When i walked across the stage at graduation I thought life would move into an easy stage, where all I’d have to do was kick it and hang out until I start work in August. That still might happen, but it sure hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been just as busy in the past few days as I was in the last few days before graduation:
The first big post-graduation task was moving out of my house. Our lease doesn’t officially end until this coming Monday, but the group of MBA1′s taking over our house asked if some of us would be willing to move early so their sublettors could move in. You know, it’s amazing how much junk one person can accumulate over the course of two years. Coming out here from VA, I had my car filled with stuff and shipped out a few boxes and I thought that that was a lot…that was nothing compared to what I packed up over the past few days. Good lawd, I’ve shipped 10 boxes to my mother’s house and I still have a few more boxes of stuff that I’ve got to send. Then, at the end of July, I’ve got to fly to VA to rent a U-haul, load all my boxes into it, and drive them all down to ATL to move into my place on my own. I should have gotten movers with the relocation funds McKinsey gave me, but I was so busy with gearing up for graduation that I never had time to do a mover search. its going to be a major pain moving into my place in ATL…once I get one, that is.
One other necessary task was getting my federal loans consolidated. As some of you may not, interest rates are going up on July 1, so business school students all over the country are rushing to get their loans consolidated by June 30. Last years, it took me forever and a day to go through the process and I barely made last year’s deadline. This year, a couple of my classmates recommended a great website called GraduateLeverage.com that was started by a few HBS alums and is helping thousands of students find fantastic deals on consolidation loans. This site makes the process so easy because all one has to do is fill in a web form and the company will contact him/her in 1-2 days with a recommended consolidation package. I was skeptical at first, but was surprised to see the great package that the site found for me…it’ll save me quite a bit of money over the life of the loan and finding it only took me about an hour’s worth of active effort. if you’re an MBA student, you should check this site out over the next week to see if they can get you the hook-up too.
Finally, I’ve been trying to spend some quality time with classmates before they all take off for their summer trips. A few nights ago, a few of us got together at a bar in downtown Palo Alto called NOLA’s for some drinks and conversation. Also, in the past couple of days, I’ve had lunch with a couple of classmates to catch up on old times and it’s made me even more nostalgic than i already was. Wow, I’m going to miss many of my classmates.
Before I go, I want to give a shout out to my man Kevin, who just graduated from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business about a month ago. Kevin and I graduated from Princeton together back in 1999 and, since then he’s done a bunch of things on Wall Street and is about to head back into financial services to work at Lehman in Los Angeles. Right now, Kevin is on a whirlwind world tour to celebrate and he’s maintaining a blog about his journey at http://kevinghorm.blog.com. If you’re interested, you should check him out.
The first big post-graduation task was moving out of my house. Our lease doesn’t officially end until this coming Monday, but the group of MBA1′s taking over our house asked if some of us would be willing to move early so their sublettors could move in. You know, it’s amazing how much junk one person can accumulate over the course of two years. Coming out here from VA, I had my car filled with stuff and shipped out a few boxes and I thought that that was a lot…that was nothing compared to what I packed up over the past few days. Good lawd, I’ve shipped 10 boxes to my mother’s house and I still have a few more boxes of stuff that I’ve got to send. Then, at the end of July, I’ve got to fly to VA to rent a U-haul, load all my boxes into it, and drive them all down to ATL to move into my place on my own. I should have gotten movers with the relocation funds McKinsey gave me, but I was so busy with gearing up for graduation that I never had time to do a mover search. its going to be a major pain moving into my place in ATL…once I get one, that is.
One other necessary task was getting my federal loans consolidated. As some of you may not, interest rates are going up on July 1, so business school students all over the country are rushing to get their loans consolidated by June 30. Last years, it took me forever and a day to go through the process and I barely made last year’s deadline. This year, a couple of my classmates recommended a great website called GraduateLeverage.com that was started by a few HBS alums and is helping thousands of students find fantastic deals on consolidation loans. This site makes the process so easy because all one has to do is fill in a web form and the company will contact him/her in 1-2 days with a recommended consolidation package. I was skeptical at first, but was surprised to see the great package that the site found for me…it’ll save me quite a bit of money over the life of the loan and finding it only took me about an hour’s worth of active effort. if you’re an MBA student, you should check this site out over the next week to see if they can get you the hook-up too.
Finally, I’ve been trying to spend some quality time with classmates before they all take off for their summer trips. A few nights ago, a few of us got together at a bar in downtown Palo Alto called NOLA’s for some drinks and conversation. Also, in the past couple of days, I’ve had lunch with a couple of classmates to catch up on old times and it’s made me even more nostalgic than i already was. Wow, I’m going to miss many of my classmates.
Before I go, I want to give a shout out to my man Kevin, who just graduated from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business about a month ago. Kevin and I graduated from Princeton together back in 1999 and, since then he’s done a bunch of things on Wall Street and is about to head back into financial services to work at Lehman in Los Angeles. Right now, Kevin is on a whirlwind world tour to celebrate and he’s maintaining a blog about his journey at http://kevinghorm.blog.com. If you’re interested, you should check him out.
