Hella

It’s finally here! Though I’ve been in town a couple of days already, Thursday was the day I had been looking forward to all along. After making an early trip to campus and realizing that things didn’t get underway until the afternoon, I caught a quick lunch with one of the MBA bloggers. It was great to finally put a face to the name and the sushi place we went to in Olde City was a great deal.

After lunch, I took a long walk up through Fairmount Park and around the Art Museum. The view of downtown from Ben Franklin Pkwy is fantastic and it made the 3 mile journey seem a bit less. I headed back to the hotel to quickly clean up and then caught the trolley over to campus.

Registration at WWW was quick and there were a dozen or so volunteers in the room making sure we had everything we needed. It was great to see that the partners were fully included and even had their own packets complete with itinerary and t-shirt. I quickly scanned the choices of activities and decided to check out Pub.

Pub wasn’t as crowded as I had expected it to be, but it was still quite early. They had Woodchuck Cider and Turbodog in the front bar and I didn’t make it to the back bar. It was announced that the Wharton Idol karaoke competition would begin shortly so I took that as a cue to head over to the Wine and Cheese event. I figured that the Pub for this week would draw more current students and the wine and the 8th floor of Huntsman would entice the admits.

Wow! It was nice to see some familiar faces from Winter Welcome but there are a ton of new people. The event was well attended and there were many official people there as well including the Dean, Admissions Director, and the Director of Career Services. A few of us listened as one of the admits asked Dean Harker about Wharton’s recent decision to not give out email addresses of current students and recent alumni for the purpose of rankings. Shortly after that, the Whartones did two quick numbers. I decided I’d go check out Pub again so headed back to Vance Hall.

This was the 2nd to last Pub for the second years and several of them were already mentioning how they’d miss it. Pub seems like a really nice way to unwind and slow down after a hectic week but it’s probably also a good way to catch up with classmates and their partners. I’m really looking forward to Thursday afternoons.

Around 9, we decided that we were overdue for the O4B Club Social so we headed back to Center City thanks to one of the admits that currently lives in Philly and has a car. Finding parking … yuk; it took us quite a while as we circled the streets like a vulture hungry for a fresh kill. We found something about 5 block away, really not that bad, and headed for the brownstone.

Just like last time, the food here was delicious. In February, we were treated to some outstanding guacamole (which I was worried didn’t exist up here) prepared by one of the hosts. There was also some jambalaya that was really good. Last night’s spread included a pretty fancy paella and some nice desserts.

After the club social, I headed back for the hotel with the intention of just dropping off my registration packet. Laying down on the bed was a bad idea and I soon found myself looking for excuses not to head back out. I admit that I passed on the rest of the evening’s festivities, but hopefully it’ll pay off with a productive day today.

Filed under: B-School