Writing essays to INSEAD

I'm working hard on my INSEAD essays, as the deadline (5th October) is approaching fast. I'm glad with essays, though some of them are very condensed because of word limit.
How to write an essay about career in 250 words? I'll tell you.
First, write everything you want about your career, sounding as logical as you can. This will be 600-900 words.
Second, structure this brainstormed draft and underline point, which you cannot throw away at any rate.
Third, condense every part as much as you can: rewrite every sentence, shorten your phrases. Be a surgeon. No regrets.
You have to have about 350 words by now.
Forth, eliminate any articles and comparisons you have (if you can).
Fifth, read it aloud and eliminate or rewrite anything that sounds bad.
You're done :)
And after it (paraphrasing a famous Russian anecdote about tea), throw away everything you've done - and write yourself a proper essay. :)

[UPDATE: Famous Russian anecdote about tea.
An old Georgian man, Head of the family, who was the one to know the secret of making wonderful Georgian tea, - is dying. The whole family gathers around him and asks for this secret not to be carried to his grave. And he tells them.
- First, take a thin-walled tea-pot. Pour some boiling water into it and stir for 30 seconds counterclockwise. Empty the pot. Then take finest Georgian brewing, put it in the pot and pour hot water upon it. Mind you, the water should be very hot, but not boiling! Close the pot and cover it with a towel for 5 minutes. Then take this crap away and make yourself good Indian tea.]

Two scholarships

Talking about money and scholarships... Chevening (that's a scholarship for 1-year study, up to 20,000GBP with the deadline at 20th October this year) would not apply to LBS. So if I don't want to miss the chance of getting the money, I have to consider such options as Cambridge and Oxford. And perhaps, Cranfield, Bath and Warwick+ Will I have time (and recommender's) to cover all these this year? I'll think about it tomorrow, as Scarlett used to say.
I've also found a great scholarship program (I'm not eligible for). You can be eligible, if you live somewhere in the regions (I work in Moscow, and it is considered as I already had my chance') and you are poor, but smart. Not for MBA though. This is IFP (Ford Foundation International Program), web-site, deadline: January, 17th. It's a kind of offer you cannot decline (dream one), but as I said, alas, it's not for me and it's not for MBA.

And yes, I've bought 'Peopleware' in Russian! Some guys have already translated and published it (in May, 2005), so my dream has come true. No I have a long queue of friends, relatives and colleges, to whom I advertised the book and who are longing to read it.

Education exhibition

Today I've been at the 7th Exhibition of British Education in Moscow. And I decided to write about this experience, though to my mind it was the least useful event I've visited so far (considering education, of course). Mind you, there were no top-tiers there: no Oxford, no Cambridge. They don't need participating in such events, people will apply to them anyway.
Reading admission chats, articles, talking to students and alumni, - I gather the inspiration to work on my application. But this exhibition was, in fact, disappointing. The first man I told about my age, degree and work-experience (he was MBA-adcom from some university) asked: Are you kidding? How did you manage all that? You are too young to do everything you're talking of'. Conclusion: I should provide more information about I'm so awesome, I can do many things at once' in my application in order to clear this to other adcoms+ Or maybe people like me never apply to the school where he was an adcom? Well, I think I won't - the school doesn't even ask for GMAT.
Mind you, I don't need any reassurance that I have a chance of getting admitted, because I truly believe, that I won't find this out until I apply. The major obstacle, as I am being told, is age. The obstacle that will vanish in some years, but at that time I may already have a husband (with an owning character) and children+ so the next time I would probably think about MBA again - age would certainly be a problem, but this time, irretrievable :)
A short time ago, I've quitted talking with my friends about me-wanting-to-study-in-London, because the first question they ask where have you found money?' The question, which, I hope, I will answer when time comes. Not now. First aim - get admitted.
Well, I think it's good that people keep telling me the things I do are just impossible. Any other person (probably my rival), would have stopped. So I'm going be the one who actually applies :)

Some photos from St.Petersburg

As I promised, I'm posting some photos we took while in Peter.


Sunset at Finnish Bay.


Firework in Peterhof.


