3 posts tagged “grad school”

My orientation leader put the lanyard with my name tag on it over my neck, saying "Welcome to Thunderbird."

I cried.

She hugged me.

I realized strangers were touching me, and stopped crying.

At least I got some rocking gear out of it - and ohhh yeah. That giant textbook.

Dear GMAT,

I fucking hate you.  And not just because you're unreasonable and twisted.  But because you also suck.  I always decide on the answer thats "almost" right, except not what you were thinking at that moment.  I've been pussy-footing around, playing your game.  I have been studying for at least an hour every night for the last five weeks.  But now, now that you've given me the same practice score twice in a row, now I'm pissed.  You've come after the wrong person.  Do you know what happens to people who try to fuck with me?   I bet not, because those people are too scared to speak anymore.  I just thought I'd write you this little love note to let you know that now I'm really pissed and you're toast.  I've decided studying is overrated, and its time I got a good score based entirely on vengeance alone.  I hope its as fun for you as its going to be for me.

Hugs and Kisses,

Lenni

I decided its about damn time for me to get my ass in gear and start seriously thinking about graduate school.  Which can only lead me to one place: Thunderbird.  Not only does it have a cool name, but Thunderbird is my dream graduate school.  They specialize in International MBA's, and they're number one in the world for it.  I've decided not to freak out about this yet, to first focus on taking my GMAT exam.  The GMAT exam is basically the SAT for MBA programs.  And it blows.  Seriously, this test sucks.

For starters, I'm not good at standardized tests.  I've been a bookworm all my life, starting with the fact that I could read at the whopping age of four.  So in third grade I was at a sixth grade reading level, because thats all I did.  Thats all I wanted to do. I would read anything, even if it was horrible.  And then I failed the standardized reading test administered by the state of Connecticut.  They wanted to put me in remedial reading, because somehow I had gotten to the third grade with the complete inability to read.  Like, really couldn't read a word.  My teacher had to explain to them that no, I wasn't illiterate, I was just as high strung as an 7 year old could possibly be and froze up at the thought of an exam and did horribly.

The result is, for the first time in my life, I've decided to study my ass off for a standardized exam, and I'm working every night on improving my GMAT score.  I really want to do well, and I think the only thing that will help me get the best score possible is to practice.  But this test is seriously getting on my last every-loving nerve.  My two worst sections are the ones I think should be my best: sentence correction, and data sufficiency.  I'm fairly good at grammar, but this grammar is totally arbitrary.  My study book even says that some of the questions test idioms.  This means, and I quote from my book: "There's no grammar rule that applies here; it's just that these particular expressions are generally agreed upon as correct by all English speakers."  I'm sorry, did you just say that this test, the one that is helping determine my career, is testing me not on my grammar but on how America speaks?  Because I've met some people that say things like "That there done good ya'll!"  And I'm pretty sure thats not the right answer on the exam.  I've come across practice questions with two grammatically correct answers, but one is "less formal" and therefore the correct answer.  Excuse me while I reach through my computer screen and strangle you Mr. Exam Writer because you're a mother fucking jackass.  Not all of us think exactly like you, and some of us speak more formally than others.  So far, all you've proven to me is that I just need to figure out how to think like an asshole and then I can do well on this test.

Four weeks of studying later I decided to take a complete practice exam this morning.  At 7am.  For four consecutive hours.  This would explain to you the start of why this test pissed me off so goddamn much.  I get to my essay this morning and the question is about whether or not I think businesses should be required to be truthful in their advertising campaigns.  And my sample answer, I'm not even kidding you, quoted Jesse Ventura.  First, if you want me to use direct quotes on my GMAT essay, you're going to need to lend me an encyclopedic photographic memory to remember every quote that might possibly be applicable to the random bullshit you ask me to give you an opinion on.  Second, I hope that if I ever quote Jesse Ventura to validate  my argument for anything that you will, without hesitation, punch me in the face and give me a zero on my GMAT (which by the way, isn't even possible.  The lowest score you can get is 200).  I'm pretty sure that if I were to quote Jesse Ventura in any kind of professional setting, say, an interview for example, my interviewer would kick my ass and then tell me I didn't get the job.  I think this is one area where I have to give THE MAN the finger and say "I refuse to compromise my values on this exam.  I refuse to quote Jesse Ventura.  Please give me an extra 100 points just for NOT being a giant dickwad."