“Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” – Mark Twain
Cover letter hell is where you find yourself when you take Twain’s advice as a first-year at the TSoB. To be fair, I haven’t deliberately procrastinated on the career-related tasks under whose weight I am presently crushed. In my pre-Tuck life, procrastination might have involved indulging in a Sunday afternoon Girls Next Door marathon while sipping Newman’s Own Pink Lemonade with a splash of Stoli Razberi – a veritable war on productivity. Here, procrastination on one item is simply a function of attention to all others. (It could be rightly pointed out that, at present, I am furthering my procrastination on cover letters by taking the time to write this blog post; however, I’ll choose to believe instead that I am merely warming up the right side of my brain for the rhetorical frenzy ahead.) Fall B is deliverable overload, and in between all those homework assignments, it can be pretty difficult to find a spare moment to focus on one’s career plans (you know, those little things driving this whole endeavor).
At time of writing, I’m on the Dartmouth Coach back from Logan Airport, following a much-needed Thanksgiving break. (Someone back in 1621 had the prescience to know we’d need a reason to peace out of Hanover in late November, and for that I salute them.) Post-break, we have just two more weeks of classes before final exams, with internship application deadlines for on-campus recruiting occurring in both weeks. While I’m fairly excited to be in the Fall B homestretch, I’ll admit that I’m already wistful about leaving Hanover for winter break. Part of the reason why I came to Tuck was that I wanted to be in an immersive MBA program where I could cast off the shackles of my life in New York and replace my old friends with ones better positioned to help me in my career. Kidding aside, I wanted Tuck to be my life for 21 months – my own personal Walden, but with Wifi and really good coffee. Winter break will be my first extended foray into the outside world since matriculating at Tuck, and I’m a bit reluctant to re-assimilate.
Were I playing armchair psychologist, I might suggest that my slow start on internship applications is a function of this reluctance. While tough, this fall has flown by, and I find myself missing Tuck long before I’ll actually leave it. At times, I feel so immersed in Tuck that it is hard to remember that this program is a means to an end, and not the end in and of itself. When my head is spinning from pivot table analysis (get it?) or I’m suffering from LIFO/FIFO angst, this can be a comforting thought. But on a day like today, when there’s a blue sky over the Upper Valley and two more days of serenity separating me from the harsh reality of Fall B, well, it’s pretty clear why I’m procrastinating on anything designed to propel me out of Tuck.
Read the full article: In which our heroine has procrastinated