Spas-na-krovi church


Russian Museum.


This is the spirit of Peter: scaffolding and luxury side by side.


One of four famous horses of Klott on the Anichkov bridge.

Trip to St.Petersburg

All God’s children need traveling shoes…

© Tanita Tikaram

I was going to write the post a week ago. But I managed only today, because I had no time at all since that. So, to the news.

I’ve got my transcripts all nice – translated and notarized so they look very impressive now. I did 4 copies of transcript and diploma and it cost me about $100 at Hors (http://www.horos.ru/, I can recommend this notary firm). Not cheap in my opinion, but I haven’t searched, so I can’t compare.

I’ve also prepared documents for my visa. That was not such a short process as it sounds. And tomorrow, Aeroflot airlines begin to hand out cheap tickets to London and will continue till 24^th of September. I’m not sure whether it is wise to buy the ticket while not having visa yet, but… Well, I still have some time to think about opportunities of getting the ticket now and paying $150 or getting it after getting visa and paying $400+.

I’ve started drafting essays for INSEAD (describe-your-whole-life-in-no-more-than-250-words) and having problems with word limit. I guess everyone has, so I’ll think about it later, because first I need to brainstorm the framework.

Talking about life not connected to business school: I’ve gone to St.Petersburg (or as we call it: ‘Peter’) on weekend with my friends. And that was a trip!

Walked along Nevsky (5 times)… check

Been to the fountains of Peterhof and seen the greatest firework I’ve ever seen (Peterhof was celebrating its 300^th birthday)… check

Gone to tour around the channels on the boat (well, that was freezing!)… check

Been inside the Spas-na-Krovi church (fantastic mosaic!)… check

Drank coffee and eaten the famous Peter’s apple ‘shtrudel’ (sorry, ‘apple pie’ is not the exact translation, and the dictionary cannot help)… check

Taken lots of photos… check

That were the most interesting points of my check-list. I checked them all!

And we were very lucky the weather was wonderful.

I strongly believe that Peter is the second ‘must see’ city in Russia. The first one is, of course, Moscow. I’ve been to it three times and I really enjoy going there. Architecture, museums and cuisine – three foundations of the city. It has also been considered as the most ‘polite’ city of Russia, but I don’t know whether it still upholds the reputation.

Maybe I’ll post some photos as soon as I get them from my friends :)

Ah! As for shoes – my new blue Sketchers turned out to be great: my feet didn’t ache at all in spite of all those long walks around the city!

And I’ll have to finish a project till the end of the week, so I’ll be really-really busy.

Good luck to everyone who is preparing for exams and gathering documents! The road is long, but interesting, and you meet a lot of great people along :)) Nd find yourself good travelling shoes first (even a towel is not that important!)

Irish stew: transcript translation, exhibition, recommeder's presentation

...the advantage of Irish stew: you got rid of such a lot of things.

© Jerome K. Jerome

Today I went to the notary about my transcript. I was told: you're not the first, lady, and we do not need your own translation, no, thank you. Anyway I gave them my translation and my money, because I don't really care about the price now, I care about getting everything done on time. So I hope to receive the translation on Thursday and will tick another mark on my list (and will write about the outcome later).

Yesterday I visited some event called Business Education Exhibition (description here in Russian). It was mainly devoted to Russian business schools, executive and on-line programs, so I was not hoping to get anything useful. But actually I did: I found a great journal - 'Harvard Business Review' (russian site, american site - american is better, because it has some articles online for free and not only abstracts). I'm reading a September copy of it now and I think it is the most interesting one I've read lately (including 'National Geographic', 'Playboy', 'Company' and 'Money' ;)).
Just for reference I checked how much the journal costs (I got it free - as a visitor). Well, it costs a whole lot, I even stop to think before buying a book for such sum! (about $14 a copy, while other journals mentioned here cost from $1 to $4).

