Hours Left

As I lay in bed last night, I thought how instead of counting down days until my application is complete, I should count hours as there are not many left. Today, I am exhausted because I spent many of those hours fixing my Georgetown essay drafts and eventually, I hit the pillow a few minutes sub three in the morning. Any 'normal' person would probably drown themselves in coffee as it is 7 am and three hours of sleep doesn't remotely crest the sleep needed to function. However, even over three years in investment management hasn't made me a coffee junkie, so why start now.

By now, I'm sure you're thinking, enough of your rambling, yeah - I know, I apologize for being overly tired. You want the meat? Here it goes. On Monday, I was fortunate enough to find three victims to review my Georgetown essays. The most in-depth analysis came from a faithful friend in Colorado, who always seems to have an eloquent way to divulge all information. Let's just say, he "destroyed" what I wrote, but isn't that the point of a good review? Granted, a solidly demonstrated story or position does not need to be saturated in red ink, which leads me to assume, my paper was not such.

In the first of the three essays, I liked many of his suggestions, but I enforced what had already been written by adding numerical results to demonstrate my accomplishments. Next, I tackled essay three, which did not stray from the base story, but is now substantially cleaner than before. Finally, I resumed work on essay two, the outlier. After reading his comments, I felt even less confident about my choice of topic for Leadership because I feel I chose a topic that had the title, but did not necessarily display the leadership characteristics I wish to exhibit. Naturally, I did what any other applicant would do two days away from the due date, I scraped the entire essay but a paragraph and picked a new topic where I embodied the characteristics of a leader. I fear that this new essay will not be met with positive feedback, but here is hoping.

On a work note, I received a powerful email yesterday, which discussed "leaving your job". Most employees provide their employer the standard two weeks notice but as employees, we often forget that we may need our employer for a future reference or better yet, a general connection at some point in the future. Subsequently, as the days of your notice wind down, always remember to put your best foot forward and go out with a bang. You want to be remembered as a fantastic employee, who put in the effort until the end, instead of that employee that slacked off their last week.