Thanksgiving and Birthdays in Boston

Tuesday was Julia's third birthday! I had a busy day in school, but went home during my 2hr lunch break to celebrate Julia's birthday, have some cake, and watch Julia blow out candles and open her birthday presents. It was great! She had so much fun and she even joined me and Mark in singing happy birthday to herself! On Wednesday we had a birthday party for Julia and some of her best friends here in Cambridge came to celebrate. Julia chose the theme: Dora the explorer. We had Dora ballons, a Dora tablecloth, Dora plates, Dora cups, Dora napkins, and Dora giftbags for her guests. Julia also chose what to eat and drink: cupcakes and a choice between chokolate milk, apple juice, or regular milk for drinks. Nedless to say, Julia loved her birthday party!

For thanksgiving we decided not to join in the travel frenzy that most people in the US take part in at this time of the year. Instead we stayed here in Boston and on Thursday we joined with the other LFMs in town to have thanksgiving dinner. We were 32 people, 22 adults and 10 children, we each brought a dish or two for dinner. The food and company was great! It has been really nice to have a few days off from school to just relax and spend time with Mark and Julia. I have now taken Julia out running three days in a row, and I need it from all the thanksgiving food I have been eating. Here are some pictures of Julia playing during one of our running breaks at the playground on the other side of the Charles River. She loved running around in all the leafs on the ground and throwing them up in the air.

My LFM Application tips

Last year at this time I had just begun the process of applying to LFM. I thought it may be helpful to let those of you who are currently in the process of applying to LFM know what I did.

My first advice is to relax! You are probably in much better shape getting your application completed than I was.

I didn't decide to apply until beginning of November, so you are already much better prepared than I was. The first thing I did after figuring out what the application requirements were was to sign up for the GMAT and contact three people I had chosen for my recommendation letters. I asked my current manager, one former manager, as well as one of my undergraduate professors for recommendation letters. I also requested my official transcripts to be sent to MIT.

I then studied for the GMAT. I only had a couple of weekends to devote to studying so I decided to focus my studies on the language sections since English is my second language. I took the GMAT on November 28th, and I did OK. I actually did really well on the language portion, but not as well on the math. So the lesson learned here is that using the GMAT study guides is very helpful and you can really boost your score through studying. Just make sure you have enough time to study for all the sections!

After taking the GMAT I had almost 3 weeks to write my essays and fill in the application. First I focused on the essays. I made sure I answered the essay questions and I used fairly recent examples (within the last year or so). I felt it was important to be myself, and not try to be something I'm not. I wrote about real experiences that were important to me and that would give a picture of different aspects of myself. I sent my rough drafts to my manager and to a few family members to proofread, and they provided lots of good feedback. I highly recommend utilizing friends, co-workers, and family to proofread your essays. I would advice not to hire a professional service. Instead pick people that are close to you, that care about you, and most importantly will give you their honest opinion. They will be happy to help you out, and they will probably feel honored that you chose to ask them for their feedback.

The last couple of days before the deadline I spent filling in the application form and finally I submitted the application the night before the deadline.

I only had one glitch, the GMAT people didn't grade my test in the promised time so I didn't have my official scores. I contacted the LFM office and they instructed me to just enter my unofficial scores in the application.

So what happens after you have submitted your application? Well, a few weeks later I received an invitation to attend the LFM interview fest. Interview fest happens in January and it is a lot of fun and gives you tons of great information. I never had a chance to visit LFM and MIT during the fall, so this was a great opportunity to meet the current LFM students and chat with the other candidates.

I prepared for the interviews by going through behavioral type interview questions and thinking of examples from my past that would be a good fit for the different questions. I also scheduled mock interviews with two of my managers, who luckily for me were also LFM alumni. If you can do this it helps to boost your confidence and to make sure that you have developed good "stories" to tell the interviewer about your experiences.

