Statistics Poem By A Delusionary WEMBA Student

UPDATE: Our class poet has revealed himself....Raghav!

Here's a little verse that I wrote down at the end of last term:

I shall be telling this with a sigh,
Maybe when I get a statistics high,
Richard Waterman taught me long ago,
"When p is low, the null must go."

-Found on the chalkboard of 5th floor room 529 after our stats exam last term. Talk to me if you want to know who the author is....

Heard on the Street Before Term 3 Starts

Happy New Year everyone! Where has all the time gone? It seemed like just yesterday that we were sweating it out with both the Macro and OPIM finals on the same day. Three weeks is too short for time off between terms!

A few updates before we start up again on Friday:

• Term 3 Starts Friday. Night classes start this term. As if we didn’t have enough time in class during the days! In talking with some Class 31s, I hear that this term is a particularly brutal one because of the extra .25 class we have in the evenings. If you are lucky enough to be in Section 1 like me, then we have our Communications class from 7:30-9:30pm three times versus the two times in Section 2. Talk about bad luck. Sandra better hook us up with a LOT of Red Bull.
• Wharton EMBA Blog Proliferation is Starting! My WEMBA classmate Anil has started his version of a WEMBA blog: Anil’s Raves and Rants. Check it out and go read his account of what we've learned in Terms 1 and 2. I've linked to his blog on the right for easy access. Scoreboard: Wharton West 2, Wharton East 0. :)
• GCP Trip: Alice has guest penned a most excellent account of the Global Consulting Practicum (GCP) trip to Chile. Alice has posted some pictures too. It looked like an intense and fun trip for our classmates (Alice, Raj, Jack, Guru, Zach) who traveled to Chile right after finals last term. (Zach, did you help the Sadhu in the airport?)
• More Blog Proliferation on the Way: There are some other bloggers in our program who have said that they are starting a blog in the New Year or that will be guest writing here. Some of you know that my much anticipated adverse productivity shock is coming very soon; I just took a new gig starting next week. Today is my last day in the Emerald City. I'm heading over to turn in my badge and laptop. :) Yeah!
• Social Events During the Holidays: Happy belated birthday to Nichole and Charles! I was out of town so I missed the celebrations. Also missed Eyal’s Hannukah candle lighting party as well, and others I’m sure. Feel free to pen a guest article or send pics.
• Wharton West Coast Trek: Quite of a few of us are signed up for the Wharton West Coast Trek, which is to promote networking and informational opportunities for Wharton FT students from Philadelphia as well as WEMBA West and East students. If time permits, I may post a recap later, as I’m planning to check out a VC, PE and Investment Banking company during the trek.
• Richard Wins Fantasy Football Championship. Through a series of late season "extreme makeover" trades to improve his team, Richard H has won the "Wartun32 FFL" league championship in NFL Week 16. (Lesson learned: don’t trade with a guy who used to work on Wall Street.) Congratulations to Richard! I hear that Kaiser is planning to block fantasy football HTTP requests starting next season though. The final results were:

Week 16 Results

Championship Game

Hail Mary (Richard) 168.9

Rock This Planet (Ron) 112.05

Consolation Game

The Cats (Nihal) 109.15

4th Place (Loren) 80.1

Toilet Bowl Consolation Championship

Adam's Daddy (Azar) 97.7

Wharton Westside (Adam) 94.75

§ Payouts Available. Payouts for the Wartun32 FFL are posted on our Yahoo Sports fantasy website. Lemme know how you want to get your $$$.

-Chairman P

Guest Blogger: Alice Talks Global Consulting Practicum

Props out to our guest blogger Alice, who sent me this summary of the one week GCP trip to Chile. The company where the study was done is confidential and under NDA. -Chairman P
-----------------------------------

Check out pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/citronbay/sets/72157594362820136/show/

As part of GCP tradition we visited Chile, our client's country, in the week before Christmas.

We Like Sheraton

We settled in a B&B like local four star hotel in the beach resort town Vina Del Mar, where our partner university (UAI) is located. Soon Guru found out that his room was just the size of a walk-in closet. A single bed barely fits in. With his arms open Guru can touch both ends of the wall. We all had a good laugh. Lucky for me at least I got a king-bed.