Presentation for Recommenders. That's not required, but I feel myself better with it, than without :)

I used the following sources to gather thoughts:

1. "Recommendation letters too?" (Accepted.com)

2. Mave's posts about recco-letters: 1 and 2

3. A number of Articles form businessmajors.com starting with this one

4. Posts by ClearAdmit: 1 and 2

5. Presentation of some guy from McKinsey

If I missed something important, please, share in comments :)

Busy schedule

You had a bad day... (Oh.. Holiday..)

© David Powter

I have my transcript in Russian signed and stamped (great thanks to a friend of mine, who went to the University three times to catch right people!). I even have done the translation. So all I need now is a notary.
I've also drafted my presentation for recommenders.
But it's a pity I cannot find time for my essays (though I have an idea what I will write in that "culture-shock" insead one - I've had it a week ago, actually).
I thought I will be free this week, because I've finished one project and my regular activities were not so urgent. Two next projects were due at the end of September, so on Wednesday I was going to work with such a happy face (probably) that people on the streets kept asking me what time it was.
Naive and happy girl!
All of a sudden I'm at a client (another one) and we are resqueing with a friend of mine a part of the project - like Chip & Dale - for the next 2 weeks. In the evening I'm so tired, that the only thing I can do - is have some supper and go to sleep.
This weekend I was invited to a barbeque and the next one I'm going on a trip to Saint-Petersburg with my friends. I wonder, how I will manage everything on time?
But I believe, that everything is happening on purpose :)

Searching for scholarships

Money, it’s a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
© Pink Floyd

You know, it is better to look earlier than later, so today I've been browsing through different sites and looking at available scholarships. And I've found lots of staff... which I'm not eligible for *sigh*.
So I'll post the most interesting two here, maybe it will help anyone ;)
1. Great fellowship for women, who want study in the US - at aauw.org (deadline 1th of December, 2005, amount $18,000)
2. Motorola contest for current students - all about seamless mobility (deadline 15th of November, 2005, amount $10,000)

Oh, and if you see any relevant scholarship (Russian, female, want to study at LBS) - please, let me know :)

Mostly transcripts

The future is yours, you hold the key
and there are no walls with freedom...

© Phil Collins

It's easy to say "I'm starting". But this week I got a brand new project, so I'm sitting at a client and no internet, just work, work and work. Not complaining, because that's really the job I love to do, but no internet when you need it - ah...
So deadlines and essays are out.
I decided to widen my list of schools with INSEAD: read the blog of willy-nilly, thought that if I enter, that would be great: French cuisine, revive my French, just a year - so no point in saying long goodbye to friends and family, etc. Yeah, but the first deadline to INSEAD is the 5th of October! I hope this will accelerate me and give me time to practice, before I really start doing essays for LBS. And no suprise there - great topics (I mean at LBS, because at INSEAD... this "culture shock" topic... I'm nonplused).
I know, that it difficult to start, so I decided to do the easiest thing - find out what 'transcript' is - and I found this article (text in Russian, but transcript example in English). I did myself a form in *.doc, I'll print it next week and take a take a day off on Friday (I hope I'll have the chance) and go to my alma mater (and I hope there will be someone at the university already). If I'm lucky, I'll have the course marks written out and stamped, if not, I'll ask one of my friends to do this for me the week after next. So then I'll need to translate that paper into English and sign and stamp again at some notary.

Phil Collins will give a concert in Moscow on the 20th of October - I definetely want to go there!

Inspiring

I’m here again!

© Take That

Enough rest for now, or people will keep asking me about my sunburn. Let’s return back to computer and to my normal greenish face color ;)

I decided to write some inspiring post, since the last one was of a ‘useful’ kind. Maybe this will, too.
Anyway, from time to time since I decided to take the first step on my way to MBA, I (and everybody else, perhaps) have a kind of desperate mood like ‘I won’t be able to’, ‘I’m not fit’, ‘Who do you think you are, Trump or Einstein?’, ‘I’m too young (too old)’, ‘enter-your-fear-here’. This is very dangerous mood and it is essential to get out of it as soon as you can. So here is my recipe:
1. You are smart, you know? Or you won’t figure out how to decipher M.B.A. and got thus far. So remove all doubts about your brain functions.
2. This MBA-game is not a point in life like get it or die. It’s just a moonlit path: if you look hard for it, you’ll find it. If not, it doesn’t matter, cobbles are not that big at night. When you spend time on preparation - you don’t lose it even if all this effort won’t bring you to a place of your dream - because you are growing, you are thinking, you are finding your way and you are investing this time in yourself.
3. Don’t take this too serious – it’s your great adventure!
4. Why don't you better go and do something useful like write an essay?
Cook your inspiration with these 4 ingredients and add your own to taste.

