Why Decision Models Might Be Fuqua's Hidden Gem?
Have you ever spent days over the perfect number of guests for your wedding? Believe it or not, decision models can help! I recently finished Decision Models at Fuqua, and it completely transformed how I approach choices, big and small. While it demanded twice as much time investment compared to other classes, the breadth of knowledge and practical applications made it incredibly rewarding.

Professor David Brown started us off with decision trees, a tool Warren Buffet uses in his everyday thinking process. We then progressed to tackling complex problems like:

- optimizing exchange rates to minimize transaction costs,
- calculating the value of the information in oil well exploration process
- settling down in the court over patent infringement
- valuing options using Monte Carlo simulations
- even creating a Sudoku solver and optimizing calories in McDonalds for given budget!

One particularly impactful lesson involved building a kidney exchange model, which uses algorithms to match compatible donors with patients in need. It was inspiring to see how decision models can have a real-world impact on people's lives. Not only did I win $100 in the first class by applying decision theory (true story!), but I also gained valuable skills that will benefit me far beyond Fuqua.

The application process was hard but rewarding. To be honest, it seems every next step gets harder. When I just started GMAT prep, I thought the GMAT would open doors and the application process would be easy. I was so wrong! Attending admission events, endlessly rewriting essays/CVs, and passing interviews finally got me to university admission while working full-time. I thought I might get some slack after I started my masters, but I immediately got hit hard by the rigor of the recruiting, time management in the first semester at Duke, and imposter syndrome. For BCG alone, the process started in the first week of September and continued to early January, including close to 20 coffee chats, around 10 company networking events, and close to 80 case preparations. After hearing back from the firm, I was invited to the office visit in two weeks, which was supposed to be much fun. Imposter syndrome was waiting for me there as well.

The vicious circle continues, but I remain optimistic about the future that lies ahead and ready to face the new challenges and surprises it's prepared. Lucky I have friends who have been supporting me along the way, never making me feel alone in the process. Sometimes, I feel I never thanked them enough.

Although it's been a while, I am thrilled to announce that I accepted a summer internship offer from BCG's Dallas office after declining Eli Lilly (the largest pharmaceutical company with over $700 billion market cap)

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But this post about one interesting observation about the game. According to Washington Post article college lacrosse in the United States is 86% white and unlike football or basketball, college lacrosse doesn’t offer the prospect of a lucrative athletic career. The average annual salary in the two established professional lacrosse leagues is less than $40,000. But it has long been something of a farm system for bankers.

Describing his players to a Canadian newspaper in 1879, a Baltimore Athletic Club lacrosse coach said, “The members are principally sons of wealthy merchants, with a good sprinkling of merchants themselves.” Five generations later, the demographics of the sport—invented by the Iroquois and popularized by Canadians—have hardly changed.

The same goes for Boston and New York, where the sales and trading desks of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other Wall Street firms are stocked with former All-American lacrosse players. Among the 11 members of the Duke lacrosse team’s 2006 senior class, nine went to work in finance. (When charges were filed against one senior, David Evans, JPMorgan Chase pulled its job offer; Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, who played football at Duke, later offered Evans a place at his firm.) Of the two seniors who didn’t pursue a career in banking, one is currently an assistant property manager working in real estate, and the other is an associate attorney at a personal injury law firm.

Its also been found that recruiters tend to favor those sports that have a strong presence at Ivy League schools as well as pay-to-play club sports, such as lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, squash, and crew, over ones that tend to be more widely accessible and/or are associated with more diverse player bases such as football, basketball, and soccer.

As we celebrated the win, I again started to think about the importance of the college sports in life of Americans.

Yesterday I also came across an article on WSJ about schools reinstating standardized test scores. Yale made the decision after it found that standardized test scores from all four of the exams were more predictive of academic success than high school grades.

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/yale-reinstates-standardized-test-scores-for-admissions-d9eb6b70?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1