WHARTON DIARY:Life was hectic even before classes began and it looks like this semester is going to be demanding, writes GARETH KEANE

THE SCHOOL year is only a few weeks old, but already my life at Wharton seems to be as hectic as last year.

It started as soon as my family and I got back to Philadelphia: even before term began, I headed off to hike some of the Appalachian trail with 30 classmates.

The participants had been selected as this year’s Wharton leadership venture fellows.

Last year I had the opportunity on a leadership venture trip to visit the officer candidate school at the US marine corps base in Quantico, Virginia, and it was one of the highlights of my first year at Wharton. I was so impressed by the experience that I applied to help run the leadership venture programme this year.

I am part of a team of four who will be taking a mix of first- and second-year MBA students to Antarctica. We are going south over the Christmas break for a week of leadership experiences on King George Island, which should provide both the participants and myself with new challenges and opportunities to develop ourselves.

We spent the week on the Appalachian trail trip getting to know each other and developing ideas on how to facilitate groups of our peers when exploring their leadership capabilities.

It also gave me an opportunity to develop friendships with people in my class who I had not known well until then.

After the hiking trip, it was back to the halls of Wharton.

The first week of school was great. It was fun to meet up with friends from last year and hear about their summer adventures. Many have converted their summer internships into full-time job offers, and the students in this situation are looking forward to a relaxed year.

I’m nervous that I won’t find second year quite as relaxing. My course load this semester could be demanding as I have signed up for several finance courses. While there is some crossover between subjects such as corporate valuation and advanced corporate finance, I’m pretty sure I’ll end up with lots of assignments and projects that clash in terms of their due dates.

On top of the increasing academic workload, recruiting for full-time jobs in traditional post-MBA careers such as banking and consulting has also started.

I have found myself having coffees with people from various large firms as I try to figure out how to make the jump from my old technical career into venture capital.

Job offers will come from these large employers before the end of the year, and I will find out just how comfortable I am with risk: I will need to decide whether to pursue one of these offers or hold out for something I may find more interesting in the venture capital space.

We have also already had the chance to hear some great guest speakers.

Last week John Thain, former chief executive of Merrill Lynch, came and spoke about the recent financial crisis. This time last year he was right in the middle of the meltdown in the markets, negotiating the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. He shared some of his personal experiences during that time, along with his thoughts on the future of the financial services industry.

Thain refused to comment on his relationship with Ken Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America who announced he was standing down recently, or to cover any of the ongoing issues between Bank of America and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulator. He did, however, come across as a very genuine person.

Asked about his views on economic recovery, Thain told us he was still unsure about the strength of the recovery and highlighted issues with the commercial real-estate market as a reason for caution.

This week one of our guest speakers will be Morgan Stanley chief executive John Mack.

Just thinking about how we have the opportunity to compare the perspectives of people like Thain and Mack in these sessions makes me realise already how much I am going to miss my MBA experience when it is all over.

Gareth Keane, from Moycullen, Co Galway, is studying for an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania gkeane@wharton.upenn.edu