I hope this was at least a bit helpful. If you have any questions regarding the LFM applications or interviews, please feel free to contact me. Also, two of my classmates, Aimee and Sean, have posted some really helpful tips on their blogs that you should definitely check out if you want more information.

Good luck!

Check out this LFM video.....

.....my classmates and professors are in it....I'm in it too!

Click on this link:

http://mitsloan.mit.edu/mba/index.php

and go to the "Introducing the people of LFM" link to watch the video.

Midterms, SIP week, and jetlag

Midterms are over and it feels good! I took two midterms the week before last. For those of you that are from other countries and may not know what a midterm is, midterms are just like a final exam but it takes place in the middle of the semester and only covers the material from the first half of the semester. Luckily for me I didn't have midterms in all nine of my courses, only in two: Financial Accounting and Economic Analysis for Business decisions. For Financial Accounting I barely had time to complete the exam, but neither did the rest of the class, so I don't feel too bad about that. The Econ exam was much better, but I also like econ much more than accounting. I think econ makes more sense, plus you get to use some basic calculus which I enjoy (I know, I'm a nerd). I have great respect for the people in my family who have chosen accounting as their profession (Mark, Maris, Addis, Eva). I sure couldn't do it for a living, although I am glad I'm taking the class as it helps me better "speak" accounting

Last week was SIP week (Sloan Innovation Period), which means that our regiular MBA classes are put on hold for one week while the other Sloanies take special seminar classes. For us LFMs it means that since we don't have any MBA class es for a week, we only have engineering classes to attend. LFMs don't have to take the special seminars since we already take so many special classes through the LFM progam such as several Leadership classes, plant trek, etc. The timing of SIP week could not have been any better for me, as my really good friends in Sweden Fredrik and Katarina had planned to get married Oct 27 during SIP week! So Mark, Julia, and I left for Sweden on Monday night, spent a few hectic but fun days with family and friends in Stockholm, attended the wedding on Saturday, and flew back to Cambridge on Sunday. Some of the highlights of this quick visit was meeting Viktor (my cousins 3 week old super cute baby), and finding out that two of my very best friends are also expecting their first child!

Speaking about families......A couple of weeks ago we had an interesting Organizational Process and Career Core joint session where we discussed work life balance. The class discussion was good, and it was nice to hear all the different opinions and experiences in the class. I think I got all my class participation points in one class. One thing that struck me during the class conversation was the difference in choices you have to make if you have a family in the US versus Sweden. I decided to do a bit of research to find out more of the differences. I found some information online but the majority I learned through conversations with my Swedish friends and family during our visit to Stockholm last week.

Several of my friends and family in Sweden have just had their first child, or is expecting their first child in a few months. I personally don't believe the extremely high tax pressure in Sweden is good, but when you have kids in Sweden you definitely get much of what you have paid or will pay in taxes back in benefits. Tough luck for the people that choose not to have kids, or are unable to have kids. They end up paying for everyone else taking advantage of tons of non-working time as a parent!

To start off the comparison, in Sweden parents are allowed 18 months of parental leave, for 13 months of which they are entitled to 80 % of their work salary. I have heard that many companies will pay the remaining 20% of your salary as a company benefit. The 18 months of parental leave can be split between the parents, and parental leave can be taken by either parent, but the other parent must take at least two months. Another interesting fact is that in Sweden, all parents are entitled to parental benefits whether or not they are working.

In contrast, parental benefits in the US consist of 3 months maternity leave at 0% pay, which means that if a mother is fortunate enough to be able to afford not to get paid for 12 weeks, she can stay home with her child for 12 weeks without loosing her job. This has the effect that most working mothers in USA have to choose between either going back to work after taking 6 weeks of short term disability leave (that is if she has been paying the extra short term disability premium while pregnant - short term disability pays for about 100% of salary), or have one parent quit their job to stay home with the child. The latter option is of course only viable if the mother or her husband/partner are fortunate enough that they can afford to have one of them quit their work to stay home with the child.