Later on Marianne discovered that just a stone's throw away there lies a much nicer hotel with breath-taking ocean views from EVERY guest room - Sheraton! Though too late to change the lodging plan, the nostalgic Wharton Executive team paid a rather emotional visit to our SPG member hotel. Yes if you'll ever visit Vina Del Mar, our vote for the choice of the hotel is –Sheraton!

Top Reasons To Go To Chile

Our driver+tour guide Fernando obviously was very experienced. Half an hour after getting into the van I learned from Fernando all the highlights about Chile (Well, a lot of them having to do with Chilean women):

1. Contrary to conventional thinking, Chile is a liberal country. Why? Because Chile elected Socialist Michelle Bachelet, a 54-year-old single mother and pediatrician as its first female president. Imagine if Hillary lived in Chile! She would have kicked Bill out and could have won the presidential election already!

2. According to Fernando, the women to men ratio in Chile is 2 to 1. Lucky guys!

3. Chile has its own version of Hooters restaurant! And it's called "Cafe with Legs"!!! What an artistic name!

Fernando was only willing to give us a glimpse of the restaurant so I stood outside and took one blurred picture of a 'Santa' dressed "Cafe with Legs" lady. Don't worry; you will NOT miss it in my album.

4. Fernando was particularly proud that Chile had no divorce laws...couples are bound not by contract, but by faith. (Well this has changed recently.)

5. Chile is full of valleys and mountains; beaches and deserts. From the modern city of Santiago to the nature's love Patagonia, it's suited for a wide variety of interests and activities.

6. At this point you probably don't care about economy any more. But worth honorable mentioning is that Chile is actually one of the most developed and fastest growing economies in Latin America. In 2006, it became the country with the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America. To quote the impressed Raj, "It will take India 5-10 years to reach this level!”

A True International Team

The combined Wharton-UAI team has 10 members, coming from 8 countries:

From Wharton: India, China, Finland, and USA

From UAI: Dominique Republic, Panama, Ecuador, and Chile

And if I count spouses and faculties I'm sure the number of represented countries will double. Thus every working day we experienced a round of meetings in United Nation. Though it was chaotic at times, I was impressed by the UAI team's high working spirit and intellectual level.

After a few days Marcela and Jose became my buddies. Three of us would sneak out after lunch and drove deep onto the winding streets of Vina Del Mar's hill side. We'd stop by at Marcela's house, the President's summer palace, and take a snapshot at the 'Flower Clock' - symbol of the city. The international round table was terrific, but secretly I was longing for the road trip on Marcela's 80 something stick shift Honda with her Bond Girl like driving style. After all it was peachy early summer and we were in a flower garden beach resort town!

Vina Del Mar & UAI Campus

Vina Del Mar - the beach resort city feels much like a small Spanish town. Vintage. European. A little paradise. Our partner school, UAI is located only a few miles away. As a matter of fact our 'war' room in one of UAI's buildings got a million dollar view of the whole beach front.

Somehow UAI reminded me of California's Pepperdine University and the story about Larry Ellison's son. It goes like this: Larry's son was 18 years old and was deciding which university to go to. In particular he was choosing between Harvard and Pepperdine. The son then went to Larry for advice. "Of course Pepperdine!" Larry said.

Following Larry's wisdom we Wharton team offered to swap with the UAI folks for one semester....guess what? To our disappointment Vina Del Mar still beats San Francisco...none of the UAI folks wanted to take the offer! (Well, admittedly UAI is one of the best Universities in Chile, but still, we are Wharton + San Francisco! Oh that hurts. )

So here you go, with a week immersed in Chile, Vina Del Mar, Santiago, and UAI, we're back in whole. Happy New Year!

-Alice

Wartun32 Fantasy Football Playoff Update

The 2006 Wartun32 Fantasy Football League Championship is being played this week after a couple of big Week 15 upsets of the #1 and #2 seeds. In the Toilet Bowl, a few teams have already been flushed down the drain (Victory Feast / Clay, Game Balls / Guru, Wheel Wold / Frank, It is Finished / Bolaji). Clay wins the dubious distinction of being the worst of the toilet bowl teams.

