Hey Everyone!

It's has been awhile since I last blogged, so I will re-introduce myself. My name is Brian Palumbo and I am a freshman in CSOM. That is enough re-introducing for me.

This week is a big week coming up for Boston College, especially outside of the classroom. Our Eagles, led by the likes of Tyrese Rice and Rakim (Rak Attack) Sanders have made it to the NCAA tournament!! Yes, they are coming off a very tough loss to the Blue Devils, but having the opportunity to win a game against a team like Duke is at times a victory in and of itself. We all know that our Eagles are not satisfied with just being in the game, hopefully this translates into a winning streak in the NCAA tournament. Faced with a a difficult first round game against white-hot USC, Boston College has its hand full because even if they were to win that first game, a very good Michigan State team will likely be waiting in the second round. Who knows! Maybe BC will be playin in two weekends! The sky is the limit...

Enough with the sports though: this coming weekend is also the fun and crazy ALC Showdown '09. The showdown consists of cultural and dance groups from campus all coming together in one large show displaying all of their incredible talents. Ranging from Synergy to Sexual Chocolate, the crowd will certainly be pleased with exceptional performances by most. Showdown is a culmination of months of hard work and will not disappoint those who either go to see friends or to just go for sheer entertainment.

Ironically, the BC basketball game and Showdown are a direct conflict. It looks like some people are going to have to make a very tough game time decision.

Talk to all you soon.

Brian

Oh We're Half Way There

Hello Everyone!

Spring break is finally here! I am writing to you from sunny Florida as I am relaxing from a busy spring semester thus far. Although I decided to come home for break, a lot of my friends have decided to spend their break volunteering as part of Boston College's Appalachia Volunteers Program. One of my friends is in New Orleans, rebuilding damaged homes and another friend is in a small town outside of Richmond, Virginia helping struggling families with miscellaneous duties.

This past week I went and declared my CSOM concentration. I have decided (for the time being) to be a Finance and Accounting double concentration with a Philosophy minor. One thing I would urge you to do is to not worry right now about what you want to do. Admissions does not expect that you have your life planned out already. It is perfectly fine to be undeclared. The CSOM core is a great way to sample all of the different business concentrations to see what you really want to pursue. My basic finance class with Professor Hayes has really intrigued me and led me to seek to continue down the finance concentration path.

Fun fact: Finance is the most popular major at BC!

Another thing to keep in mind is that once you come to BC, you are not limited to choosing one specific major within CSOM. I, being someone who did not come into BC with a lot of AP credit am still able to double concentrate in the school of management and pursue a minor in A&S. There are so many great opportunities to pursue outside of CSOM and I feel like a lot of CSOM students do take advantage of pursuing other disciplines.

Father Flannagan, a Jesuit at BC who team-teaches my Philosophy of Community class, always says that sure you will get a great education, but where you really learn a lot and will remember the most is what you do outside the classroom. I strongly agree with his comments. Sure, we are all going to get a nice big diploma come May of our graduation year, but it is what we all do outside of class that really can make your time at BC an amazing experience. As I look at my fellow classmates, that is one thing that I notice, is just how involved we all are. We all spread ourselves thin and spend more hours participating in extracurricular activities than we do in class. In my mind, this is just another defining characteristic of Boston College that makes it a truly great place to be at.

To finish off my post lets talk about some BC basketball! A few weeks ago, we upset a highly ranked Duke basketball team. It was the most exciting basketball game that I have ever been to. All of the students rushed the court at the end of the game (see awesome picture!). It was a scene I will never forget. As the season nears to an end, we are making our final push to make it into the tournament.

As always, GO EAGLES!!

Best,

Scott

Thursday before Spring Break!

Hi again!

So today is the Thursday before we go on Spring Break! The campus libraries have been absolutely packed this past week because of midterms, and everyone is going crazy trying to complete all of their papers/exams before we go on Spring Break on Friday. I only had one midterm this week (in Managerial Accounting) and am looking forward to 3 when I return...ah!

For Spring Break, I'm going to Cancun with a few of my friends from BC. I'm really looking forward to relaxing and being in the sun for a change! It's been quite chilly up here in Boston this past week. For break, a lot of my friends are going on service trips with the Appalachia Volunteers, something that I participated in last year as a freshman. I went to Narrows, Virginia, and got to know the community very well while helping them with any construction/town-wide tasks that needed to be completed. It was an amazing experience and I am jealous of everyone going on Appalachia this year (especially the people going to Narrows)! I made wonderful friendships, had a blast, helped people in need, and learned a lot about myself through Appalachia; I definitely want to go on another trip before I graduate.

Well, that's all for now! Best,

Mary

An Ordinary Tuesday

Hi Everyone,

My name is Mary and I am a sophomore in the Carroll School of Management (CSOM for short) concentrating in Marketing and Finance.

