Life on Mars

Yesterday I had the pleasure of accompanying nine fellow SOM students on a company trek to Mars, the $30 billion privately owned company that makes Uncle Ben's rice, Pedigree dog food and Combos snacks, as well as confections such as M&Ms, Skittles, Starburst, Milky Way, Dove and Snickers. The company is located in Hackettstown, New Jersey, which, from what I could tell, is a cute, small town. (New Jersey gets a bum rap, in my opinion ... A lot of it is lovely.)

It was a very exciting day. We got to see the office, which was beautiful, open, colorful and drenched in the inviting fragrance of chocolate. And we learned more about the company and the career paths available there. Applications for internships were due Thursday, and Mars is one of the places to which I applied. We should find out in a couple weeks which companies want to interview us. I'd like Mars to be one of them, for sure.

I'm up early today, a Saturday, to attend "Training The Street," an all-day company valuation seminar at SOM. Not that I love valuing companies, and not that I see myself valuing companies in the future, but I think it's important to take advantage of these kinds of opportunities while I'm here, and I'm here to learn, so I think it will be a good (and long) day.

Next week is our last week of classes for this quarter, which flew by. The following week we have exams (four of them, Monday-Thursday, from 9 a.m. to noon each day). Then I'm off to Florida for what should be an actual, relaxing vacation!