Game #1:
#5 seeded Hail Mary / Richard defeated #1 seeded The Cats / Nihal on a career performance by Marvin Harrison, who scored 34.60 points on three TDs from Peyton Manning. Final score: Hail Mary 131.35, The Cats 109.35.

Game #2:
#6 seeded Rock This Planet / Ron upset #2 seeded 4th Place / Loren (or is it Lauren?), powered by the RB tandem of Frank Gore and Rudi Johnson. Good thing the Bears were destroyed last week. Final score: Rock This Planet 100.60, 4th Place 95.10.

Here's a screenshot of the smack talk feature in use: "Any dude that interviews at Bare Escentuals is dooming himself in the playoffs"


Superbowl Matchup:
Rock This Planet / Ron versus Hail Mary / Richard. The winner takes home $288 (60% of the pot), and the runner-up takes home $48 (10%). Congrats to The Cats, who receive a payout of $48 for being the regular season winner overall (#1 seed).

Toilet Bowl Division Update:
So what happened to the rest of the money? No, the remaining money hasn't disappeared from my Paypal account; the bottom six teams are playing in the "Toilet Bowl", as the winner of the lower bracket gets the last 10% of the pot.

See the diagram on the right for a visual. (This should look familiar to the scene at the men's Wharton West bathrooms shortly after 10:30am for those of you who have heard me rant about why Wharton dudes make such a mess...) I had to calculate ("compoot", in OPIM 631 lingo) the numbers below for the bottom teams since our website doesn't do it automagically.

Toilet Bowl Division Results from Week 15: (bottom six teams)

0 points for bw	81.8
Wheel Wold	74.95
It is Finished	99.95
Wharton Westside	107.55
Worst of the Toilet Bowl
Victory Feast	98.55
Game Balls	104

Toilet Bowl Division Championship: 0 points for bw / Azar versus Wharton Westside / Adam
These guys are playing for 10% of the pot, which will help ease the pain of their season.

Here's a screenshot of the "smack talk" feature in use by Adam: "Get ready for some marginal propensity to lose, Wheel Wold":

End of Term 2!!!!

Wheeeeeeeew! Term 2 is over. It feels really really good! I finally caught up on some serious REM on Sat and Sun nights, and I'm still not feeling rested! John was saying that people are telling him that the program ages you...is there any way to measure wrinkles and gray hair elasticities?

So we have three weeks of vacation before the next term. We now have the M in MBA, or the A, depending on how you think about it. It's going by fast!

Here's some funny pics from the weekend:

Link to End of Term 2 Pictures, Avery's Party, and Mallika's Poker Party

Pay attention to the "I'm with Stupid T-Shirt" with Prof Abel, Amir's unwrapped Macro book, the view from Avery's party, and the Indian Poker (hope no one is offended) pics from Mallika's party.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my post on co-bloggers...we've found a few for next term already. If you are interested in contributing an article or two, lemme know.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year's! Enjoy the holidays with your family and friends.

-R

Wharton F Yeah Video

With credit to Anil and his study group, here is a link to a pretty funny video from the Wharton full-time MBA students in Philly. You gotta love the Wharton West reference at the end. John said he wasn't going to link to it from the official site, but that if ours did then ....

Link to Wharton F*** Yeah video

I'll post on a link on the side of this blog for future reference.

(Warning: explicit lyrics, so make sure your kids are not around)

WEMBA Residency Requirement: Le Meridian Accomodations

A lot of potential students for the program ask me about the residency requirement, ie, the Le Meridian Hotel portion of our tuition. Guess I feel like doing a documentary tonight instead of studying....Here's my thoughts on the accomodations:

• You don't have an option to pay for the hotel or not. It's part of your tuition, even if you live 5 minutes away from school. So you might as well use it.
  
• The San Francisco Le Meridian is a four star hotel located in the Embarcadero Center of San Francisco, which is a pretty good area of The City. It used to be the Park Hyatt until a year ago or so. It's only a 10 minute walk to North Beach or Chinatown from the hotel, which is in the heart of the financial district.
  
