One Week After Completing My MBA

It has now bee one full week since I completed my MBA at Queen's. This past week has been filled with sad "good-byes" and promises to visit people in the future. We have also had several dinner gatherings. One of these was after spending a day cruising the country side in a pair of SUVs loaded with classmates to seek out local foods which we then cooked and ate. This particular activity has been done a few times and has become known as "super-happy-fun-day". It is amazing what you can find around Kingston.

I thought that one week would be enough time to reflect on the past year and write some key insights, but, alas, it hasn't. I will try to do this in a later entry. There is just too much going on with everyone moving and my search for full-time employment going strong.

A lot of the people who will make up next year's class have arrived in Kingston. Some have made contact with a few people in this year's class and some have managed to meet-up with their fellow classmates. From the few that I have had lunch with, during their trips out to the school, as well as those I have traded e-mails with, I can tell next year's class promises to be a fun group with many great minds. Very similar to this year's cohort. I wish them all the best.

Several people are planning to stay in Kingston as they help with "transition". This is an afternoon/evening full of events where our class passes along the student council to next years class as well as introduces them to Kingston. Since Queen's is a one year program, there is no second year students that can serve as a "knowledge transfer". "Transition" is our answer to this challenge. If all goes as planned, "transition" should happen on the 16th of May.

Convocation is on May 26th and quite a few of my classmates are planning on attending, but several will still be on exchange or will be travelling and they won't be attending. Although I am not planning to attend, as I will have just arrived back in Alberta, I may reconsider since it will be a last chance for us to see everyone together. Apparently convocation is really a spectacle at Queen's and more importantly I could see all my friends again.

After saying "good-bye" to many others over the past week, it was my turn yesterday. My wife and I finished packing and left Kingston yesterday. Today we are in Quebec City and will be in New Brunswick by this evening as we continue our trek to the east coast of Canada. We drove this far out from Calgary, so we figure a few extra days to complete the trip to the Atlantic is well worth the time and money. After that we will turn south and visit a few key US locations before heading west. Since we drove through Canada out here, we are driving back through the US. Should be a good trip.

My "team", team 426, from the program has dispersed to the four corners of the earth. Two of them are in Brazil on exchange, one has gone to Hong Kong and China to visit family, one is headed to India to visit family, one is headed to Toronto to look for work and I am headed back to Alberta.

The blog. It has taken on a life of its own. It has been very useful to help me keep track of time as it flew by and to help me appreciate just how much I was learning. However, it was started with a purpose, written with a purpose and will end with a purposed as I stated when I started this blog. Therefore, I will only be making a few more entries and all of them will be focused on the MBA and my experience at Queen's. I will write one month, three months, six months and one year post-MBA entries. There may also be the odd entry to update employment stats, when I find a job and if other significant events occur, but only if they are relevant to the purpose of this blog.

On a final note, I would like to thank the many readers who have taken the time to comment or e-mail me about the blog. It was great to know that people were finding this information. Even if it wasn't necessarily useful, I surely hope it was entertaining. I hope it has provided those looking at MBA programs with some of the answers they were seeking and I hope it has provided alumni with chance to reflect on their own MBA experience.