I'm thinking about coming to London at the end of October. How do you think - will they let me to attend Sundowners? ;)

GMAT done!

I'm feeling glad!
© Gorillaz

So, I’ve made a frame for my picture - and I’m absolutely content with it. Now the time comes to think about brushes and paint ;)

But before I’ll go thinking about transcripts, recommendations, scholarships and all the other things – I have a pile of promises to fulfill (I’ve done some already – cleaned the flat, for instance, or written this blog entry) and a heap of books to read. I decided to give myself a week of a free life. But after it, I’ll make a plan for myself and will start fulfilling it.

So, how did it go? ;)

First, I should say, that I’m not a native speaker and I have never lived somewhere in an English-speaking country (that helps when you pass the test, sure), and I’m afraid this ‘backfired’ at my Verbal. I have spotted that if I see an easy problem, I understand it and do it in English all right, but as soon as I face a tough one, I have to translate it in Russian, so I lose time or answer wrongly. I checked that idea with a friend of mine, to whom I sent some of the toughest ones’ – when he translates the problem with a dictionary, he does it right, but under time-pressure he sometimes misses the point. I just wonder, how it is to pass the test for a native.

Second, I have a strong background in math, so Quant was no problem for me – it was important just not to forget the words like reciprocal, factor, multiple, range or gross profit… because I know what to do, when I see them in Russian, but if I don’t remember the translation, it won’t help me.

Third, I was lucky with AWA-topics – they were about job-candidates and some company crashing – so I had a lot to say. Well, AWA-results will tell.

Anyway, I know I could have done better, if I devoted more time to preparation (I began looking for books in May, started doing Official Guide in June, but have done only half of it or even less before passing the test). Yes, I have a lot of excuses for myself such as work, friends, family and the famous law of 20/80. But I said to myself, that I would be content with 650+. I actually got over 700, so I’m feeling glad.

AWA Tips (for non-natives, like me, mostly)
First, don’t worry about AWA. It won’t count towards your score and many AdComs don’t pay attention to AWA marks (or so they say). But there is still a possibility, that they will check your style – to be sure, it was you who wrote your essays for school and not some highly-paid consultant.
I have downloaded all the 280 essays from Scoretop.com forum, written in quite a good quality and read about 1/3 of them (I devoted a whole week to this). I have made a template for myself and practiced it with 8 essays (4 Issue, 4 Argument), until I felt confident and words like ‘furthermore’, ‘similarly’, ‘in addition’ spread all over my texts. You can see, I’m still writing close to template with all those ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third’ ;)

Quant Tips (for 48+)
Be sure you know all the words concerning math. Check tough questions at GMATClub.com forum (or any other forum of your choice). Understand the strategy that underlies probability and evaluation problems (they are usually appear as the top ones). Practice DS questions.

Verbal Tips
SC – there are a lot of guides and strategies about this one on-line, and it’s important to learn all about parallel constructions, apples and oranges and the rest. My strategy for difficult sentences is to use some sort of ‘bubble sorting’:

1. Eliminate as many chances as you can. Don’t panic if you see nothing to eliminate at first.

2. Compare A and B (if they are not eliminated, of course). What is worse? Why? (it’s very important to know ‘why’) Chose ‘the best one’.

3. Compare ‘the best one’ with the next one. Is the latter better? If yes, make it ‘the best one’

4. Continue until you have only one choice left, which is ‘the best’ :)

CR – practice to understand GMAT logic. Kaplan disc helped me a lot – they have some useful tips about finding the better choice if you have two left: try to refute both – which undermines argument most – is the answer.

