Greetings from GSIA, uh, I mean The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon (sorry, I'm still getting used to our new name – it doesn't exactly roll right off the tongue). Actually, I am writing not from Tepper at all, but from Germany, where I'm spending my last Mini filling up on sausage and sauerkraut, practicing my rudimentary German (Sprechen Sie Deutsch?), and, oh yeah – studying.

It's hard to imagine that my tenure at B-school is coming to an end. Perhaps it's the fact that the life of an MBA student moves so quickly or that I'm currently 4,000 miles away from Pittsburgh, but I don't feel like I'm about to be kicked out of the nest into Corporate America once again.

Being so far away, it's hard for me to gauge the exact pulse of the majority of my classmates at this time. In my last article, I touched on the continuing job searches and onset of senioritis occurring during the last few Minis. I can only imagine that these phenomena have become more acute. In fact, the most common response I get from classmates when I ask how Mini 4 is going is, "I knocked two strokes off my golf score." Must be nice.

Actually, I can't really complain. My agenda for the final eight weeks consists of stays in Germany, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, along with weekend jaunts to Paris and Amsterdam. Oh yeah, and a week driving through the Spanish countryside. So there. I may have some catching up to do on the golf course, but I'm more than making up for it in frequent flier miles.

Let me take a few moments here to do some unabashed Tepper School self-promotion. The study abroad program run as part of the MBA curriculum here is fantastic. It's an unbelievable opportunity to experience firsthand the educational, professional, and political climates in places that many people would otherwise not get to go. For me personally, Slovakia and Hungary, for example, weren't exactly high on my "Places I Want to Visit" list. But, in fact, these areas (and most of Central and Eastern Europe) are some of the most fascinating and important places in the world right now in terms of business climate and economic development.

Not only are we getting to study at schools and interact with students and faculty in these places, but we are visiting leading domestic and international companies, government agencies, and at least in the case of Slovakia, even meeting with U.S. Ambassadors. This is undeniably one of the most educational, important, and unique experiences I will have as part of my MBA career, or anywhere, for that matter.

I will admit that, true to Tepper form, the program is by no means a cakewalk. The schedule is hectic, the lectures are intense, and we actually have work to do (go figure!). It is certainly not an eight-week-long sightseeing tour. But, it's remarkably stimulating and incredibly rewarding. And, as I mentioned earlier, it's not all work, all the time, as life at Tepper feels at times. There is time for recreational traveling, and they even found it in their kind hearts to give us our Spring Break, which we lost due to our journey over here. So when I look back at my time at business school, I am fairly certain that this will be the thing I am most happy about having done. (End of promotion).

So now on the horizon is the ominous specter of graduation. It's the culmination of two dizzying years of intense studying, frantic job searches, networking (ugh, I hate using that word), participating in student clubs and community events, reliving the glory days of undergrad, and, when possible, all the side stuff (you know – eating, sleeping, exercising, etc.). For some, it's a welcome reprieve – the finish line to a whirlwind, chaotic experience and the gleaming light at the end of the tunnel. For others, it's a deadline looming up ahead in the distance and fast approaching. It's the make-or-break point where one changes from "MBA student" to "unemployed" in an instant. Or, where, "we begin the daily grind of work for the rest of our lives," as some doomsayers frequently point out.

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