The MBA Student Voice

Turkey with a side of finals

Thanksgiving is a time for us to reflect on live, and be thankful for our health, loved ones, and general well-being.  It is also a time to spend with friends and friends...that is unless you're an MBA in your first quarter a week out from Finals.  In that case, Thanksgiving is a time for you to catch up on the last 4 weeks of Econ reading, do your Accounting problem sets that you haven't found the time to do, and put prepare your resume and cover letters for their first submission.

While many of my classmates went home to their families or Days on the Job in London, I opted to stay in LA and buckle down dow an ultramarathon of study sessions.  What I found out along the way is that there are limits to the amount of information you can absorb in a given day.  Granted, I don't feel like I'm cramming, yet, but this quarter has come and gone, with little to no time to do everything we're supposed to do.  As I write this, I have about 10 other things on my mind that I need to do.

I wish I had the opportunity to take a nice break this Thanksgiving, but I've decided to pursue Management Consulting, which seems to increase the intensity of the first quarter threefold.  But in some ways this has been a good thing, in that it has emphasized the importance of prioritization.

As we approach the end of the first quarter, I'd like to leave readers with the most important takeaway of the 1st quarter of b-school.  It's not amortization schedules, or maximizing profits using MR=MC, or understanding how to do a regression on the colors of m&m's.  The true value is prioritization.  Your time is a value commodity of which there is limited time and you have to prioritize how you will spend it.  The sooner you realize what your goals are, the easier it is to make decisions on how you want to spend your time.

Matt C

Location Really Makes a Difference

Here's a tip for prospective MBA students: if you are planning to leave your dearest friends and family to relocate for business school, please do not underestimate the "destination" value of your future residence.  Think about how bad you would feel persuading your friends and family to use up valuable PTO days and shell out the big bucks to visit you in places like New Haven, CT, Hanover, NH, or Charlottesville, VA.  Let's be clear - I have nothing against these cities, or the schools in these cities, but I think we can all agree that it takes a lot less arm twisting to get people to visit you in sunny West LA.  Arm twisting hurts, and I presume that most of you don't want to hurt your friends. :)

With that said, a few weeks ago we had the privilege of hosting our dear friends from Atlanta, Alan & Libby, for 5 days.  It was refreshing to experience LA through their eyes, as they had not spent much time in LA before (I, on the other hand, grew up in LA before going to college).  Together, the four of us watched UCLA beat Oregon State at the Rose Bowl with a last second field goal, explored the Original Farmer's Market on Fairfax & 3rd, walked the Santa Monica Pier, toured the Getty Center's western art collection along with its unique architecture and gardens, and ate at a variety of restaurants ranging from all you can eat Korean BBQ at Koreatown's famous Road to Seoul to exotic grilled sausages at Wurstkuche in Downtown LA's historic art district.  While Susan and I were at work and class, Alan & Libby enjoyed a number of other LA attractions, including the Warner Bros. & Paramount studio tours, Universal Studios & City Walk, and a live taping of "#@$% My Dad Says".

Sure, there are many things I love about UCLA Anderson, but it would be misleading to evaluate the school's value proposition in a vacuum.  As a UCLA student and LA resident, I cannot ignore the fact that there are so many answers to the question "what fun thing do I want to do this weekend?"  I am so thankful that our friends were able and willing to fly across the country to visit us (without arm twisting, of course) and hope that you get to enjoy this luxury during your MBA experience as well.

-- Jesse Ferlianto ('12)

* At the Rose Bowl after the UCLA game, with our friends from Atlanta.  They come from an SEC background, a world where people eat footballs for breakfast, but to my surprise, enjoyed their first Pac-10 experience as well (yes, we're only 2-5 in the conference, but I still believe that we're more than "just a basketball school")!

 

* Susan and I enjoying a LOT of Korean BBQ (bulgogi, at the moment) at Road to Seoul. 

On the Road.

Apologies to the loyal readers for my week absence from this blog. I'm glad to say that we have finally passed the apex of banking recruiting on campus and things are slowly down a bit after this week. It's been a hectic November to say the least. For the last 3+ weeks I've pretty much forgotten that I'm enrolled in classes at this school still.