RC – I’ve read a lot about strategies for this one, but I don’t use them, because I have no time to draw maps, etc. I do the following. As the text appears I read the first question. If it concerns some special part of the passage I read that part and answer the question. By the time I have a general question in front of me, I have already read and understood about half of the text.

Preparation for test-day

If you take test on Saturday, take a week of holiday at work. Revise your error log on Monday and Tuesday, do a ‘real test’ simulation on Wednesday (revise errors) and another one on Thursday. Don’t prepare on Friday – go for a walk, swim in the swimming pool, clean the house. If you definitely want to practice, revise some concepts for SC and read a bit of AWA essays.

On the test-day, have a good breakfast (if you love pasta, fried potatoes or roast beef – cook it in advance and get up with a feeling of ‘Vienna-waits-for-you’). Take with you a bottle of cold tea with sugar (your brain will need it during the breaks).

Use ear-plugs. Even if you’re alone in the test room, there will be a lot of distracting noises around - don’t let them get you out of your flow.

Have a good mood and a winning mind. There’re lots of people who did it and who did great. Even if you don’t do it now, you’ll make it a month later, so there’s nothing to worry about.
So, that’s it and enough of GMAT. I’ll write my database with all resources on a disk, sell all prep-books next Monday and forget about it for the next 5 years.

As soon as I wrote that, I remembered how I got my driving license: I passed the test when I was 19, got the document, valid for 10 years and… stored it in a box at home, since I didn’t have a car. I nearly bought one this spring, but changed my mind: I decided to leave the money for my business school, so I’m still commuting by metro ;)

Women and MBA [versus children & family?]

I’ll go wherever you will go…
© The Calling

I’ve been trying to put down the thoughs about this subject for quite a long time, but I finally wouldn’t do it if so many people hadn’t asked me to (well, they actually didn’t know what I was going to write about so the blame is mine, of course ;)). And though I try to devote as much time as possible to my GMAT prep, I decided not to postpone my blog-activity further.

A number of people are interested in the question “what the meaning of life is” (yeah, I know, 48 ;)), but I guess, many women have an ultimate answer for this one – children. Most men won’t share this point of view, because they traditionally assign the meaning of life to career, power, or simply “good life”. And I’m sorry for those women who think that children are silly and annoying rascals (but yes, they can be, like anyone ;)).
I’m reading blogs of MBAs and future MBAs for some time now, and as I have spotted, approximately 1/2 of men have family (and/or children), while most women do not. Wives and girlfriends are easily following their partners, but if a girl wants to go for an MBA, she usually leaves her partner (or her partner leaves her). The only exception, I notice, are men, who have (or going to have) an MBA themselves. Seems really like you cannot eat the pie and have it. It’s a weight on my mind, even though I know the reason for their behavior. Correct me if I’m wrong (or maybe two-year full-time students are just a wrong sample? ;))
My mom used to say that the higher education a woman has, the fewer children she’s got. And – the higher you go, the higher standards you have for men whom you can marry :) I won’t try to refute the latter, but as for children… Well, it seems impossible to prepare, study and then work (to pay back the loan) – and have kids simultaneously. Kids are out of question for… 1-2-3… 5 or so years. Or not? Any success stories about husbands leaving everything and going with their wives or babies at lectures? ;) [Obviously joking. But there is only a part of joke in a joke: my family says that I already have 2 diplomas – my mom was going to have me while she was doing hers.]

I guess that is why there are fewer women in B-Schools that men, and not for any other reason: it's difficult to handle one or more 20-year-projects (bringing up a child) and do anything serious along.
Opened America, as usual ;)

[UPD: I've found an interesting article on MBAJungle.com about families and MBA]

New GMATPrep tool and a cool T-Shirt

Good girls go to heaven…
© Meat Loaf

I’ve downloaded Limited Summer GMATPrep Software from this link Dave posted on his site. And it looks rather different than those I did a month ago (and math seemed a bit tough to me yesterday night – but maybe I was just exhausted?). It seems the test is going to be the same - since I'm going to take money-back version by Person Vue – that’s great to know in advance, many thanks to Dave.

