Financial Crisis Sends Business-Minded Back to School
In an attempt to gain an edge in the increasingly competitive business world, many in the financial sector are going back to school to re-educate themselves. This growing interest in becoming more knowledgeable in the field has led to a surge in interest in many top-tier business schools.
A recent report by the Graduate Management Admission Council shows that 77 percent of the admissions officers from these schools are seeing higher levels of applications than at any time in the past five years.
According to Bloomberg News, the numbers of tours and interviews given are at an all-time high this year at Georgetown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan. These numbers will likely result in a much higher applicant pool.
Georgetown’s Master of Business Administration program, like many others, requires its applicants to have two to three years of work experience. In the current economic climate, this could be a problem for many students.
According to the Department of Labor, an average of 37,000 business and professional jobs were lost per month between January and October of 2008, compared with only 11,000 in 2007.
Jason Sain, president and CEO of International Transport Logistics, is in his first year of the MBA program at Georgetown and enrolled in order to better prepare himself for the changing financial climate.
“I felt that I needed more tools to tackle the great diversity of challenges,” said Sain. “An MBA teaches the fundamental business practice[s] that work in the good and bad times. We should look at these fundamentals.”
Whether or not a greater number of applicants will come to Georgetown seeking these fundamentals remains to be seen.
“[The] MBA [degree] may become a safe arena for those who lost their jobs,” said Sain, who believes MBA programs may offer a way for people to weather the economic storm.
-Yuse Lajiminmuhip
LGBTQ Site Offers “All-Inclusive Community” Online
Yet another online community has joined the ranks of Facebook and MySpace. But this time the Web site, EveryQ.com, is geared toward the LGBTQ community.
The new site lets members create their own Web spaces, as well as post music, videos and photos. It has a directory of LGBTQ-friendly businesses throughout the world and sections for news and events important to the community. Events include Proposition 8 rallies and speed dating.
“I don’t know how relevant it is for Georgetown LGBTQ students,” said Jack Harrison, co-president of GU Pride. “But I know that some people do use [such Web sites].”
Carlos Leon-Ojeda (COL ’10), a student worker in the LGBTQ Resource Center, said the site appears to expand beyond the typically gay-male-dominated social-networking sites he has seen. The site claims to be open to youths, families, men, women, and even churches and nonprofit organizations.
According to the Web site, it strives to create an “all-inclusive LGBT community” where members can “exchange ideas on how to navigate some of the challenges we face and promote who and what we are.”
The Internet has long played an important role in the LGBTQ community as a source of communal and emotional support.
“Our [minority] identities can sometimes be rendered invisible to others, which can be good and bad,” Harrison said. “On the one hand, it can protect someone from harassment, but on the other, it can make it much harder to find others with whom they share experiences.”
The Internet and online communities such as EveryQ strive to address that problem.
“Any social network has the capability to bring a large group of people together,” Leon-Ojeda said. “But a large group of individuals may not be interested. It would present multiple sides of the issue.”
-Jennifer Rogers
Wisconsin Avenue bank Robber Caught, Arrested
According to a Nov. 18 announcement by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Metropolitan Police Department, Dewayne Anthony Edwards, a 26-year-old Maryland male, was arrested in connection with three robberies in the District of Columbia. Two of the robberies occurred at Adams National Bank on the 1700 block of Wisconsin Avenue on April 7 and Aug. 28 of this year.
The search was based on physical evidence, including firearms and clothing consistent with the crime scenes. DNA evidence, found by the FBI/MPD Bank Robbery Task Force at the scenes of at least two robberies was also key to the case and matched samples from previous files, according to Captain Brian Harris of the Criminal Investigations Division at MPD.
According to Harris, The FBI and MPD worked together on this case as a part of their standing arrangement to share personnel and resources for bank robbery investigations, speeding up processes like fingerprinting and DNA matching.
In the announcement, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier cited the arrest as “another example of the positive cooperation between MPD and the FBI in making our community a safer place to live, work and visit.”
Deborah Finch, a bank security officer and vice president of operations and compliance for Adams National Bank, was unable to comment on the details of the robberies or security matters. She said that she was surprised when she heard that Adams National had been robbed a second time.
“I couldn’t believe that we got hit again,” Finch said.
Finch added that there is nothing about the location that makes that bank a target for robbery.
“A bank is a bank is a bank,” Finch said. “This just goes to show you that it could happen anywhere, any time.”
-Lindsay Flowers
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