This week, you'll find me in San Francisco, attending the Investment Finance Association's Days of the Job. Thanks to the tremendous efforts of our 1st year Directors, we were able to visit 6 of the bulge bracket banks who recruit regularly from Anderson in the Bay Area. In the West Coast, our students place well in banks, with Anderson alumni in the Associate through MD ranks, right alongside grads from Wharton and Booth.

DOJ's are great because we get to meet many more bankers and see them in their natural habitat, which can be very interesting. Despite what the popular press would have you think about the investment banking industry, the reality is, banking is a people business that, on a day to day basis, is entirely dependent on cohesive team work. Individuals who cannot work well in a team are spotted and ousted quickly. From what we've learned, keys to success include the ability to: work (very) hard and push towards a goal, be inquisitive and want to constantly (daily) learn new, complex things, have a collaborative attitude, and be humble and positive.

These attributes are rules to succeeding in any business and they exist in banking in a very pure sense. However, when big client money is on the line, pressure is heavy from all sides of a deal, and critical decisions are made very quickly. When you've pulled 3 all nighters in a row, then have to make a presentation to 37 MBA students before flying to Hong Kong the same day (someone actually did that during our DOJ), it's easy to understand why you might not come off as the nicest person. However, we found just about all the bankers we met to be very understanding of our efforts, supportive of our endeavor to join their ranks and honest in their answers to our questions.

Last but most importantly, a well deserved shout out to my classmates out here with me. You guys have been so supportive after these 2 intense days of rushed travel schedules, little amounts of sleep, bad weather, and nonstop circles of death. We've all helped each other out massively through this trek and have shared a ton of laughs along the way. Whether I come out of this process with the coveted internship or not, I haven't regretted a single moment of this because I couldn't have asked for better people to share this experience with.

--ML

Luckily Fieldtrips Don't End After Middle School

I don't know about you, but I love field trips. There's nothing better than getting off campus for a while and learning about something in a fun and unique setting. Needless to say, I was pretty happy to find out that the fieldtrips don't end in business school.

Last Tuesday, 20 people had the chance to go with a few representatives from General Mills to the Yoplait plant in Carson. We heard the plant supervisor speak about the yogurt making process, how the different types of yogurt are made, and how the flavors are added. We toured the plant and got to see it all in action, and even went home with some goodie bags of Yoplait. Before we left though, one of the Marketing Managers at General Mills walked us through various advertisements and we analyzed them as a group. It was interesting to hear firsthand what General Mills looks for, who its targeting, and how it produces effective advertisements.

On Friday, a big group of us got to go to Mattel for a Day on the Job (DOJ) event. For DOJs, you usually apply directly to the company and they choose a certain number of students to come visit their campus and listen to representatives talk about their jobs and life at the company. In my case, I was there for marketing, but there was also corporate strategy and HR represented, just to name a few. We got to hear a panel of marketers speak about their jobs, what they look for in interns, and even their favorite toys. We were then all brought together at a networking reception, where we got to talk more one-on-one with various people in Mattel. It was really interesting for me to hear about the different cultures across brands, as well as some of the challenges that the Associate Marketing Managers faced.

All in all the field trips were fun and informative. Buying toys from the Mattel employee shop wasn't too shabby either; I'm all set for game night!

- Katie

The Facts of Life

"You take the good, You take the bad,
You take them both and there you have the facts of life.
The facts of life."

Yes, if you're a child of the 80's like me you're probably already humming the song and thinking of Ms. Garrett, Tutti, and Blair.  But why is an old TV theme song stuck in my head and what does this have to do with Business School?

With the Veteran's day off from classes, you'd think this was a low key weekend.  On the contrary, this has possibly been one of the most challenging weeks second to mid terms.  It all started with Wednesday evening when we got our case for the Deloitte Case competition.  We were all very excited and eager to jump right in.  Our team spent Wednesday evening going through the case individually and met Thursday morning bright and early at 8am to take our best shot at the case.

