent out till about 6 PM. Very unusual for a Monday. Perhaps everyone at school was mulling the bad news, and working on getting a higher spot next year...???

Oh well, it's still a good school, and we are still No.1 in Canada, and we placed 6th in Finance.

Suffering from Apathy

Yep.. finally all the excitement has worn itself out.. I had just enough to carry me through the holiday season, and now its over. I was recently told that I work too hard, and play too little. I think I agree. I think I am heading down the crashing phase. Need a vacation..

School started on Monday. Remember that team building event at the ROM? Well apparently they got too many complaints from the class of 2010. It was to be held on a Sat morning. So, they took our complaints into consideration and made us do a personality test and get to know our teams. For the record: I did not complain. I would have liked the scavenger hunt at the ROM. I went out on Monday night as I hadn’t seen my classmates for a while. Going out on a Monday night was a very bad choice. Thursday nights are better.

We started Foundations of Integrative Thinking.. They are trying to rewire our brain to think about what other people are thinking. hmmm.

We did have to read an interesting article called ‘The Odds of That’. The article quoted the famous Casablanca line ‘of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the worlds....’ Apparently Bogart was clueless. The chance of Bergman walking into his bar was actually very likely. The article says that everything that happens in our lives are random events. We think occurrences and events mean something because of our personal bias. The more personal it is, the more ‘meaning’ we assign it. There is no master plan. There are only coincidences. Nothing is fate, or destiny. It’s just a fluke. Great! So the crazy living in my building is random….. :) Already my thinking is changing..

Off to Business Law.. sounds boring, but the prof is supposed to be interesting.. We had to read an article about a guy who sues a water company because he found a fly in it. Apparently he won, and then lost in the appeals..Should make for an interesting discussion.

View from the 56th floor.

I attended the CIBC women in capital markets event that was held on the 56th floor of the CIBC building. For those who don’t live in Toronto, a part of the CIBC sign fell off the skyscraper yesterday evening. Surprisingly I was not scared for my safety, considering this is the second time something fell from a very tall building in Toronto in a span of a year. Anyway, the event was good. The most interesting part was that they had invited undergrad and MBA students from both Schulich and Rotman. It was interesting to see the dynamics play out as a result. We tended to huddle by school instead of by MBA and undergrad.

They had an executive MD talk about her experiences, and then they had us mingle. Her underlying message in the words of her 13 year old was ‘job is cool and the money is good’. My takeaway: There is never a dull day in the market and have an opinion and express it. She said well work hard now, put in your dues and it will pay off. Secret: You don’t work the crazy hours forever. AND she said that she worked a 4 day week when her kids were small. Nanny hiring was not discussed. In the mingle session, I joined the trading Q&A group. Their advice was to develop a thick skin, and know that you can’t win in the markets all the time.

One of the other points the speaker made was to move around early in your career and to try different things. I agree. The problem is I have tried different things and I can’t decide. Over the past two months, I have rekindled my love for the markets all over again. I absolutely love the markets. I can stare at the screen flicker stock upticks and downticks for hours. You can NEVER know enough about the market. There is something humbling and challenging in that. The problem is I also really like private equity or corporate lending (fundamentally similar). I like the idea of lending money to a company by assessing their potential and future profitability. I can ALSO look at pro formas and business plans all day. I guess I still have time to decide.

I am going to a few more career info events next week. I am not looking for a summer job or a full time job; however I think you always learn more about the companies at these events. At the very least it is good to go and check out the competition...