• The Le Meridian is in the Starwood Resort network, which is pretty good from a hospitality points perspective (Westin, W, Sheraton, Le Meridian). Here's a link: Starwood
• The rooms themselves are pretty good. Music playing when you walk in, granite counters in the bathrooms, nice views (if you face the Bay or Bay Bridge), spa quality amenities (again, it varies), and free wireless internet. You'll find the typical USA Today newspaper on your doorstep in the am as well.

(Left) This is what the view from your room looks like if you **don't** get the Bay view....office buildings in SF view. (Right) This is a typical hotel room

• The five guys I carpool with that are on the Penninsula area (San Mateo, Belmont, Redwood Shores) all carpool up to the hotel on school weekends. We trade off driving up there and get a chance to chat during the ride up. That's a great time to talk, and I'm glad I carpool. We get there in the morning around 8:30am and more often than not (75% of the time) are able to check in and put our stuff into our rooms then, which is great.
  
• Parking fee (negotiated rate) is $25 a night. Sure beats $40 a night, which is the regular rate. $25 a night isn't bad for SF.
  
• It's about a six block walk from the hotel to school, which is located on 101 Howard Street.
  I've mapped it out here on Google maps. It's safe and those of us who walk haven't had a problem on the streets (to my knowledge) in six months.
  
• WEMBA reimburses you for taxi rides back and forth from the hotel and the campus. I actually prefer walking, since it takes about 10-15 minutes and I need the fresh air after a long day in class (or a walk before class). It's a much nicer walk when it's not winter, of course. If you take a taxi, you pay cash and Wharton reimburses you after you file the receipts at the front desk. You get the $ in an envelope from Larry, the security agent on the sixth floor at the next session. The system works out pretty good.
  
• It is nice that all of us are staying at the hotel during class weekends, usually just for a night. It would be much better if we had more time to network and get to know each other outside of class. The program is so jam packed that there just isn't that much time, unless you really make the time. Most of us spend non-exam nights having dinner with each other, playing poker, having a drink, or just chatting in the lounge.
• The frequent travelers (or expert high maintenance complainers) in the class seem to get the platinum treatment, meaning they get a suite when they check in. I haven't ever gotten one, but they really are quite nice when you do get one. I really don't care because we don't spend that much time there anyway. Besides, if you've spent enough nights away from home you deserve the extra treatment. (But it would be nice to get one at least once....)
  
• There are two suites that are reserved as Wharton "study rooms" on school evenings. If you want to do some "social studying", this is great. Or if you want to play some Texas Hold Em, it's also a great place to hang out at. I just feel sorry for the neighboring rooms.
• If you need to store stuff at the Le Meridian, then they'll let you check a bag with them on a two-week basis. This is great for keeping your personal stuff there at the hotel to minimize lugging it back and forth. It's also great for storing your poker chip set as well. :)
  

Next time: focus on the food at Wharton West...we might need a SurveyMonkey for that though. Good luck on finals and Happy Holidays, everyone!

-R

Adverse Blog Productivity Shock

FYI, I'm anticipating an adverse blog productivity shock next term. So if you are in WEMBA Class32, have a passion for reporting and writing, and own a camera phone let me know if you are willing to co-contribute to this blog. No, no, no, I'm not quiting the blog business. I am just anticipating a lot less time to keep this up at the current pace next term.

Shoot, the WEMBA marketing department is getting enough mileage from this that I ought to get at least .5 unit in an advanced Internet Marketing independent study class, don't ya think?

Seriously, if you are interested, come talk to me this weekend...

-R

End Game for Term 2: We’ve Almost Earned the “M” in MBA

We’re now in the last week of Term 2, with only one more week to go before a three week hiatus for the holidays. I am sooooo looking forward to that! It was a un-typical Saturday today, as family and other activities took precedence over WEMBA: woke up at 7:30am to study OPIM, 9am conference call with study group on HW4 for stats, then off to buy a Christmas tree with my daughter, lunch, and her kindergarten Christmas program and dinner with the in-laws. Total studying time: an hour an a half. Shoot, I was hoping to do one of those Macro practice finals today. It'll have to wait until tomorrow I guess. It's pretty hard to study during this time of year.

