Live and Learn

Keri Ledezma, MPA admissions manager extraordinaire, e-mailed me a few days ago to see if I was still planning to blog from afar now that I’ve graduated and moved to Boston. It was REALLY good to hear from her! It seems like forever since my wife, Janssen, and I packed our things and moved across [...]

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Last year at this time I was halfway through my first term as an MPA student at The University of Texas. It’s a little unreal to see some of the incoming MPA class in that same situation now. Next month they’ll have their first career fair. It all happens so fast and is, in my [...]

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Submitted Question:
“Hi Bart,
Thank you so much for your writings on the blogs of McCombs.  It is very entertaining and informative to read! [You're absolutely welcome. Glad you like our blog!]
I’m really excited to be accepted into the Texas MPA program [Congratulations!], and I know this is a great prestigious program that prepares you well for [...]

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A reader identified as C.P. asked two good questions in the comment section of my last post. The comment date was April 1, but I can’t see how the questions could be part of some elaborate April Fools’ Day joke, so I’m happy to respond.
Questions: How often does one have the opportunity to work in teams in the MPA program? How important is [...]

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When I visited campus last year as a prospective student, two MPA students were kind enough to answer the many questions I had for them. I wanted to know their experiences with classes, their career aspirations and MPA tracks, their experiences with recruiting season, their perceptions of MPA students and professors, and just about everything I could [...]

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Dear Recruiting Season,
It seems like forever since we last met! How are you? This semester has been much more relaxing than when you were in my life. Don’t get me wrong - I really enjoyed meeting and talking to all sorts of interesting people at career fairs, company information sessions, and other recruiting activities (dinners, [...]

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Last semester, I received a question from a reader about where MPA students live. It’s a great topic to get some interesting discussion and suggestions going, so I’m posting my reply to Jay here (with a few small additions) and hoping others will add their insights in the comments.

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After an extremely pleasant and lengthy break between fall and spring semesters, we’re back in school. Before I explain how happy I am to be back, I thought I’d share a few pictures of the break.
Here’s one of me at the Master in Professional Accounting Council (MPAC) December party at the end of fall semester. [...]

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Worst
1 - Realizing, as I had just started the last problem on my first Intermediate exam, that there was a time limit and it was up.
2 - Seeing the Longhorns NOT go to the conference (and national) football championship despite our being the best football team in the nation.
3 - Witnessing the layoffs and struggles [...]

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Welcome to the MPA Lounge. The door only opens for those with ID cards that have been activated to allow entry, making the GSB 4th floor room exclusively for MPA students.
Two girls are sleeping in the corner, one on each couch. Apparently the end-of-semester demands kept them up late last night.
In addition to those two [...]

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
6 a.m. - Alarm goes off.
6:20 a.m. - Roll out of bed to get ready for school.
7:10 a.m. - Grab hastily assembled lunch and backpack, hop in the car, and race down to campus (twenty minute commute from my house).
7:45 a.m. - Arrive on campus, kiss wife goodbye, stop by locker in [...]

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“The good life” requires some semblance of balance between work, play, service, family, friends, hobbies, health, travel, personal development, and eating at In-N-Out. We all know this.
However, it’s not always easy to
1 - Understand our own priorities
and
2 - Spend our time and efforts according to those priorities.
Fortunately, my good friends, I have it all figured [...]

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From MPA Student Life Blog Pictures

In March of 2006, just before I graduated from BYU with an undergraduate degree in comparative literature, my wife, Janssen, and I began discussing the idea of moving away from Utah. We hadn’t seriously considered it before then since the job offers I had been getting were in Utah, my [...]

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Dear Future Self,
Don’t worry. Even though I’ve been slammed with homework and interviews for quite some time now and have barely had time to keep up with my one show (Heroes), I’m going to continue pushing through to the end to provide you with a great foundation of accounting knowledge, good grades, and, if all [...]

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