Cut my long hair for career

I finally cut my many years' long hair for my summer intern, because that makes me look more professional and short hair is low maintenance. People told me that the length of the hair should be opposite to the age. Maybe that is not true. But I do feel that the short hair is very convenient when you have kids and need wake up early on the run. Here is my new look with short hair. My son is with me.

I did some career suits shopping last weekend. For my new career, I really cannot wear casual fashion shirts to work. Looking at my closet, I have nothing to wear for my summer except for one black interview suit. "Dress for success" is true. At least, I should follow the rule.

I didn't get any rest between my finals and summer intern. I wanted to quit the CFA exam next weekend, since I only have one week to go over everything. My mom said "You should at least try because you paid so much fee for it." She is still treating me as a little high school girl!To avoid her long face, I just had to go to school to study in the past week.

Luckily, I found that many courses I took in the last year are very helpful for CFA level 1, but so many materials are still hard to remember within a week. From the day after tomorrow, I will need to commute 3 hours a day to work at Stamford from New Haven. I won't have too much time for CFA. Hopefully this weekend, I can get some study done, maybe a mock exam. I feel that I have 50% chance to pass. If I do pass, the award should go to my mother. If not, it is fine at least I have tried like my mom said.

The other photo is my son with my classmate who will work for BCG. These photos were taken during this year's graduation commencement last week. Time is fast. Can you imagine that we will graduate next year this time? At least, we have something to look forward to. Keep up your good work. You will be there with me, and my two sons!

What a busy year at MBA!

Finally, on May 13, I finished all the final exams and completed my first year of MBA as a mom with a new born. Of cause, my son is not newborn anymore. He is 6-months!

I survived! The first thing I want to tell every pregnant first year MBA that you can survive like me if you can predict what you will experience and be ready for it. I am proud of myself that not only I survived, but also I did more things. I took 11 courses in the last two quaters (4 months) compared with 7 or 9 for regular students.

While I was taking 6 courses during the last spring quater, I were elected as co-leaders for three MBA student clubs: Women in Management, Greater China Club, and International Student Club. I have organized a few school wide social events, Golf in Business Workshop, Farewell Receiption for women, international mentorship program, and Year End China Night. No matter how busy I was, I tried to play with my son at least one or two hours per day when I got home. He is adorable. I just cannot get him off my hand.

There were 60 MBA students attended the Year End China Night event with all the food cooked by my father and I. See photo. The food was Yammy! So you know that I love cooking, not only Chinese food, american food and other types of food.

On the last day of the exam, I thought I can take a break, but China earthquake put me on a running train! Why, because I founded a charity foundation Angel Pray Child Charity Foundation in 2005 to help children. Helping people suffered in a natural disaster is within my mission. I was surprised that many donors and volunteers just called me about donations. Since I am the president, I have to decide what to help and how. It is not a easy job to do the charity thing, especially lead a team of part time volunteers. We are all driven by the same vision and passion.

I will start my Intern at GE Energy Finance Services one week later, and I have to study for Level 1 CFA within two weeks. I almost give up my CFA because I hardly find time for it, especially i am organizing a team effort for China earthquake relif at this time. My team raised $54,000 USD within 8 days for the earthquake. We could rebuild a school with these donation. Please donate if you can, click Angel Pray Child Charity Foundation to donate online if you trust me to 100% use the fund to people.

I do not want to stress you with how much I have done and how much I am doing. I cannot deny that I am tired and somehow exhausted, but the situation just keeps me running forward. Anyway, it is a great year that I achieved many things with God's blessing.

My survival story- MBA Baby is here!

I felt bad that I didn't write my story continuously in the past months. Maybe my blog guests thought I disappeared or could not survive. Here I am. I was too busy with the first semester's core course schedules, career events, school activities, and my newborn. Forgive me if I didn't update you on my story, for the ones who blessed for me.

Let me quickly tell you my experience. After the orientation, I was still energetic and never missed any class and assignment. I stayed up till 1AM to 2AM almost every night to do the homework and readings. With the early class at 8:15AM, I didn't get much sleep. In the late October, my belly was huge like I had a twin. I walked like a penguin in the school and many classmates stopped me to say hi. They wondered why I was still there because it seemed to everyone that I would give birth any minute. I felt very difficult to stay awake even in the morning class. But my classmates were very encouraged and I tried to overcome all the difficulties.

While juggling among my course works and group assignments, I tried to catch up the career events and resume preparation. I attended every bank event and financial presentation. Most banking and financial job submission deadline were close to my due day. I told myself that if I did not prepare my resume, I would end up no job. I worked very hard to prepare my cover letter and resume. After more than 30 drafts, I was able to submit the job applications for the ones I like. So you can imagine how busy I was.

I was lucky that my son came on time at the weekend before Thanksgiving. I didn't plan to take any day off after Thanksgiving, and I didn't plan to defer my four final exams that was three weeks after I gave birth. It was tough and not realistic. I talked to my doctor that I wanted to be induced if my son did not come on time. My doctor told me that I could not arrange everything perfectly including the child birth. I had to be patient. Since my due day was on Saturday, I tried to do the next week assignment in advance. My water broke at 3AM. The second day Friday, I was in the hospital and my son arrived on 11:30PM on 11/16. Everything happened as I expected. God Bless me.

My labor procedure was no pain and fast. I was not sure why it was so smooth. My OB doctor was very good and gentle. At the moment my son was out in front of me, he opened his black big eyes and stared at me. What a beautiful angel! I could not say anything and I was so happy and released. I worried about his health since I was under so much stress and didn't ever get enough sleep. My son Christopher was very healthy and cute. Here is his 100 day photo.

I only missed two days classes while I was in hospital. After that it was Thanksgiving. I returned to the class 6 days after giving birth and did all four final exams three weeks later and got proficient for all the courses. I was glad that I finally survived the toughest semester with pregnancy and newborn.

Of course, hard work is paid off. I received several job offers in January and February at the beginning of this semester. Now I decided to go to GE Energy Finance Services, a private equity subsidiary of GE for the summer as an associate. As a career transfer without any finance experience, a foreigner from non-English speaking country, and a pregnant woman during the school, I was glad that I could achieve my goal of survival and career changing. I am grateful for my family and my parents who gave me great support. I appreciate Yale SOM gave me so much encouragement and support. I just want to give women students more encouragement. Nothing is impossible if you have passion and hold the discipline.