One of these days I’ve seen the boy in a T-shirt which said: “Good boys go to heaven and bad boys go to London”. I want that T-shirt! ;) (better change ‘boys’ for ‘girls’ though)

UPD: Yes, I've bought myself this T-Shirt half a year later :)

A bit more about books

Who knows what could happen?..
© Avril Lavigne

Things tend to happen all at once. For example, you receive an offer from a business school and on the same very day you receive a job offer you always dreamed about. Or you schedule an appointment with a friend and at the same very place (city with millions of people, thousands of places to eat) you meet another friend of yours. I call this luck. I am fascinated with it.

As I have said, it’s a pity that the book Peopleware is not translated into Russian yet – I would like to do it, but – alas! – don’t have time. I live with that idea for about half a year, but after pronouncing it aloud (writing actually :) ) – is there someone above us listening to such things? – yesterday I came across an interesting publishing company: there are three men, who read books in English, liked them and thought it’s a pity, that people can’t read them in Russian (just like I did). And they came up to an idea to start a company, buy rights of translation and publish books. They have already published a couple of books and wrote some books of their own. So I sent an e-mail to them about the wonderful book of DeMarco and Lister and in two hours received a reply from one of their directors: at the same very time he was writing an ad ‘Offer-Us-A-Book’ for their site, encouraging people to come up with the books, that were not yet translated, but were worth it. And here came my letter (what a coincidence!).

So I gave him a copy of Peopleware and we agreed, that we’ll get in contact after he reads it (and decides whether it is worth publishing). Maybe I’ll even participate in the translation (that’s the thing I like), though I don’t know if I am reliable because of my GMAT-essay-transcripts-project-work-and-so-on :)

Enough of Peopleware, there’s another book I’d like to talk about. I’ve just finished Michael Dobbs Whispers of Betrayal. It’s a wonderful book, that I would advise for light-reading to anyone. It is funny and good (don’t believe in words that are written on the cover, the make it sound like some kind of thriller which it is not).

It is about good Army soldiers, that ‘were retired’ and decided that they want an apology from politicians (because they were politicians who forced those cutbacks in the Army). Soon this ‘matter of honour’ transformed into a kind of war, in which soldiers made fun out of politicians and politicians made fun out of themselves. The right book about broken lives and clever men. It is impossible to get a happy end in a book like this, but the author manages it somehow. I enjoyed the Whispers of Betrayal very-very much.

And I also know, what I will be reading next week ;) – Harry Potter comes out tomorrow, so… Voldemort beware! :))))

Some useful links to DaRaverLA posts (GMAT & Essays)

...Doesn't live here anymore.

I'm sorry that's all there is to it...

© Roxette

I came across a very interesting blog of DaRaverLA. He's not there anymore, but he has some really valuable posts. I would like to provide links for them here, because I think they will be useful to anyone, who's starting the Journey (like I do):
1. GMAT Math tips
2. GMAT Verbal Tips
3. More GMAT Verbal Tips
4. Very good advice about writing application essays
5. Just a funny post about math in different business schools

Grief and sorrow

All we are is dust in the wind…
© The Doors

I was shocked to hear the news about terrorist attacks in London. Shocked, but not surprised… I feel awfully sorry for victims and their families, I feel sorry for people, who were stuck in transport and couldn’t get home, I feel sorry for relatives and friends, who lost nerves trying to get through the lines to hear anything from their beloved – in order to get sure everything is OK… And I feel sorry for the feeling of insecurity that many Londoners now have. I know this feeling, I live with it every day.
New York, London, Moscow… to be continued, I’m sure…
In today’s world, nobody anywhere can feel secure, because the most violent animal on Earth is MAN. I think, we made a mistake somewhere along the way, and it is considered normal to sell weapons to those, who are not ready for them (yes, that is illegal, but it happens everyday); or give ideas to the minds that are not ready and use those ideas for evil purposes. Let’s imagine, we had no money, but had just an equivalent of karma – like many forums and communities have now in the Internet: you express your ideas, you behave politely, you help others – you earn karma and people respect you. You become not ‘a man from the street’, you become ‘one of the top ones’. And now imagine, there would be some fast (cheat) equivalent for getting this karma (for example, kill a man - get his karma)… this will make all the system down. In our real world, money was supposed, perhaps, to be something like this karma – you work hard, you get it, you are able to exchange it for what you want. But they don’t show you are good, or you can be trusted, or anything… Like I said, we made mistake somewhere and we are now paying for it…
I think that it is important to live for the future (else: why go to the University if die tomorrow, yeah? Why spend the whole day at work, when the weather is so good?). But there is also a good advice to live every day like your last one. As I understand it: love your beloved today, when they are with you, alive, and not tomorrow, when they become a memory (it is easier to love and appreciate and feel sorry for a memory, I know), do the things you want to do today (go buy a pass to fitness center, begin to learn Italian, etc.), because you may not be able to do them tomorrow.
Every cloud has a silver lining, if you look hard for it, or so they say.