We pushed hard, had some great discussions, and felt we had a strong solution at the end of the day.  We pushed ourselves until about 2:30 in the morning, at which time the law of diminishing return took effect and we were forced to submit our presentation before the 8am deadline.  (Oh yeah, and I discovered that I did the wrong Finance homework that was due at 9am.  So after 18 hours of working on a case, I had to stay up and do my Finance homework.  I could barely keep my head up, but somehow I pushed through.)  We were fortunate to be able to spend time on Friday practicing our presentation, and my team had the pleasure of presenting our case at 9am on Saturday morning.  

Overall we felt we were strong.  We had some minor slip ups along the way, but felt we had some good insights into the case as well as four strong presenters. Unfortunately, at 1:30 we found out we didn't make the final round.  While I was happy for the teams that would be moving forward, I would be lying if I didn't say I wasn't disappointed.  We're all competitive, we all worked hard, but only 3 of the 20 teams could move on, and I can say without reservation that all 3 teams that presented in the final round were worthy of being there.  I am also really excited for the winning team, as I'm sure they'll do a great job of representing UCLA Anderson at the National Deloitte Case Competition in Miami in January.

So why is the "Facts of Life" song stuck in my head? Well, as I reflected on the weekend, I thought about what I got out of it.  I spent the better part of three days working on the case, we didn't make it to the final round, and there was a part of me that felt a little empty handed.  I had a huge cup of frozen yogurt with the worst possible toppings and thought about what I really got out of the experience.

1. I got to get to know three of my classmates much better and had an amazing time with them, freezing study rooms and all.
2. I had the pleasure of presenting a challenging case to a Deloitte employee.
3. I was able to identify some of my own strengths and weaknesses as far as tackling a case within a short time period.
4. And most importantly, I was truly CHALLENGED. 

"You take the good, You take the bad,
You take them both and there you have the facts of life.
The facts of life."

At the end of the day, I realized I got exactly what I came to business school for.  I was pushed, I was challenged to a point of exhaustion, and I had an amazing time doing it.  Am I still disappointed?  To be honest, a little.  But if I wasn't, that would mean I'm complacent with how we did, that I don't think there is room for improvement, and that I don't think we could do better next time.

Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat!

Matt

p.s.  I found a link to a post from last year's Deloitte Case Competition 

Barbecue, Bowling, Business Trips!

Hello, all. I’ve had a great weekend so far and I hope you have, too. On Friday our section and another section had a joint barbecue at Westwood Park and it was great. Any excuse to get together and drink beer with friends I’ll take. Then yesterday I bowled in a charity bowl-a-thon for C4C (Challenge for Charity). UCLA Challenge for Charity is the largest charitable organization at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. UCLA C4C raises money and supplies volunteer hours for two local charities: LA Works and Special Olympics. Anderson takes C4C incredibly seriously and has won the annual C4C competition among nine West Coast business schools for the past three years! We like to take advantage of any opportunity to aid our community, and it doesn’t get much better than bowling for charity. Many people showed up in funny costumes and the positive spirit of the event far outweighed the competitiveness that comes along with bowling. I, for one, enjoyed myself immensely.

Today I am preparing for the busy week I have ahead of me. I am excited because this coming Thursday and Friday, the first year directors of the Investment Finance Association have arranged for us to visit several investment banks in Palo Alto and San Francisco for what we call “DOJs,” or days on the job. DOJs are great ways to interact and learn more about the companies we are interested in pursuing. You go to the location, listen to a presentation by members of the firm, and then spend some time networking with the recruiters (the Circles of Death never end!). Then it’s off to the next company for the same type of thing. We are scheduled to visit eight banks in two days, so it should be a productive trip.

Aside from the DOJ trip, we are doing quite a bit to prepare ourselves for the internship-getting process. Tonight, a few of us will be doing some more interview prep. We will be studying frequently-asked interview questions and the valuation strategies we learned at our Training the Street workshop last weekend. The location tonight is Starbucks in Westwood, and, if I can say so, it beats the library, at least tonight when the last thing I want to do is head to school. So, with that I am signing off. I hope you all have a great week and thank you for reading!

