By Jack Greening, MBA Class of 2013
Two weeks ago, Penn State Smeal MBA and the Smeal MBA Finance Association sent down four of our own to compete in the 6th Annual University of Maryland Smith Mergers and Acquisitions Competition. The M&A competition at Smith bills itself as a “one-of-a-kind” competition that happens to be both “grueling, yet fun.” Having only now, two weeks later, fully recovered (poetic license, but still), I can attest to the fact that they really are not kidding.
That being said, on Wednesday Oct. 24th, I, Jack Greening (2nd yr) , along with Binh “Janice” Nguyen (2nd yr), Iqbal Aasim (1st yr), and Anthony Cheng (1st yr), decided to embark on the short, four-hour drive from our home at Smeal here in Happy Valley to the town in Maryland known as College Park. We left at 3pm, and in hindsight, I wish I we would’ve been able to get on the road a little earlier, and arrived at our hotel just after 7p. Having originally been from the Metro DC area but not been back in quite some time, I had forgotten just how cruel rush hour traffic on the beltway can be sometimes. With the reception starting at 7:15p, it took a little ingenuity on my part and a little help from my Dad, but we got there on time.
This is the point where I must say that Smith really nailed down pat the “host” part of being the “host school”. The food assortment they provided for us at Franklin’s for the reception and the planning and providing of breakfasts, lunches and dinners over the next 24 hours was simply fantastic. Hat’s off to them.
After the reception, we headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep. Oh, how I wish I had gotten just a few more hours of sleep that night; I didn’t know just how badly I’d be needing it the next day and half.