Books must read

I'm gonna get dressed for success...

© Roxette

I have a credit card now, I have registered for GMAT and I can order books from Amazon. So it’s time to talk about books :)

I’m a books worm – I love reading. Commuting to work for about 2 hours a day, I have time to read (what else to do in a tube?) – and I use this time :) I also read books before going to bed (not now, now I read GMAT textbooks and do GMAT problems…)

I read both in English and in Russian (cannot say I read in German, because it was just one book so far). I like fiction and I also like good business books – the latter I’m going to talk about.
I’m not going to tell you about books in UI-design and eXtremeProgramming – if you are an IT-professional, you may know more than I do. If not – then it won't be interesting to you.

I’d like to talk about finance books, project management books and the like. Any comments about these are welcomed – I’m going to spend some money at Amazon ;) Pre-MBA reading lists are also welcomed.

Let’s get it started… yeah…

Project Management

• Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister, Peopleware – is a definitely ‘must read’ book.
  
• Ed Sullivan, Under Pressure – is about project management in small and medium IT-company.
  
• Edward Yourdon, Death March – great book. And I read exactly at the time of participating in some kind of ‘dead’ project. You will get to know how to survive in them without this book (you'll have to), but this book gives all the necessary guidelines in painless way.

General books (just for a start and if you think of becoming an entrepreneur one day)

• Bill Gates, Business @ the speed of thought – this is a kind of book, that tells you: "What, you are still sitting on you a**? Go and grab that opportunity NOW!"
• Jim Collins, From good to great – another good book about why ordinary companies become great and why others don’t
• Jonas Ridderstrale & Kjell Nordström, Funky Business and Karaoke Capitalism – both books are short and extremely motivating

Finance books

I was advised to read David Bach, Smart Couples Finish Rich and Suze Orman, The Laws of Money, The Lessons of Life, so this is where I’m going to start.

Fiction, but business-related

• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged - I wrote a post dedicated to this book here.
  
• Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister, Deadline - a president of some country decides to make a great experiment: he launches a number of software projects to create rival products to software bestsellers. He also asks the manager to try different approaches with different teams (3 teams are working on one project in parallel) and see which one is better.
• Eliyahu Goldratt & Jeff Cox, The Goal - This is a theory of constraints described in a captivating way. A manager of a plant tries to make his plant work. He has 3 months to make it profitable. Day-by-day, week-by-week... will he succeed?
• Michael Ridpath, Final venture - this thriller combines four areas I am keen on: the hero is an MBA grad, works in a VC on the high tech and healthcare start-ups. Someone has killed his father-in-law and he needs to find the killer quickly or else the police is going to accuse him.
  

So, that was really a short list, but I think, it will grow larger (with your help too).

Some tuning: Want to be notified about new messages in blogs?

Here by the ocean waves carry voices…

© Michael learns to rock

Last month I read in Guillaume’s blog about getting notified about recent blog entries by e-mail. I decided, that this is a good idea: not read the blogs from time to time, but be notified as soon as something new comes out.