Another nice thing with the parental benefits in Sweden is that the parent does not have to take the whole parental leave period in one stretch. It can be taken at the full rate for one year, at a half rate for two years, a quarter rate for four years or even at an eighth rate for eight years. The only rule is that the leave has to be taken by the time the child is eight years old or you loose the unused leave.

The third very nice parental benefit in Sweden is that daycare and preschool is heavily subsidised by the government. The daycare or preschool charge for the parents is 3 % of their income for the first child, 2 % for the second child, and 1 % of their income for the third. In addition, there is a maximum charge a so called "maxtaxa" such that no matter how much money the parent makes they can never be charged more than about $200 per month per child for daycare.

Mark and I have been researching preschools for Julia here in Cambridge, and we found that a typical preschool charges the parents $100 per child per day. In Sweden, childcare places are so heavily subsidised that the average parent pays only 8 % of the true cost. Of course this means that taxation has to be much higher than in other countries, Sweden's tax revenue is over 50 % of GDP while in the US it is about 25% of GDP. But it also means that almost no Swedish parent feels that they cannot afford to put their child in childcare.

Most parents in Sweden usually take turns to stay home with their child(ren) while the children are young and then return to work when their children are between 1 and 2 years old. The Swedish parental benefits means that Sweden has a higher percentage of working women than most other countries, close to 80% of Swedish women work, compared to about 60% in the US. While Swedish women are more likely to work than US women, it is much more rare to find a woman in the most lucrative or powerful jobs in Sweden compared to in other countries such as the US. According to the OECD about half of working women in Sweden have public sector jobs such as teachers, nurses, and civil servants compared to about 20% of female workers in the US. "Private-sector employers are less willing to deal with the disruption caused by very long maternity leaves," says Manuela Tomei, a labor sociologist with the International Labor Organization in Geneva. "Gender discrimination in Sweden may be more subtle, but it is very much there.""

Employers in Sweden must not only plan for how to survice their employees long summer vacations, but also plan for how to deal with the chance/risk of having their employees being out on parental-leave. The Swedish government has succeeded in making it very difficult for employers to plan for their employees taking parental leave. I found out during my dinner conversation at Fredrik and Katarinas wedding that by law, an employee in Sweden only has to give their employer two weeks notice of their intent to utilize parental leave benefits. What this means is that if I worked in Sweden and I had for example 6 months of unused parental leave left, I could tell my employer that in two weeks and one day I would be taking a 6 month parental leave from work and my employer couldn't do anything about it!

If I ever had a "brain fart" and attempted to pull something like that in the U.S. I would be the joke of the office. If I was granted the 6 months off, I definitely would not have a job to come back to after the 6 months, and I wouldn't be paid a penny during the 6 months off. Talk about differences!

Maybe next time I'll discuss differences in the school system......

Camping with the 08s

It's late and I should go to bed, but I need to write a few words about this past week before too much time has past by. Why was last week so special? Well, there are many reasons.

Since family comes first I have to tell you about Julia. She made really good progress on her potty training this week and she also went to her first sleep-over this past weekend! Even more exciting, a couple of weeks ago she got her first real golf club. It's an eight iron and she is getting pretty good. She loves her golf club! At night she wants to take it into her bed, and she gives it a hug and kiss goodnight. Mark and I are really looking forward to taking her out on the golf course to start spending some quality family time golfing, could it get any better?

Second, I got a very surprising, and very happy, phone call from my really good friend Rita giving me the good news that she had gotten not only engaged, but also married! Congratulations Rita and Dave, we are so happy for you!

Third, my best friend Arin turned 30 last week. Welcome to the club Arin, I look forward to celebrating your birthday with you during Thanksgiving!

I also received some incredibly sad news about the tragic death of my former plant manager who was also an LFM alumni. It is difficult to grasp that someone who did so much for so many people is not here with us anymore, the loss is tremendous. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.

