Where's Nate?

living large in the four-oh-eight. wicked large.

3.20.2007

map-less in ann arbor.

Not a day of Winter B has gone by when I haven't said to myself, "Thank God, I'm not doing MAP again." A year ago, my team and I were living and breathing all things Cisco, trying to balance the expectations of our faculty advisors and our company sponsors, and doing it all without (much of) a net. This is not to say that I didn't get anything out of MAP or couldn't stand my team. Not at all. I'm just glad I don't have to do it again.

MAP has become a fundamental part of what it means to be a Ross MBA. It's about working on a team of people you may have never met before, with a company that has no idea of what to expect from you, all of this compounded by locations ranging from Bangalore to Dearborn. A MAP team is a dynamic and ever-changing microcosm of a corporation, with politics and divergent goals and expectations. I have a few friends who swear they'll never speak to their team again. But many others (including myself) welcomed the project as a chance to break out of the first-year sections and into the broader student community.

If this post seems a bit out of left-field, that's intentional. I really started to notice it this week, with the MBA1s off in every corner of the globe. Suddenly, we have a bit more elbow room around the student lounge and in the hallways. Those MBA1s who are around are chirping about "team dynamics" and not "team projects." And with less than six weeks to go, I'm getting a bit nostalgic.

It's a wonderful social experiment, this MAP. It's one of the things that makes Michigan, Michigan. I'm just happy to spend my weeks sitting in class and not crammed in some conference room for eight hours a day in Grand Rapids or Kansas City. Mmmmm, barbecue.

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