There’s still a whole lot of Macroeconomics and Operations Management left to cram for though. And the Statistics HW4 to finish off. (My study group dropped it like a hot potato once Waterman said that we got an extension until this upcoming weekend.) We have almost earned the “M” in MBA at the 1/3 point in the program. It is flying by!

While I'm at it, here’s some pics from last week’s wine tasting:

I just got my Leadership essay back in the mail today, which explained the grade I saw posted on the transcript website. The distribution for the final was pretty tight, between 36 and 39, with a 37.3 average. Lesson learned: don’t write essays in pencil! Pen is much faster.

Looks like there’s a bunch of social activities just around the corner:

• Avery, Loren, Mallika, and Jenn are hosting a Wharton West Christmas Party on Sat 12/17 at Avery’s firm in SF after we finish exams. Should be fun!

• Nichole is hosting a Christmas party up in Hercules on 12/23. Sounds great, especially the hot tub, but I’m gonna miss it.

• Sam is planning a Wharton West Vegas Weekend between Term 3 and Term 4, after we’re half finished with the program. If you are interested, fill out the Surveymonkey today. Sounds like WEMBA East32 isn’t going to make it out West to join us, which is a bummer.

It is also Playoff Time for the Wartun32 Fantasy Football League. Yours truly and the other fantasy football addicts in our class just finished the regular fantasy season last week in NFL Week 13, with first-timer and rookie Nihal leading the league. This has been a weird season; lots of injuries and surprises. If someone is able to figure out a regression model for FFB that explains even 25% of the variability, I'm all ears. But it's been great to have something to talk about besides academia, and it’s been pretty funny to see how many Portugese team names we had after Brazil won for our international trip!

Here’s the regular season standings:

1. The Cats 11-2-0 .846 1441.90 W-2 8 8 (Nihal)

*2. 4th Place 10-3-0 .769 1525.80 W-8 11 69 (Loren)

*3. Quem é seu pai? 8-5-0 .615 1536.30 W-4 2 3 (Robert)

*4. Gravitas 7-6-0 .538 1445.30 W-1 3 19 (Mark)

*5. Hail Mary 7-6-0 .538 1410.75 W-1 10 32 (Richard)

*6. Rock This Planet 7-6-0 .538 1398.65 L-2 12 17 (Ron)

7. 0 points for bw??? 6-7-0 .462 1435.35 L-1 6 13 (Azar)

8. It is Finished! 6-7-0 .462 1401.60 W-2 7 24 (Bolaji)

9. Wharton Westside 5-8-0 .385 1376.05 L-1 9 14 (Adam)

10. Game Balls 5-8-0 .385 1286.05 L-5 5 13 (Guru)

11. Wheel Wold 5-8-0 .385 1275.95 L-2 4 24 (Frank)

12. Victory Feast 1-12-0 .077 1091.75 L-12 1 10 (Clay)

Quarterfinals are NFL Week 14, and feature the following matchups:

Week 14:

Gravitas versus Hail Mary

Quem e seu pai versus Rock This Planet

The Cats and 4^th Place are on bye…

We’ve also got a “Toilet Bowl” for the bottom six teams, and here are the matchups for the bottom bracket:

Here's the Toilet Bowl seedings:
Week 14:
Byes: 0 points for BW, It is Finished
Victory Feast at Wharton Westside
Wheel World at Game Balls

(If you are a U$C fan, keep on reading right here!) Oh yeah, and I gotta send a shot out to my UCLA Bruins. It’s a great time to be a Bruin, with the football team knocking ex-#2 arch-rival USC out of BCS national championship contention last week, and with the basketball team racking up a #1 hoops ranking. Did I mention that I was right behind the bench for the UCLA versus Georgia Tech basketball game at the Maui Invitational over Thanksgiving? It was sweet!

Here's what the view was like from my seats. It was pretty cool to hear Howland coach the team’s defense, which finally has caught up with all the offensive talent we’ve had over the years. And this has resulted in a #1 ranking in both the AP and ESPN/USA coaches polls. Should be a great time for March Madness….back to studying…see you all in a week.

-R

Grades Posted for Management and OPIM

FYI, Penn InTouch has just posted grades for Useem and Hershey's class.

-R