Archive for December, 2011

This is always my favorite post to write each year. A lot happens in a year, and I am always amazed at what all took place when I write this post. 2011 was a good year. My life faced new changes and challenges, and I walked away a stronger, and more experienced person than before.

January: The new year kicked off with my Peace Corps loves in Chicago. I then headed back to the LSE to complete the year. It was a constant adjustment trying to wrap my head around the British system. This was one of the major challenges of 2011.

February: My friend Laura from Peace Corps visited me. I submitted the dual degree application for Columbia after many drafts of the essays. I was anxiously waiting to hear a response. I wanted to be in the US and at Columbia. Meanwhile, I continued to find balance with readjustment into the “real world”. Even after all those months, there were moments that were extremely difficult. Reverse culture shock continued to affect me in the early part of 2011. In an attempt to find balance, I took mini city breaks to Cambridge and the like.

March: March was a good month. I received my acceptance to Columbia in the beginning of the month. That relieved a lot of stress for me. Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary and I attended a celebration party in London. In search of inspiration, I attended a China in Africa conference at Oxford and met many fascinating individuals, including a guy from Burundi who became a good friend and mentor. Despite not being satisfied in my academic life, I enjoyed my life in London.

April: A rough month due to personal matters. But luckily this was the month where LSE had a month-long break/revision period. I took two trips: one to Bologna and another to Ibiza. Both trips were absolutely necessary for me to get away from London, to gain a little perspective, and to re-energize myself for the exam period. The end of the month was the Royal Wedding. It was pretty neat to be in London for this historical event. My friends and I participated by going to Trafalgar Square and watched it on the big screen! pretty cool.

May: The intense exam period began. Summer term full of review sessions took place. Life became pretty dull for the next two months. I also went on a Facebook Hiatus/Detox.

June: Exams were in full swing. Since the LSE library was so oversubscribed, Jenn and I found a perfect two-story Starbucks on Bond Street and went there from open to close every day during the month. It was the worst academic purgatory that I’ve ever experienced. The British System is simply not for me.

July: Things began to look up after exams in July. Immediately after exams, my sister visited me in London. Then, we took a trip to frolic along the French Riviera. It was much, much needed. During the vacation, I read Jacqueline Novogratz’ Blue Sweater, and Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Both of which made a big impression on me. The Tiger Mom book especially inspired me to tell my own story. I began working at Big Issue Invest, a social investment firm in London after my vacation. Very interesting work; right up my alley. Oh, I finally tried out the Cameroonian restaurant in London. It brought back all sorts of fantastic memories.

August: I thoroughly enjoyed the last few weeks of my summer in London. My internship was fulfilling and interesting. It was a nice end to a rather frustrating academic year. I reflected on the year of reverse culture shock. Jerome visited me from Paris and we reminisced life in Cameroon. Nearly all of my visitors in London relate back to Cameroon in one way or another.

September: I began the long-awaited journey at Columbia SIPA. I finally felt like I was at the right place. It was really exciting to meet new people and get into the groove of things. SIPA threw a really fun Welcome-Back party, that kicked off my birthday celebration. I began to attend many networking events for jobs, and attempted to determine what path I want to take with my career. A major Peace Corps reunion in DC wrapped up the month. It was fantastic to see my loves again. It was bittersweet to know that people have all moved up with then next phase of life, and it will never quite be the same again.

October: SIPA continues to treat me well. There are always a million events happening. The Boat Party kicked off the month. Between job search, classes and a busy social life, I was always running around, but felt very happy and fulfilled. Columbia is a big bubble. Every now and again, it’s nice to break away to visit the Met, to stroll around Central Park, etc.

November: The month began with a trip to DC to attend Africa Gathering. An inspiring event with amazing African diaspora who have great ideas to contribute to the continent. School and job search remain incredibly busy. But holiday season kicked off with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, massive feast, friends, and fun.

December: Early in the month was incredibly busy with finals. Job interviews began to take place and juggling the two kept me at the libraries all day long. In between all the frenzy, I tried to slip in some time to walk around the city and to take in the holiday spirit. New York is amazing during this season. It was nice to be home for Christmas. It has been nice to be closer to family and friends in the later part of this year.

And that, was 2011. Since I will graduate in May, 2012 holds much unknown. Anything is possible. That is at the same time exciting, and somewhat scary! I hope you have also had a fulfilled 2011, and I wish you all the best in this new year!

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I’ve been receiving emails regarding the GPPN Dual Degree program between the LSE and Columbia SIPA that I am pursuing. In the interest of sharing information, here’s some key items:

If you are at LSE and looking to apply to do your 2nd year at Columbia:

Application is generally due during early February and you hear back in early March. The process is simple – just four short essays. Three of the essays is likely to be exactly as they are for next year’s incoming SIPA applicants. And then, there is typically a question similar to “If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, whom would it be?”. It’s important to note that since LSE doesn’t have grades until the end of the year, these essays are the only thing that really sets you apart from the rest. You are competing against others who are already at the LSE, so obviously you are all already of a certain caliber.  Therefore, the fact I was accepted into SIPA originally for the MPA mattered none. I still slaved and agonized over these essays for days. There must have been at least 5 drafts of each. I am fairly certain that I spent more energy on these essays than anything else I did at the LSE.

