Boomerang Year

I started writing this weblog this summer while I was in Seattle for an internship between my years at MIT Sloan. At the time, I thought the stay in Seattle would be just a summer, and I didn’t know when I’d return.

Now I know. Yesterday I signed an offer from the company I worked for this summer. I’ll be returning to the Seattle area after graduation.

It’s good, but strange, to have a semester and a half left of school and not have to worry about recruiting. Many of my friends have been in full blown panic job search mode since mid summer, when they found out from their investment banking or consulting firms that they wouldn’t receive offers after their internships ended. And our career development office calls us “unmotivated.” What gall. Would you line up to interview with a banking firm knowing it had turned down ten of your very gifted friends after a summer internship, just so that they could boast that they turned away one hundred applicants for each of the two vacancies they did have?

The CEO of DoubleClick spoke to one of my classes yesterday via videoconference. He stated he thought that there wouldn’t be a recovery until third or fourth quarter next year. “This is the worst year to have graduated with an MBA in the US, ever,” according to Chuck Lucier, the “chief growth officer” of Booz, Allen & Hamilton (as quoted in the Financial Times). And I’ll be moving to the other coast with a job. Mixed emotions abound.

Today’s music? In Metal, by Low:

Partly hate to see you grow
And just like your baby shoes
Wish I could keep your little body
In metal