Kelly

Incubating new ideas...

Team, I need your help!

A few weeks ago, I told you about my classmate who started edilex, a company offering professional grade business contract templates to legal professionals and business people over the web.  (My regular readers probably did this already, but if you haven't, check it out at www.edilex.com).

Well, this quarter, I'm taking a class called Business Plan Development, which is exactly what it says on the tin.  My classmates who registered for the course came with some fascinating business ideas.  The final project for the class is a fully fleshed out business plan for a new business, plus a presentation to a panel of venture capitalists.  Many Andersonians use this class as a stepping stone to launching their business!

I'm working with one of my classmates who is looking to launch a sari rentals business.  The idea is similar to tuxedos: rather than buy something that you are only going to wear a couple of times at most, you can rent them, look fabulous, then return them back at a fraction of the cost and without the hassle of having to deal with them.

The business is still at concept stage, so you can give us a major boost by filling out the survey at this link and giving us your views and opinions.  It will take you about 10 minutes, so I greatly encourage all of you to do this - men and women, South Asians and non-South Asians.  Oh and feel free to pass this is on to anyone who might help!

http://ucla.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_5w2zmymvkHKnPE0

Thank you all in advance!  And your reward for this is that I will entertain you after the jump.

* * * * * * * * * *

Some random thoughts on the week that was:

* Our beloved Capitals are undefeated (8-0-0) when Boyd Gordon is in the lineup.  Is this just a coincidence? Or (as I believe) does he provide a consistent level of grit and faceoff expertise (the proverbial "little things), eat up valuable PK minutes, and is showcasing what made Jaromir Jagr once say that he would be a great player?

* Have to feel tough for Owen Hargreaves, who now appears to have suffered an anxiety attack during the match with Wolves on Saturday.  Oddly, I would believe that - this was his first appearance on the pitch in over two years, and there haven't been that many reports of him on the training ground.  Before his string of injuries he was a regular for England; here's hoping that he can finally get his career jump-started again.

* The top four teams in college football heading into this weekend were Oregon, Auburn, TCU, and Boise State - that's two teams not from one of the major conferences.  Could this be the beginning of the end of the dreaded BCS?  My view: not at all - the BCS is the greatest invention in the history of NCAA Football because anytime a college football fan hears "BCS", he immediately will stop watching any other sport and start talking NCAA Football - regardless of the time of year.  Instant newsmaker.  Genius.

More great ideas soon!

-- Sreesha

First Year vs. Second Year

Now that I'm well into my second year of MBA (as hard as that is to believe), thought I would share some observations comparing the two years.

1.    Second year is a different kind of busy

I always felt like there was never enough time in the day during first year. Long days were spent on campus, doing group work, recruiting and participating in a variety of events. Second year is just as busy, but it's a different kind of busy. As second years take on leadership roles in the clubs, meetings rather than group work dominate your time. And as the courseload is elective based in second year, means greater control over your schedule. This provides the nice perk of being able to get involved in non-Anderson things like taking some classes at the Wooden Center (golf lessons for me).

2.    Extra effort needed to keep in touch

One of the best parts of first year is how well you get to know the people in your section. Taking all the core classes together and being in learning teams means you literally spend more time together than with your non-Anderson friends and family. But in second year, many of your friends go on exchange, or take different electives meaning it becomes harder to see some of your friends on campus as much as you did in first year. I especially miss having lunch with the lunch crew from first year!

3.    AMR is sui generis

Near the tail-end of first year, you hear more about the Applied Management Research Program ("AMR"). Sure, many have come from consulting or have done project based work, but it's a special kind of challenge working with a group of 4-6 colleagues/friends who may all have vastly different schedules and priorities.

--JP

~All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.~ Anatole France

Have It Your Way: Customizing Your MBA Experience

Earlier this week I needed to leave a corporate recruiter's "happy hour" early in order to make a different event on my calendar.  This second event lasted much longer than an "hour" and certainly wasn't designed to make people "happy"!  The event, my friends, was a 3-hour corporate finance exam that ended at 9:30pm Monday night.

"But Jesse, weren't midterms held the previous week?"