So, I didn’t want to change my mail-client to Mozilla Thunderbird (by the way, I already have a lot of mail in my mailbox and don’t want another huge pile there!). And I didn’t explore the opportunity of Bloglines, where you don’t need to install anything, but can acquire everything on a single browser-page (correct me, if I’m wrong). Instead, I searched for some programs, that collect blogs, and came across RSS Bandit, so now I have a smiling yellow face in my tray ;)

I’m notified not only about MBA’s blogs, but also about entries in ClearAdmit (it was not easy to find their atom feed!) and Ed Brill’s Blog. Maybe I’ll add some more blogs to my list later :)

Clubs at LBS

Mickey Mouse club

We'll have fun

We'll be new faces

High! High! High! High!

© Mickey Mouse Club March

One of the essays in Application Process this year was “What type of student club or campus community event do you envisage yourself initiating?”. I am not sure, whether there will be the same essay next year, but I’ve been thinking for some time about clubs I would join (or organize). I was searching for LBS Clubs and by chance found this link with all clubs, present at LBS.
I would like to ask LBS MBA2007 (KV, Suzy, rsr.pt), what kind of clubs are you going to organize (if it is not yet a secret)?
I wish (in future) I could join Swimming Club (to swim for MBA Olympics - I love swimming and go to swimming pool at least twice a week) and Women in Business (naturally, why not?). I’m thinking about Italian Club (I love Italian food ;)), Snow Club (not surprisingly for someone, living in a country, which one third of the whole year is covered with snow :)) and, perhaps, Tennis Club (been playing tennis since the age of 7… ah, tennis rackets were so heavy then, I had to hold mine with both hands…). And I also have an idea about organizing a community of my own, but I won’t disclose the idea yet :)

GMAT resources on the web

I was lost in France…
© Bonnie Tyler

I decided, that I will name my posts with a proper title and the words with “©” place in the epigraph. Else it will be too difficult to find anything here after some twenty posts.

I will not provide a full list of GMAT resources here, but I will write some, that I found quite useful. All the resources listed below are free of charge (or you can receive some useful info in them for free, and pay for additional info or course).

Forums

GMAT Club - good forum with lots of materials and help (available to registered users). You can pay for some materials, or you can receive them for free if you contribute a certain number of posts to the forum (a big number, I should say). There are a lot of good advice there, for example to keep your error log of every single error you make in order to revise them before your exam. Then, it's a wonderful community, which can help you prepare for the exam: post your questions, get explanations, help others - explain what they don't know.

Test Magic - also a great community around GMAT and other tests.

ScoreTop - another forum with lots of information. For example, you can easily get 3000 of additional RC questions (registration not needed), or pass a timed quant test on-line (registration needed) or find Kaplan Workshops and GMAT+ or download all AWA essays. (Thanks to Forrest Gump for this link!)

Software

POWERPrep Software - direct link to the practice test download (registration needed).
You can also download AWA topics from that site.

Books

I haven’t found a single free of charge complete book worth of reading in the net, but here is a link for some CR problems from Official Guide.

Strategy

GMAT Tutor has good plans of preparation strategy (you can also find such plans on the forums above. Many people, who score high, post their strategies in forums), a list of idioms, tips and tricks.

GMAT Study Strategy from Dave - this is a very useful resource together with Dave’s blog. A single grade list of easy-hard questions in Official Guide is lot more you can gain from many other sites. Dave devoted a lot of effort to prepare this outstanding piece of advice about strategy and books, and all other stories.

Strategy for CR (and other sections) - not very long but quite useful guide for all GMAT sections.

Questions on your e-mail

DeltaCourse - a new math question every day, both easy and hard ones.
Manhattan GMAT - a difficult math problem every week.

These are the links I have found most useful (I know there are a lot more out there - but we don't have time to explore them all. After all, we are to pass the test, not to enjoy the process, aren't we?)

As for myself - I have read through strategy sites, done POWERPrep tests (if they are computer adaptive, then they are adaptive in a different way, than that we are told in textbooks), receive questions on e-mail and do them. I keep track of errors I make in an error log, and I also arranged a database for myself, where I put all links, articles and other materials, which are related to MBA. ;) It is a good thing to do, because you will not worry, that you’ll miss or forget something.

As for epigraph - it's easy to get lost in all these data, you find in the net :)