Daria Boldyreva
MBA 2016
- Hometown: Moscow, Russia
- Pre-MBA: Journalism, architecture, founded a booking agency
Daria Boldyreva
Post Graduation Goals:
Entrepreneurship in music industry
Favorite GSB Memory So Far:
One-on-one conversations with the incredible classmates that surround me every day
Tuesday
07:00am
It's a beautiful day and I am surrounded by a multitude of smiling faces. Unfortunately for me, I slept only two hours last night. I hadn't realized how important it is to think about class scheduling, and now I have 8am classes all week during the winter quarter.
09:00am
Dirk Jenter is one of my favorite professors at the GSB. Thanks to him I started to enjoy finance, which made no sense to me before I came here. My favorite quote from him is, “Remember, cash is the most important thing in the world. Many will argue that your mom is more important. I agree: your mother is the most important. But cash is very close.”
11:00am
I have some free time to work on our start-up idea. This is my office - a wooden table hidden behind Bass library. I really enjoy it, because no one normally comes here (unless I invite them to my office). The red can of soda that you see by the laptop is Dr. Pepper. Stanford was the first reason why I came to the US. The second was Dr. Pepper.
02:00pm
Data & Decisions group project with my favorite guys. Group projects are a lot of fun, but it also can be very stressful. It’s hard to find time when all six members of the group will be free to work together - so much is going on all the time.
03:00pm
Raechel, Charles and I are working on a start-up in the live events space. We are hosting our launch event soon, so I made some flyers to promote it at the GSB. I still remember how to draw a nice pic. The amount of support here is truly impressive: 70 people have already bought tickets and there's been only a week of promotion.
04:00pm
Summer job interview. OCR (on campus recruiting) is held in the beginning of winter for those students who want to pursue a more or less traditional path after graduating - finance, consulting, or private equity, for example. For those of us who dream about media, NGO’s or start-ups, everything starts around spring. For those of us not used to wearing business attire, internship interviews can be uncomfortable. Luckily I had a Skype interview, so I was able to wear my favorite sneakers.
05:00pm
Preparing our student pitch to Greylock Ventures. It is so exciting! The GSB has a ton of amazing clubs to join - this time the Venture Club invited a Greylock partner so we can practice pitching our ideas.
09:00pm
Tonight a bunch of us are going to Rosewood, probably the classiest bar in Menlo Park. We finally get to change out of our traditional Stanford student attire (flip flops and oversized tanks) and have a chance to dress up a little bit.
Thursday
09:00am
Thank you Professor Shaw for bringing our HR class outside. It is a beautiful sunny winter day in California. We are sitting in the bowl - a round space just outside of the GSB, talking about the principles and challenges of promoting employees in a consulting company. With this green grass, bright sun, and warm wind, I want to promote everyone.
10:00am
Time to study. Finals are next week, which is a stressful time for first-year students. We will spend days and nights in Bass library while our second-year classmates have a chance to travel and get some rest since they don’t have exams. There is nothing more joyful and challenging than watching your classmates from Advanced Finance play volleyball while you try to crack the basics of stocks and bonds.
11:00am
Lunch time at Arbuckle! Arbuckle pavilion is legendary. You will read about it in Stanford cases, you will sit there every day meeting people over a plate of organic food, you will listen to songs about it performed by MBAs during the annual GSB Show. You will love it, because you will not have any other choice. Arbuckle is everything.
02:00pm
Time to go shopping! The GSB Show will be held in late April. It is a great Broadway-style musical that we put together every year. I am on a design team which is building the set and decorations with second-year students Zoe and Mario. It is a lot of fun.
03:00pm
Heading back. Whoever invented convertible cars is a genius.
04:00pm
Stanford is a very tech-savvy community. Which means, with all the amazing study rooms with screens, comfortable chairs, and long tables that the GSB offers its students, you will end up preparing Accounting assignments sitting on the floor by the socket.
06:00pm
Having a great time at my Icelandic friend Liney’s place. We pick names from a hat and write a poem to that person, then the rest take a guess who wrote it and who is the muse. Gideon wrote me a beautiful piece, which I will definitely save and re-read many many times.
09:00pm
The Stanford Concert Network put together a nice festival for students that includes hip-hop/electronic bands, and DJs from Brooklyn and Berkeley. There's a hip-hop battle and a lot of dancing.
Friday
09:00am
Taking classes at the d.school was a goal when I came to Stanford. In Large Scale Transformations we work on strategy and implementation of large scale innovative changes with investors and partners. Another great advantage of this class is that you get to meet students from other Stanford schools and be a part of a multidisciplinary team.
11:00am
Preparing for a Russian barbecue with 10 big onions to cut for 20 guests. Onions have an important place in Russian cuisine. Tears of happiness!
02:00pm
Dorothy graduated from Stanford in 1957. Her husband was a professor at the business and law schools at Stanford. Dorothy made my fellowship for 2014-2015 possible. I am very grateful to have such an amazing donor. Thank you!
06:00pm
It’s a warm winter evening and Hispanic GSBers and alumni, as well as our classmates who just love Latin America and Spain, gather together in the Vidalakis Dining Room at Schwab for the Hispanic Business Student Association (HBSA) Gala. Salsa, Latin American cuisine, español, and great people.
03:00am
Just arrived in Los Angeles to make final arrangements with Anthony, our first artist. Our concert is very soon and as the date gets closer all the hustle around it becomes more exciting. The weekend promises to be great. Sunday night is going to be sleepless again. No one likes vicious cycles, but this one seems to be nice.