Yes that is correct!  But this was not a compulsory course exam; rather, it was an optional waiver exam.

That evening, I turned down cocktails with classmates and recruiters for CAPM...nigiri for NPV...wine for WACC...beer for Beta...and stuffed mushrooms for sell-side M&A transaction analysis.  The idea is that passing the exam would allow me to waive out of the Corporate Finance core requirement this winter (giving me the option to choose an elective to replace the credits).  Before Anderson, I pursued a finance concentration at Emory and worked in investment banking, so the intro corporate finance class would merely be a review of information I had already learned before.  Not fun for me, not fair to my classmates.

Thankfully, UCLA Anderson encourages us to customize our curricula to meet our specific career interests and goals.  For starters, we do not have official majors or concentrations.  12 elective courses account for approximately half of the MBA curriculum, which provides us with tremendous flexibility.  We can take all 12 in one discipline, or take three or four in different business areas.  3 out of these 12 elective courses are considered "free electives" and can even be taken from graduate courses in other departments at UCLA.  Up to two courses of independent research may also be applied toward the free elective requirement.  And as I mentioned earlier, UCLA Anderson allows students to waive out of core classes, which frees up more time to take additional electives.

The UCLA Anderson class of 2012 is extremely diverse, and each person comes to campus with a unique set of strengths, weaknesses, interests, skills and experiences.  With a class so diverse, the ability to customize one's classroom experience throughout the two-year MBA journey is extremely valuable, and I am very glad that Anderson allows me to do just that.

-- Jesse Ferlianto ('12)

The Thrill of Case Competition (Yes, Really!)

This Wednesday we kick off the annual Deloitte Case Competition on the UCLA Anderson campus.  It’s an opportunity for Anderson students to test their analytical and presentation skills in front of professional consultants and potential employers.  

But what IS a Case Competition? What is a Case?

For those that are unfamiliar, cases are business problems that generally have been faced by real companies.  The case attempts to recreate the scenario in which the business faced the challenge and we, as students, have to come up with the best possible way solve it.  But these are not straightforward cases.  I’d liken it to one of those crazy mazes you got as a kid.  You know, the ones where they zig zag all over the place, have branches, dead ends, and at least five places to start from.  Cases are no different.  You’re presented with tons of information that is meant to confuse, confound, and misguide you, but there are gems to be found, which will help guide you to a solution.

Case competitions take a case and put it in a competitive setting where you and your team of 4-5 have to solve, or ‘crack,’ the case AND present it in a well thought out, structured, and articulate way.  Oh yeah, and it doesn’t hurt if you’re a PowerPoint wiz.

Case competitions are stressful, exciting, panic inducing, and thrilling all at the same time.  After you’ve solved the case and put together the presentation you then have to present it to a panel of judges which will tell you every you reason why you’re wrong and tear your solution to shreds.  But it’s okay, they do that to everyone.

I had the opportunity to participate in the Reaching Out Case Competition a month into school, and found it to be a great learning experience and eye opening.   If I had three takeaways it would be:

• Relevancy – Make sure your supporting evidence is as relevant as possible.  This is where my team and others could have improved our presentation.  Some of our examples weren’t as relevant as those that had the strongest cases.  The fact is, we didn’t do enough digging, and a lot of our supporting evidence didn’t tie close enough to the case.
• Simplicity – Make everything simple.  Pretend you’re presenting to a 5 year old.  Don’t dumb it down, but no one wants to look at a slide with 50 data points and an essay on the bottom explaining the date.  Don’t make people work to understand your data.  Your main point should pop out and you should do the rest.
• Presentation, Presentation, Presentation - How you present your case probably matters more than anything else.  You have to be clear, articulate, know your material, and comfortable in front of an audience.  You can have the best analysis in the world, but if you can’t clearly present it in a way that grabs your audience, then you don’t stand a chance.

Regardless of where you go to get your MBA, I would highly recommend you take the opportunity to take part in case competitions.  They will challenge you, make you uncomfortable, and be difficult, but will teach you valuable lessons that will help you significantly no matter what career path you choose.

-Matt