On a more uplifting note, the LFM class of 08 was in town last week for their internship midstream review, and the week culminated with a joint camping trip in Vermont for the LFM class of 08 and 09. Both Mark and I went camping on Friday night (hence Julia's first sleepover), and I went white water rafting on Saturday. It was tons of fun to hang out with the 08s and get to know them better. They are really a fun group! I look forward to spending more time together in the spring when they get back from their internships.

Other than that, classes are moving along quickly, sometimes way to quickly. I'm struggling to keep up with all the work, and I think it's just going to get worse, ouch! Talk about needing to take charge of my work life balance. I have become much better at planning my time this fall, it is a necessity if I'm going to have any time outside of school. I try to emulate my friend Jens superb planning skills. Although I doubt I will ever get to the point where I sort my grocery shopping list by isle and make 2 weeks worth of grocery shopping in ten minutes like Jen and Mike do. Incredible!

One thing on my plan is to go running more consistently. Tomorrow morning Mark and I are going out for a much needed run, it's been two weeks since I last went running. It's difficult to believe that last year at this time I was training for a marathon! Hopefully I'll be able to get back in shape, but likely not until next summer when the internship starts and I have more time to run. I have to be realistic, it's just not going to happen now while taking nine classes this fall.

Ohh, I almost forgot, we got our tickets to go back to Sweden in October for Katarina and Fredriks wedding! I am so excited to see my friends and family again. I am definitely going to make sure I go running when I'm home, Lidingo has some of the most beautiful and best running trails I have ever ran! Well, its time to get some well needed rest before another busy day tomorrow.
PS. To Mrs O, your son is doing well and says hi, he also had fun at the camping trip!

Some more pictures from this summer

Golfing in New Hampshire

Marks beautiful follow through

At Crane beach with Julia

Fall semester has begun

The fall semester starts this week. Well, it really started 2 weeks ago with 1 week of Sloan pre-term classes and 1 week of Sloan Orientation. I didn't attend the pre-term classes; I needed a week away from school and chose to spend some quality time with my family instead. We had a great week! I hung out with Julia; we went to the beach one day (I will post some pictures later) and she loved playing in the sand and water! Mark and I took a mini vacation at a golf resort in the New Hampshire mountains. We spent two nights there and played a total of 72 holes of golf. Time well spent! I didn't play very well (I shot in the low 80s, mark shot in the high 70s), but I enjoyed just being on the golf course with my hubby, and the weather was nice and the views were beautiful.

Last week was Sloan Orientation week. We got to meet the rest of the Sloanies (the other MBA students) and we got to meet our new teams for the fall semester and do some team building. So far I like my new team, I think we will work well together.

This weekend I got to hang out with my friends from Colorado Springs (although most of us don't live in Colorado Springs anymore since the plant there is shutting down). My friend Ruth had her bachelorette party here in Boston so I got to see her, Janelle, Drey, and Zac. Zac didn't attend the b-party, he stayed with us and hung out with Mark and Julia. Julia was really really excited to see Zac, I haven't seen her that excited in a long time! The b-party was tons of fun, but was bitter sweet. I really miss our CS friends, it's really sad that we all had to move away from CS. On the positive side, I can look forward to meeting them again at the wedding in February.

Got to go to bed, tomorrow is registration day so I need to meet with my Civil Engineering advisor in the morning to get my fall classes approved. Hopefully he will be OK with me not actually taking any Civil Eng classes until the spring semester. I will find out tomorrow.

Some pictures from this summer.....

LFM Kids having fun at the LFM, SDM, Sloan Fellows BBQ Party!

Audrey and I at a LFM social event.

Being a mom at LFM

So one of the main reasons i want to blog is to share my experiences as a mother while being an LFM student. My intent is to be available to other moms, as well as to non-moms, that are considering attending LFM and have questions or just want to chat.

