Grad School Update: Exciting stuff!

I started my next class last week, called Contemporary Business Writing and Communication. I'm hoping it's okay, but it's definitely a departure from more of the academic classes I've had recently. This one seems to be geared more towards the "real world" and all that. That's fine and all - I think the topics are super important in businesses today. However, one of the items in my textbook included a checklist to prepare for a meeting, and suggested using a calendaring program.....

Uh, duh?

...so I hope it gets better.

But anyway, here's the actual exciting stuff to share!!

As I was meeting Kasey and Evan at the train station last month, I opened my email on my phone to see a message from my professor from my latest class, Leadership and Decision Theory. I had just submitted my final project for the course (so I could focus on our guests), which was a power point presentation. The assignment was to analyze a business decision that didn't go how it was supposed to - like a product that failed, or a decision that adversely affected the consumer. I selected the New Coke debacle of 1985.

Anyway, I submitted it and my professor emailed me because he loved it. He wants to collaborate and re-work it into an academic paper and submit it for publication.

!!!

How cool is that?!

I spoke to him briefly last week and he said that he will start looking into upcoming conferences where we could meet a deadline for submission. He will present it for publication at said conference, all I have to do is re-work the paper. The project was pretty meaty to start with, so it shouldn't take too long to get completed.

I've already been published in an industry publication and also in the Washington Post (as long as the county section counts - because I got three articles in that beauty during high school!), but to have an academic credit sounds great to me! It will be something else to add to my resume, so yay!

In other news, Matt and I have been trying out some new recipes. This weekend we made a baked mac and cheese.....

...but it didn't come out quite right.

We also did from-scratch blueberry oatmeal muffins....

...and they were completely delicious. We used fresh blueberries and they were great. (Side note: I had the most amazing strawberries of my entire life last week. I love Germany).

We also had some crazy wild thunder and lightening storms, which isn't really common in this area, making it all the cooler.

Woo hoo!

Have a great week, everyone!