Bergermania: MBS -- Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow ...

by Michelle ("Memories, light the corners of my mind...") Berger, MBA2

The countdown is on ... GRADUATION! ... 18 days, 5 hours, 3-minutes, and 30 seconds from now (The World Wide Web version of the MSJ will feature a "real-time" countdown) ... Anyway, let's flash to the more distant future. The year: 2020 -- our 25th reunion(?) ... what will we really remember about the program? Let me "spell" it out for you ...

MAP -- Pay your tuition for a Fortune 500 company to get your MBA labor for free.
Interviewing -- The ultimate core course, what we came back to school to do.
Coursepacks -- The most expensive Xeroxing known to man.
Harvard Cases -- 300-400 attempts at Monday-morning quarterbacking of real-life managerial decisions.
Incessant Group Projects -- Individuals win trophies, teams win pennants, and groups cause agitation.
Gunners -- Time to stop memorizing those case exhibits and get a life!
Ann Arbor -- Most coffee houses/book stores/New Age emporiums per capita in the U.S.
Name Plates -- Can we bring these with us to our new jobs and use them until everyone learns our names?

Bidding -- For everything -- Ranks Ann Arbor right behind Las Vegas and Atlantic City in # of bets placed per annum.
Unbreatheable Library Study Rooms -- Call the Glade Squad! I've got a meeting in K1321!
Scorekeeper's Parties -- Tres chic UMBSA bracelet + watered-down beer + spacious dance box (I mean, dance floor).
International Business -- I think I've finally got a grip on the concept of globalization -- it's, like, really important ...
No Sleep -- Sure, I only got 3 hours of sleep last night ... but my team is kicking butt in Pharmasim. Allround+ rules!
Excessive Gripping -- To err is human, to complain is to be an MBA ...
Sectionmates -- Love 'em or hate 'em, you are stuck with 'em. (This is no way applies to my section, the section that drove an accounting professor to leave the classroom in utter disgust. If I had to do it all over again, I would choose each and every one of you!)
Sports -- What a great two years! The basketball team made the Final Four (Hundred) and the football team made it to the "Greater Ypsilanti" Bowl (I believe Ann Arbor Community Access Cable carried the event).

Server Crash -- And we'll have fun, fun, fun till the network wipes our PCs away.
Closed Lists -- The holy grail of the on-campus interviewee, providing PPP (Precious Point Preservation).
Hail to the Victor's Valiant -- Obviously written when Michigan was considered to be on the outskirts of the American frontier ... ("The Champions of the West")
Overzealous Profs -- This week the following things are due: 5 cases, 1hour PowerPoint presentation, 20 page paper, Brandmaps decisions, turnaround plan for IBM, and read In Search of Excellence, okay, seems doable ...
Organizational Behavior Classes -- Into everyone's academic life, a little breather must fall.
Lines -- 30-minute LoungeLine for coffee during 10-minute class gap, no problem! 45-minute LabLine when the lower lab is closed for no reason, no problem! 60-minute wait at Angell Hall to add a 7-week course because the automated phone system can't handle the change, no problem!

As that wise sage Anonymous once said, "Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get." I wish everyone happiness in the future!

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