When I was considering applying to LFM, my daughter was just turning 2 years old. At my previous job I had the pleasure of getting to know an LFM06 mom who was doing her LFM internship at the site I worked. It was very powerful for me to meet and talk to a mom that was attending LFM while raising a child, and if I hadn't met her and her family maybe I wouldn't have thought of LFM as a program you could attend while raising a family.

Not everyone has the luxury of meeting LFM alumni or interns before they apply, which is the reason for me taking time to write this blog. If there are other moms out there right now in a similar situation to the one I was in; hesitating to apply to LFM because of the fear of jeopardizing the quality with which she will be able to raise her family, I feel it is my call to be there for her to tell her about my experience and give her my perspective. I'm not trying to convince anyone to attend, but merely provide some more data to enable other moms and their families to make the right decision for them, regardless of the outcome.

So what is it like? Well' I wish I could say that it is easy, but it's not. I wish I could tell you I have perfect balance in my life, but I don't. I definitely haven't figured it all out, but I'm working on it, every day, every hour. One thing I have learned is that it would be much worse if I didn't have full support from my LFM "family". The support I have from my classmates and the LFM program is tremendous, and has helped me very much. My LFM summer teammates have been absolutely fantastic and I have countless examples of how my teammates have adapted to allow me to take care of my daughter or provide me some extra time to spend with her. For example, we have on several occasions had team meetings at my apartment instead of in the LFM office to do homework. At one point my daughter, Julia, was spending several hours per week with us in our LFM conference room while we were working on group projects, and I have gotten nothing but kindness from my teammates. I truly feel my teammates now include Julia as part of our team, it's really cool!


Another essential thing I have learned is to prioritize, prioritize, prioritize, and be creative in how you prioritize. I knew before I came here that I wouldn't have time to do all of the stuff I wanted to do. At the same time getting the full LFM experience was (and is) very important to me, as you only go though this program once. So I have tried to achieve some balance between all the different things there is to do while in LFM, and the things I participate in to allow me to spend quality time with my family. I decided to try and take part in all the different types of LFM activities, but not do as much of it as others may be. For example, I am involved in LFM committees, but not as many as I would have liked to. I do homework, but not all of it (I try to do all of it, but sometimes enough is enough). I read my e-mail once per day (my classmates will tell me if there is something important I need to read). I work out, but not as much as I used to (this is really not OK, but it's just so difficult to get up an hour early to go running). I go out and socialize with my LFM classmates, but definitely not as much as some, and I don't go until Julia is already sleeping. I eat food, I just don't take time to cook long meals. I sleep, just not as much as I used to (there is always a tradeoff). I don't watch TV.

Another thing that has allowed both me and my husband to get the full LFM experience is to take turns participating in LFM sports and social activities (while one of us participates, the other watches Julia). For example, my husband is coaching the LFM Softball team this summer, and I will be playing ice hockey this winter. My husband usually goes to the Muddy (MIT's on campus pub) after softball games, and I will go out and socialize on one of the weekend nights instead.

Finally, the most important lesson I have learned is to be honest and real. There are always going to be trade offs and I can't beat myself up for not being able to do everything. As long as I do what is important to me and my family, and as long as I have no regrets, I will be fine.

See you next time!

Mom visit, simulation game, plant tours....and lots of homework

It's late on Tuesday night, and I feel like this week has already been very, very long. I really need to go to bed. I should be reading the rest of the ops case, and the two articles that are due for tomorrow, but if I don't take the time now to jot down some notes of what has been going on this week, it will never get done.

Needless to say, this week has been very busy. Saturday was spent going through my distributed leadership assessment (this is an assessment of my strengths and weaknesses that my direct reports, managers, and co-workers completed before I left for LFM). I went through all the data to prepare for the Leadership paper that was due on Sunday - yes we had homework due on a Sunday! In the evening Mark, Julia, and I went to Dinner at D&D's house. It was fun and the food was excellent!

