and to make up for my absence..

Here's a third post today. I was a little busy last week with some minor projects to complete, homework to hand in, and a midterm to take. This week takes the cake though, with three midterms, one speech, and one group presentation. In college, you definitely learn how to deal with high stress/pressure environments and how to seemingly turn out an unholy amount of work in record time.

The purpose of this post however, isn't to yammer on about how busy I am, but to share with you guys the big event of last week. I went to Washington DC for another office interview, and have to say it has been my most enjoyable one thus far.

I'll try not to give away too many clues who the company was, but it was a very big company. As usual with office visits, you're treated to dinner the night before and meet a lot of the people in a casual setting. Since DC is a big hub of business action, my dinner actually coincided with several other companies' and the maitre d had her hands full directing people in six different directions. Dinner went well, and I really enjoyed my conversation with the person I sat next to. I pretty much just drilled him with questions all night -- in interviews, whether for officer positions, jobs, or college, definitely try to have some quality questions. They don't have to be super meaningful and ask about someone's definition of life, but really try to picture yourself going there and see if you have any possible conflicts with a particular system or anything like that.

The next day however, disaster struck. I checked out of the hotel and got on the shuttle (and met some people who'd interviewed with me at some other companies!). When we came to a big building, I got off with everyone else. As the elevator doors opened though, the name on the wall was definitely not the company I was interviewing with. ..oops. If this ever happens to you, don't panic. The receptionist was really nice and mentioned it happens often and quickly got the shuttle to turn around for me.

The rest of the day was standard presentations and interviews. Once again, the company had high ranking executives come speak to us. I met several partners, managing directors and managers -- companies definitely take the interview process very seriously. I really enjoyed my conversations at this company and was pleasantly challenged on some questions in my third interview. They stuffed us with more good food (for office visits, I'm thinking of recommending not eating at all beforehand. I barely ate anything before the company meals during the two days but still felt like my eyes were going to pop out afterwards. Mmm deliciousness.) and sent us off with some goodie bags.

While the visit was wonderful, getting there wasn't as enjoyable. Those of you considering going to smaller college towns, keep in mind the available transporation there. Charlottesville doesn't lack transportation, but what we have is kind of... rather... inconvenient. There's only one train to DC everyday, so that meant I had to get on a 7 am train for an event that began at 7 pm. (Good thing I chose the morning block for comm school classes, I'm used to getting up this early now. =D )

Whenever you travel anywhere for an interview, make sure you budget plenty, plenty of time. Delays are really common for trains, the kind that will go upward to three hours. =S As I was waiting to go back to Charlottesville, one of the trains going to Pennsylvania was delayed for at least three hours because it had hit a deer. Apparently the deer had caused enough damage that the train couldn't move. O_O Bizarre, I know.

almost a 'real adult'

Over the past two days, I've felt like almost a 'real adult'. Even though we're legally adults in college, it's still very much a surreal world. Our lives pretty much revolve around school and homework, and we often get caught in the college bubble where everything is fine and dandy (economic crisis? What crisis? Haha.)

However, I've traveled out of the college bubble the last two days to Reston, VA for an office visit/interview. (Hi guys! Maybe I should leave this url off my resume.. haha.) What to expect for an office visit: dinner, an overnight stay, and lots of interviews the next day at the office. Dinner was great, I definitely stuffed myself on my grouper stuffed with crab dish. I found myself intrigued by the mixing happening before we sat down though, it bore similarities to sorority rush (more about that later).

The next day at the office, I met other fellow applicants and learned a lot more about the company. One of the most important part of the day was a series of interviews with various executives in the company. I was really impressed by how seriously companies take office visits. Executive directors, directors, managers, etc were amongst some of the people who were freeing up their schedule for interviews.

Somewhere along the line, perhaps when I was looking out of the car window dozing off, it struck me that this felt like what I would be doing for the rest of my life. Commuting to work, going on recruiting events, forming relationships with coworkers and superiors, thinking about mortgages and such... well, the last one's rather far off in the distance, for now. It was just a 'hmmm' moment. I'm... not sure how I feel about leaving an academic environment, after all, graduating from college at the ripe age of 22 doesn't mean much in terms of world experience. We'll have spent all our lives in school, worrying about tests and if that cute boy will ask me out for the school dance. Hmm. Should be an interesting adventure.

And now, I must dash off to setting up for my sorority's Parents' Formal. This weekend is our designated Parents' Weekend, and as Parents' Club Chair I'm in charge of the festivities for these three days.