Camp, camp, I wanna go to camp!

The first part of our move is complete and now comes a series of vacations before the big jump over the pond. Our much anticipated trip out west is finally here! We will be leaving tomorrow for our little over 2 week road trip. We will hit Yellow Stone, The Grand Tetons, North Rim of the Canyon, Zion and Arches National Park. It will be a blast and after the past few weeks of logistical and physical stress, it will be a relaxing break from it all.

Bschool Rankings

IMD does not usually turn heads, especially not in the US, unless you have been one of the people researching Bschools around the world. In Europe, I'm sure IMD is more recognized and the brand much stronger. So what do rankings say about IMD? There are several main rankings that we see in the market today:

1. BusinessWeek (Non US - 7th)
- Based largely on MBA grad and recuiter surveys
2. Forbes (Non US - 2nd)
- All about ROI, purely financial score
3. Financial Times (World - 15th)
- Survey of MBA alumni 3 years post and some business school data
4. The Economist (World - 2nd)
- 20% based on student and alumni surveys and 80% data provided by the school

Not too shabby? The ranking game gets really old as each organization ranks the MBA programs differently. What an applicant needs to do is to really understand what the main goal and purpose is when going for an MBA. Keep asking yourself Why? Why? Why? Weight your factors selfishly and you will have your own ranking of Bschools, which in the end is the MOST important!

Apartments and furnishings

The situation for next year is that furniture in the apartment is sort of "rolled over" to the next tenant for a price. However, sine the apartment was listed as furnished, this comes as a surprise. It seems that students in the past have bought things for the apartment and simply sold them to the next ones coming in. The first thing that came to my mind was what if at the end of next year, the next set of tenants don't want to buy the furniture? What do I do? Do I have to haul all of it to my new place? Yikes... it's definitely a tricky situation. In the end, I think we will bite the bullet and pay for all the furnishings hoping that someone will buy it the next year. I do not know what I might do different, knowing what I know now, but keep that in mind when you find yourself a place to stay! At least we have a place ready when we get there.