Sunday morning Julia and I went to the airport to pick my mom up, she is visiting from Sweden. I have been looking forward to seeing my mom again, and Julia was also really excited that "mormor" was coming to visit us. When we got to the airport Julia was first dissapointed to find out that we weren't going to fly on the airplanes today. But when i reminded her that mormor was coming, she got happy again. After a long wait my mom finally arrived with big hugs, especially for Julia. We drove back to the apartment. This is only the fourth time I have driven since we moved to Cambridge. Thanks to the Tomtom it has actually been surprisingly easy to drive here. Although, I still prefer the T and walking over driving! We got home and opened presents! My mom gave me some inflatable clothes hangers and toiletries that I had "ordered". Mark got "Dumle" chocolates, and Julia got an Astrid Lindgren songbook and CD, a Pippi Langstrump DVD, and a Karlson pa taket DVD. Julia was really excited and didn't realize that my dad had already recorded many of the same episodes for her and that she had been watching them for the past 2 months.

At 4:30pm it was time to meet Miguel at the LFM office to prepare for the start of the 5day Littlefield factory simulation game. This is part of our Operations management class where we get divided into teams of 3 and compete in running a simulated factory with the goal to make the most money. Our group had already met earlier in the week to forecast the demand, set up our inventory management plan, and calculate capacity utilization to set up our strategy for how to run our factory. Now it was time to put our plan in place. It was pretty simple, just purchase some machines, change the batch size, and set the inventory reorder policy. Then the waiting game started...we were curious to see if our calculations were correct so we decided to hang out in the LFM office until the first factory day had passed (1 factory day = 1 actual hr). The hour passed quickly as we were busy talking about the leadership paper and our personal goals and definitions. We were delighted to find that our calculations were correct. Sweet! I rushed back home to have dinner with mom, Mark and Julia and then spent the rest of the Sunday writing my leadership paper and reading articles for Ops class.

Monday was filled with classes after which we watched the movie Copenhagen to prepare for today's leadership class discussion. I'm glad we watched the movie since I hadn't had time to read the play yet, and with all the other reading due I wasn't going to have enough time. I came home to find that Julia was sick, she had a fever and was just laying on the couch watching TV. I sat down next to her and we snuggled for a few hours while I read the Leadership articles due today. It was awesome to cuddle with Julia, I just wish she would have felt better. The Simulation game was going well, we were in 2nd place!

Today after classes we went to Raytheon on a plant tour. They did a really good job with the tour and the information. very enjoyable! After the tour we went straight back to the LFM office to work on Statistics homework. I was really tired, it was hard to focus. Luckily the homework due date was extended 1 day, which is why I cam home at 12:30am instead of 2:30am, and why I'm able to write this blog for a while. The rest of the week will be equally busy, we have to complete a front line worker interview for our Lean class, complete the rest of the Stats HW, read more, and we have another Plant tour on Thursday, this time to Genzyme.
This weekend I'm taking my mom and Julia to the beach, I can't wait

.....Oh, and as for the simulation game, after 76 factory days we are in 5th place....

Hi.....

....and welcome to my LFM blog! I'm hoping my blog will be useful for those of you that want to know more about what life is like attending the LFM program. I am also very excited to have a place my friends and family can access to check up on me and what is going on in my hectic life right now. Well, I guess I should start this blog with a brief introduction of myself ....

I am originally from Sweden, but most recently I moved to Cambridge, MA from Colorado Springs, CO. I live in a very small apartment (at least compared to our Colorado Springs house) with my husband Mark, our daughter Julia, and our two (huge) cats Tank and Pipi. If you want to know more about my background, please read the "about me" section.

I have now been a LFM student for about a month and a half and I absolutely love it! Our summer schedule is very busy and classes, homework, committee work, plant tours, and other LFM activities take up a lot of my time. It's no surprise that the biggest challenge I face is achieving a healthy balance between LFM activities and spending time with Mark and Julia.


Well, it's now time to give Julia a bath and then head over to meet all the other LFMs and their families at a classmates B-day party...... I'll be back...