Tulane University Freeman School BLOG

You’ll stay busy if you want to. I’d recommend that any new candidate at the freeman school fill his/her schedule. When starting in a new city you have to make the decision and firmly dig your heels in. I have done a fair job of sort of accidentally. Here’s how:

I already go to school full time and I’d say I spend between 25-50 hours a week on school work. That depends on the week and the classes and heavily on the guest speakers that attend the university, because I see nearly all of them. So I have to account for the fact that during the first year I’ve had midterms or finals every 3 weeks due to the fact that we’re in 7 week sessions. In addition right now I am working on the internship search. I have had some luck as of late, but I’d factor in at least 10 more hours a week on that. I also write on this blog, and help the admissions department plan its internet activity. We have a plan on the horizon to build a new mini website for the freeman school. That takes up about 10 more hours a week. So at any given point freeman can take up between 35-60 hours a week.

In addition I have a job. I am the Business Development Manager for a small company called Flatsourcing. It’s just me and a friend I have made here in New Orleans, who has run this business for a few years now. My friend has an internet venture company. I met him last summer while interning for him before I started school. I work only on a commission basis, but that’s ok because business has been good. That job requires about 15 more hours from me on a busy week. I don’t actually have to go into the office. It mostly consists of email and phone calls to sell outsourcing web development contracts, so it easily falls in line with everything else I am doing. I might be sending an email or talking to a potential client in the breaks between classes. It works out nicely. This month I have sold $100,000 of new business so far and its only the 15th at the time I am writing this. I hope to have $200,000 sold before the end of the month.

My boss at that company wants to get into real venture capital and we want to start a new internet venture as a partnership. It works out well to start these new ventures, because I have the connections of the school and the advising of faculty that I have made relationships with. My boss is well-connected in town and we’re both very motivated. While we haven’t formally started work on the venture firm or the new venture, I probably spend another 5-10 hours a week thinking and planning on that. I’ll probably try to do an internship starting that fund and new venture as part of my summer internship.

So now we’re up to 70-95 hours a week potentially. That’s about as much as I can take. It means I work most weekends. It also means that every weekday is at least a 14 hour day spread between some project or school. For example last weekend I spent the entire weekend working promoting our new products at SXSW interactive in Austin. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

I’d have to say that I think it’s important, because I feel like I am setting up the rest of my life. So, 14 hour days are ok.

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