Why the fuss? Well, it can be rather competitive. Last year, I believe there were 19 applicants and 7 offers. Historically, it’s about 1/3 probability. I believe it depends on supply and demand. The number of spots available is determined by how many people want to come to the LSE. There may be other factors involved in the available spots, but I know this is the main one. I don’t work in the Admissions Committee, so I haven no idea what works. But I think the same rules apply for any essays: more is NOT better. Judging by the student body at SIPA, I would say highlighting previous experiences and how they motivate your wish to study at SIPA is probably more important than academic achievements. My observation is that SIPA is training people to become practitioners, not academics.

Once you do get the offer, you will immediately need to think about courses as pre-registration for the fall semester opens in the spring and courses can fill very quickly at SIPA. Your courses at the LSE will count for some of the core classes at SIPA. Basically, you will need to complete all requirements that a normal two-year SIPA student needs to complete. EC440 will count for the year long Economics classes. EC455 will count for Quantitative Analysis. GV478 will count for Politics of Policy-making. I was doing International Development, so DV441 counted for the Management requirement. If you are serious about coming to SIPA, you can plan your courses that will count, in the event that you do get in, that will give you more flexibility to take classes at SIPA. I also had LL484 Regulations of Financial Markets to count as International Banking at SIPA. In some ways, going from LSE-SIPA shortchanged me on class options since most year-long classes only counted for semester-long classes at SIPA.

Beyond the above requirements that can be satisfied from LSE courses, you are still require to take a financial management class, a professional development seminar, capstone and internship. In addition, everyone is required to pursue a concentration and a specialization. Depending on the track you choose to take, the number of required classes varies. For more information regarding requirements, refer to SIPA Academics.

For anyone considering GPPN Dual Degree between LSE/SIPA:

One great advantage about SIPA is its student body size and a wide variety of student groups within SIPA itself, completely independent from Columbia University. LSE has a number of societies, but they are usually mixed with undergrads. The student groups at SIPA host a number of events and some have insane amount of money in their budget, ranging well into thousands of dollars. Serving on a board in one of these groups give you all sorts of experience to answer those “behavior questions” you face in interviews. Caveat: the boards run from spring to fall semester between students first and second year. Thus, as a dual degree student, I was excluded from able to serve on any board. This is not to say I am excluded from participating or becoming involved, but it greatly diminishes the leadership opportunities.

The other potential difficulty is the social life. Since there is only a handful of dual degree students, you tend to fall into a strange lot that doesn’t quite fit with the first year, but most of the 2nd year already have pre-established social circle. I already had a lot of friends in New York, so this is less of an issue for me. I have heard this is a general issue to keep in mind for any dual degree students. The upside is that if you can overcome the difficulty, you walk away after the two years with a massive network of contacts from all over the world.

Academically, the LSE is much more in depth and challenging. The nature of the programs are different. LSE is much more academic. SIPA is much more practical. LSE is all about independent learning and one huge exam at the end of the year for most classes. At SIPA, classes are only one-semester long and there are assignments/projects/papers due constantly. You can think of it as a strength vs. endurance. To me, academic is all there is at the LSE. Extracurricular mattered very little. At SIPA, to get the full experience, soft skills are important, the professional development events consume your life, as well as extracurricular activities. If you come to SIPA only to excel at academics, then you really would not get your money’s worth. Personally, I love SIPA. But, we all know how the LSE and the British system in general perplexes me.

If I could do it over, I likely would have gone to SIPA in the first place and stayed there for two years. Having two degrees on the resume is a nice plus, but the experience itself lacks continuity. Since the GPPN dual degree comprises of only a handful of people in all schools, there doesn’t really exist a very good structure to help the integration. Having to learn the entire system and politics of school each year can be really frustrating. At the end of the day, it depends on what you are after and prefer. As always, there are pros and cons to all things and each decision depends on which way the balance tilts.

Good luck with your decision!

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Holiday Season in NYC!

Merry Christmas!! Finally had time to take in the holiday season after weeks of finals projects, papers and exams. I didn’t get to enjoy as much of the Christmas spirit this year, but I still sneak in some pretty nice moments around the City. A trick for all: walking around New York City while listening to Christmas music on your iPod gives this surreal movie-like feeling!

This IS the most wonderful time of the year. Despite the commercialism of it all, I really love it! New York City is especially magical during the season. Hope everyone is able to find a piece of this magic wherever you are and can be with loved ones today!