To start off, I'm going to go through my day just to fill you in on what any other weekday is like for me at BC. I only have 2 classes on Tuesday/Thursday; my first is Managerial Accounting and after that I have Basic Finance. Basic Finance is really interesting and I am already starting to learn concepts that big-time financial people use every day at their jobs.

After my classes, I got lunch with some friends and then I babysat for people that live really close to BC, which is great because I can walk there in ten minutes and earn some extra ca$h! Then, I had a meeting for the marketing committee for the BC Arts Festival, which happens for 3 days every Spring and is really exciting and fun! Now, I'm in the computer lab working on a finance assignment...which I should get back to now! Talk to you soon!

-Mary

A Look into Next Fall

Hey everyone,

Well it's my first update for the Carroll School of Management and there is certainly a lot going on in CSOM lately. But we won't begin with what is going on just this week, let's start with what is ahead for the incoming freshman (you guys) to the School of Management.

Next year, as I am sure all of you are well aware of, ALL freshman in CSOM have to take Portico, a sort of hybrid program that is going to replace the Ethics core in the school. Right now the the deans are interviewing potential candidates to teach the class. I had the opportunity to have lunch with one of the candidates today with a couple of fellow classmates and it seems that the deans are going to have their hands full trying to cut down the list of teachers. The man today was very excited about potentially teaching Portico and getting to interact with the students more than in his Ethics class.

Portico was the best class of the first semester. It not only taught ethics to rising freshman in the business, but also introduced all students in the class to the range of concentrations in CSOM. Researching, writing, and presenting assigned projects forced us to become more knowledgeable in the business aspect of our future learning. And the small class size let us form great relationships with each other, despite the heated debates that sometimes arose when dealing with difficult ethical issues. Overall Portico was an awesome class, and I would be very excited if I were a CSOM student of 2013 to be able to experience such a class.

I'll be talking to you guys soon,

Brian Palumbo

Heights Update

Hello Everyone!

It is crazy to think that the semester is almost over! It has really flown by.

Things have been going well these past few weeks. The beautiful fall weather has given way to some pretty cold temperatures, especially for a Floridian! I don't think my immune system can handle the drastic temperature changes, so as usual, I came down with a cold. One of the great things about BC is that we have our own infirmary right here on campus, housed in the Connell School of Nursing. It functions just like your normal doctors office and they took good care of me.

This past week, I also had the opportunity to go hear a lecture put on by our very own Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics. The Winston Center brought in Cynthia Cooper, the woman who unearthed the internal fraud of the Fortune 500 company, WorldCom. It was a great opportunity to hear her inspirational and amazing story.

I also had another really cool opportunity to go to another lecture this week by the founder of the popular Johnny Cupcakes clothing line, brought in by UGBC, Nights on the Heights, and the BC Entrepreneur Society. It was really interesting to see how this company grew from selling t-shirts with cupcakes on them out of a trunk behind a comic shop, to a multi million dollar company with stores in Boston and Los Angeles. (**The picture is from the Johnny Cupcakes lecture)

As you can see there are always a ton of things going on even during the week outside of the classroom. BC does a really good job of bringing in really engaging speakers that students flock to see.

My post here wouldn't be complete without filling you in on some BC sports action. I have been busy with Eagle Ops promoting our hockey games. In between periods, we usually hold some type of on ice competition where we take fans from the stands and put them in sumo suits and have them try to score a goal. It's a lot of fun and the crowd usually finds it pretty entertaining. Our football team just had a huge win tonight to keep our ACC Championship hopes alive. Next weekend we play Maryland and if we win, we will be heading to Tampa (my home!) to play in the ACC Championship game!

Lost your lucky charms?

Hello Everyone,

So things have been pretty crazy here on the Heights! These past 2 weeks for me have been filled with mid-terms and papers. It was a tough couple of weeks, trying to study during every free minute I had. Things went well with them and I had something amazing to look forward to once they were all done: Notre Dame weekend!!!

This past weekend was the weekend of my dreams. Boston College's biggest rivalry, Notre Dame, came to town not only for the re-match of the hockey national championship, but also an ESPN prime time night game for football. Although the hockey game didn't go so well, the football game made up for it with a 17-0 win! Notre Dame definitly lost their lucky charms!! Friday afternoon we also unveiled our Doug Flutie statue, forever commemorating his famous Hail Mary pass.

There is no greater atmosphere than a nationally televised night game vs. the Irish. It was simply amazing. After the game, nobody wanted to leave. All of the students stayed in the stands after the game, savoring the win.

So, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm busy trying to get some work done for the coming week. This weekend was definitely an awesome break from the busy workload of the past few weeks.

Registration for next semester begins in a week or so. It's exciting to look at all the possible classes to take for next semester and to try and work out the times to make an awesome schedule. This semester I am going to try and have Friday's off, which would be really nice.

Right now it looks like I will be taking Basic Finance, Managerial Accounting, Organizational Behavior, Business Law and a History class.

So long from the Heights!

GO BC!!!

Scott Landay