Queen's MBA blogs
A few of my MBA classmates have started blogging about their life at Queen's .
You can catch the excitment here
( http://business.queensu.ca/mbast/blogs/ )

Here are their profile:

Ashok Raghupathy
I was born and raised in Bangalore, the silicon valley of the east. My journey in the corporate world started in Mumbai, India for Tata consultancy services. On completion of one of the largest core banking projects for India’s largest retail bank, I moved on to Philadelphia in the United states for a Wealth Management company. I have worked with close knit teams to tackle quality, production and technical issues.

Deacon Liddy
I'm an MBA student planning on specializing in consulting. I received my Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering from the University of Calgary in 2003 and moved to Vancouver thereafter to work in environmental consulting for Conestoga-Rovers & Associates. Prior to arriving at Queens in May, I took time to travel to Europe including a 3 week hike along Turkey's Turquoise Coast.

Louis Ko
I was born in Hong Kong and moved to Toronto when I was 10 years old. I have lived in Richmond Hill for the past 15 years and am the younger of 2 children in my family.After graduating from the University of Waterloo, I have worked as a software developer and a consultant at a few companies. These companies include Longview Solutions, INEA Corporation, Bearingpoint, and Redknee Inc. The work that I do usually involves developing Java applications that connect to various database back-end.

Maada Kpenge
I was born in Sierra Leone, a small idyllic country in West Africa. The eldest of four children, I spent 5 years in boarding school, which was quickly followed by another 5 years at university studying Mechanical Engineering.Upon graduation, I was employed by a mining company, and spent a few more years honing my engineering skills. I gained a lot of experience managing projects and people, and developing software to schedule and track maintenance activities. In 1996, I left Sierra Leone for England, completed a postgraduate degree in IT, and began work as a Software Engineer. Since 2000 I worked for Merrill Lynch [before joining Queen's].

Rahul Chodavarapu
I was born and brought up in a small Indian town Warangal where I have also completed my Bachelors in Chemical Engineering (can't remember even the compositions of a few chemicals now!!!) in May 2001. I have worked in Wipro Technologies (for who don't know about the company, its the 3rd largest IT services company in India) for the last 4 years, before joining Queen's MBA. I was fortunate to work as an analyst for Wipro's client Fulcrum Connections, a Gas connections company in UK. This stint was a key driver for pursuing an MBA, especially from a renowned international school and here I am now at Queen's.

Laurent Villanueva
I am originally from Bayonne, a small town south west of France surrounded by Spain, the Atlantic ocean and the Pyrenees mountains. I have studied engineering and then started my career working for Siemens VDO Automotive, before moving to one of it's subsidiary called Synerject. Before I joined Queen's I was Business Manager for Synerject main customer. My job gave me the opportunity to travel a lot in Europe and in Asia, and to live one year in Australia. Being part of the Queen's MBAST program in Canada, is another exciting adventure for me, and I am going to enjoy the experience 100%.

Robert Wall
I grew up in and call New Zealand home; but I was actually born in Canada, leaving when I was 2 years old. After completing my bachelor degree in civil engineering I went to work for a large engineering consultancy on a variety of building and infrastructure projects. I was based in Wellington, New Zealand, and enjoyed a good social and outdoor life; including learning to sail. 18 months ago I emigrated to the United Kingdom. I had a fantastic and busy time; my work was at a similar engineering consulting firm but on a bigger scale, and I spent my holidays visiting many interesting places across Europe. I'm now set-up in Kingston and my MBA is well underway.

Sarah Brooks
I am the only non military member of my family (my mom did wear army boots) so I grew up all over Canada. The majority of time was spent in Nova Scotia so I considered it to be my de facto home. I did my undergrad at Waterloo in Chemistry and moved to the US right after graduation to work as a research chemist at HMR (now Sanofi-Aventis). While there I developed an interest in productivity tools to accelerate research and left the bench to do technical sales and marketing for small companies all over the US and Canada who develop these technologies. I have done hardware, consumables and software at 3 different companies. I just moved back from Manchester UK where I was a field application scientist for a California based software company.

Shawn Gee
I've spent the last 8 years serving in the United States Navy as a submarine officer. I traveled to exotic ports of call (most of which an average tourist would never choose to visit). I enjoyed working with the competent sailors and working in an unpredictable and stressful environment, but I did sacrifice the ability to stay in touch with my family. Before I joined Queen's I was a Navy instructor and spent my time teaching new officers how to assimilate to submarine life.

Yan Chen
Originally from Beijing, China, I'm currently enrolled in the MBAst program at Queen’s University. This is a huge transition for me, not only because Canada is a new country to explore, but also because I've had very limited business exposure prior to coming here. I'm a scientist by training, having conducted several exciting bio-medical research projects in the past. After obtaining my Ph.D. degree in Neuroscience in the United States, I realized the shortage of scientist that really know business in Biotech industries and decided that bench work in a lab is not all for my career. Thus, I jumped on the opportunity to start the brand new life experience in a whole new world.