Christmas lights at Columbia

Christmas Shopping Frenzy

Rockefeller Center

Macy's fancy display

Christmas Market at Bryant Park

Ice Skating at Bryant Park

Didn’t actually go skating, but it looked like a lot of fun! Walked by it on a random Tuesday night and it was pretty happening!

Nutcracker @ Lincoln Center

After my last final, I unwind with a showing of the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center! It was every bit as amazing as I remembered. I think I was just as excited as the 5-year-old girl sitting near me! Oldie but a goodie, never gets old!

Columbus Circle

lights inside of Columbus Circle

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A friend of mine posted something about The Lottery on Facebook last night. It’s a documentary about charter schools in Harlem, a neighborhood just a few blocks from where I currently live. I’ve heard things about schools in Harlem, but to be honest, I didn’t know much more beyond that it’s typical of many inner-city schools in America. I took a break from exam studying and watched this movie. Though the film itself was a bit one-sided and the statistics were somewhat questionable, it did served as much needed inspiration, and got me thinking about education in the USA.

After receiving my primary school education in Taiwan, I continued the rest of secondary education in a suburb of Saint Louis. Although both were public education, I was stunned by the difference. I will never forget the first day of math class in 6th grade, when the teacher gave out multiplication timetable test. I could not believe it. Time table was drilled in our little heads since well before second grade and I was ready to do some advanced algebra. When the teacher approached me to ask me why I wasn’t doing my time table, I gave her a “are you for real?” look and said, “I am finished.”

Needless to say, the school system that I was a part of was average at best. Although I didn’t turn out too badly, I know many of my classmates only made it as far as the community college. The high school promoted a program that feed students into community college rather than a 4-year degree university. As a result, many do not complete a 4-year degree. Guidance counselors and teachers did not inspire students to think of sky as limit when it came to career aspirations and college choices. To compensate for the lack of preparation, my sister and I both graduated high school early and jump started on college courses at community college. My sister actually received comments along the lines of “you are making a terrible mistake” when she decided to leave and to give up her seat as Student Body President. Where is the priority?

Yes, I wish my high school put more focus on SAT prep and pushed for opportunities beyond community college and the University of Missouri system. But some people simply wish their school taught them how to read and to write properly. I spent my undergraduate years at SLU mentoring kids from the City of Saint Louis schools. The experience was heartbreaking. Even working with kids as young as 4th and 5th grade, I knew they were already so far behind academically, that to catch up with the average American will take immense effort and resources that these kids were not receiving.

The American education system reflects the inequity that this country is fighting via various Occupy movements. It would have been nice to move into a more affluent neighborhood where public schools were more college-prep. For kids in the inner-city, it would’ve been nice to be born into families that can afford to live in nice school districts. To a larger extent, one’s fate is largely determined by where one was born. It probably would be nice for the children in my Cameroonian village to be born in an industrialized society where teachers show up to teach regularly.

I still believe in the American dream. After all, I managed to crawl as an immigrant child from a low-income family into the Ivy walls, albeit via mediocre public school system. Anything is still possible in this country, more so than many others in the world. But as great as this country is, shouldn’t a child’s fate be less dependent upon the neighborhood where he or she grows up? And shouldn’t a country that prides itself on entrepreneurial spirits able to come up with a “business model” that can help schools properly meet its supply and demand?

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Oh SIPA. You never cease to amaze me.  I have been so involved with my life in New York and the happenings at Columbia that I haven’t written much about these really amazing past few months. It’s finals time and stress is in the air, but what really impresses me is how my SIPA colleagues manage to handle this stress with such humor. Slight variation from the LSE exam time, when people have anxiety episodes in the library on a regular basis.

The week began with an article titled, “Write Like Columbia Grad Student in Easy 20 Steps”. My first thought was, “surely this is not a serious advice piece. That would have been really lame.”  Sure enough, it was a hilarious and a mostly true insight into how we, or certainly I, write papers. My favorite is step 14: Read a few articles in The New York Times, because you’re a grad student and it’s your responsibility to stay informed. Right? There is absolutely a positive correlation between my news intake and time spent procrastinating.

Later in the same evening, I saw a posting of our own SIPA version of Ryan Gosling. This is apparently a new trend of people putting sayings eluding to relationships, concerning a certain niche group of people, on Ryan Gosling’s pictures. I’ve seen it in a couple of places, the International Development Ryan Gosling is pretty good. The fact someone at SIPA created a SIPA Ryan Gosling Tumblr makes this a school-wide tactic on procrastination. This is my favorite:

To top it off, today, I saw a YouTube video of a Stats Jingle. Apparently two statistics TAs decided to add a little holiday cheer to stats exam prep and created this funny number:

I gotta hand it to SIPA. Talk about a bunch of well-balanced people. No reason to take life so seriously. Have a little fun, even during exams!

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