The MBA Student Voice

Project ECHO @ UCLA

This past weekend was an exciting weekend at UCLA, as the 2011 Project ECHO Competition was held on Sunday Morning.  If you're unfamiliar, Project ECHO is a program that educates K-12 students on entrepreneurship and provides an opportunity to develop and pitch business plans.

Students Pitched entrepreneurial ideas in a variety of categories, and at the end of the day, the best pitch from each room had the opportunity to pitch to a group of entrepreneurs.

 

Caps' Struggles Begin at the Top

Lots to talk about so let's get right to it.

* For all of the controversy surrounding Wayne Rooney earlier this season, he seems to have settled back into life at Carrington.  He's been relatively out of the spotlight, with United piling on points and Berbatov and Chicharito handling the bulk of the goal scoring.  And then he struck this masterpiece against City, giving United the badly-needeed three points.  Beautiful. 

* United and Chelsea were off from Champions League duty this week, but Arsenal and Tottenham represented England very well. I loved that Tottenham played their usual, aggressive, attacking style even though they were in the San Siro.  They needed Gomes to make some big stops especially in the 2nd half, but were rewarded with Crouch's late winner from Aaron Lennon - that's two English players that bring home a 1-0 Tottenham win in Mlan.

* Given how well Barcelona has played this year, a 1-0 defeat for the Gunners would have been respectable. But full marks to Arsenal for bunking that logic and going for the draw, and then the win, in the final 12 minutes.  Makes me wonder about Barcelona: La Liga has been almost too easy for them this year, with just a modest Real Madrid challenge to contend with; switching to the more intense Champions League is really difficult.

* This summer might be the end of the line for both Bruce Boudreau and George McPhee.  It is clear that the Caps players are no longer responding to their coach: the power play continues to be dreadful, there are too many lifeless performances such as home against Los Angeles and San Jose, then in Phoenix. As of this morning, the Caps have lost four out of five and 14 out of 25.  How long can we call this a "slump"?

* I question whethere McPhee has made the transition from "building for the future" to "time to win now".  He might be saying the right things, but look at all of the trades that have been made in the past couple of weeks by other playoff teams: Tampa acquires Brewer for a marginal prospect and a 2nd round pick, Boston gets Kaberle for nothing, Philly gets Versteeg for nothing - even Nashville picked up Fisher for very little. It's not that we needed any of those guys (except Fisher); it's that trades seem to be happening at reasonable levels and yet McPhee can't get anything done.

* Which begs the question: do other NHL GMs really respect McPhee?  This is a people business ultimately.  All of McPhee's trades over the past few years have been with Columbus, Carolina, and one with Colorado. Is it possible that people aren't picking up the phone when McPhee calls because of something else he's done in his past?

* The fact is, the Caps' top six forwards are not playoff-worthy, much less Cup worthy.  We have one great pairing (8 and 19), one fantastic but streaky commodity (28), a 40-year-old (22), and we're trying to fill in the remaining pieces with youngsters (85, 90, 26) or asking other veterans to play above and beyond their capabilities (21, 25, sometimes 10).  The trigger has to be pulled for 1-2 more top-six forwards.

* I could buy that the D will be fine once Green and Poti are healthy.  I'm ok with not getting a goaltender either, because (a) Neuvirth and Varlamov have played well this season and deserve the chance to play in the playoffs, and (b) look at the past few Cup winners / finalists: only one of them really is a top-five goaltender (Fleury) - and he developed into a top-five goaltender after winning the Cup.  Niemi, Leighton, Khabibulin, Osgood, Ward, Giguere - no one that really sticks out as incredible.  They all played well, but none were show-stopping.

Hopefully we'll see some changes on their way!

Summer Internship: Check.

Hi folks! It’s been awhile since I have blogged and for that I apologize. The whirlwind of recruiting for a summer internship has officially ceased (in a good way!) and I feel like I can breathe once more. I know that many of you following the MBA Student Voice have already received acceptance, many have applied and are waiting for decisions, and the rest are probably still considering whether or not to apply. To you I say congratulations, good luck, and please do, respectively! Thank you for continuing to follow us.

So here’s an update: I landed a summer internship! I was recruiting for investment banking and am happy to say that I will be working for the Los Angeles office of a fantastic bank. Recruiting took a lot out of me with nonstop networking, studying and interviews for weeks on end, but it finally came to fruition and I could not be more relieved/excited/grateful. The reason I bring up my own experience is that all prospective UCLA Anderson students need to know that it is possible to obtain a great finance internship starting right here on campus. There are so many reputable firms that come here to recruit us that if we are not toward the top of your list of finance-focused schools, we should be. I don’t think there is any chance I could have obtained this particular internship here in LA if I had been anywhere but Anderson.

And now that recruiting is behind me I have been able to enjoy some of the more fun activities around campus, like Anderson Afternoons, our weekly beer-filled social hour, and our C4C Casino Night last week. What a blast! Oh, and I just signed up for the Anderson trip to Japan for spring break! I can’t wait to visit Japan with some of my best friends from school. You see, if you put the work in and are very diligent about recruiting for a summer internship, whether your path leads you on or off campus for recruiting and even if you are not successful the first time around and need to get creative with your efforts, you will be successful in getting that job and will get to enjoy all of the opportunities that Anderson has to offer. With that, I must go and fill out my Japan waiver form. I can hardly wait to turn it in and make it official! Until next week, I wish you a happy week and thanks for reading.

Kelly

This is Winter?! And an A-Days 1 plug!

Well, it's been a steady 70-80 degrees this winter in LA. As a native NorCal girl who made the move to the east coast, this is definitely something I'm not used to, and has come as a pleasant surprise! And apparently, it's not global warming - this is a typical LA winter.

After the stress and full course load of Fall quarter, it's great that people are relaxing more and actually enjoying school and extracurriculars this quarter. From multiple beach days, to hikes, to brunch on rooftops, it's been a fun quarter. On top of that, the professors we have this quarter are stellar. I've never seen anyone so excited about Operations as Professor Roels, and Professor Sood has not disappointed as being one of the favorite Marketing professors year after year. I feel like I've really had the time to absorb what I'm learning in class and can see how what we're doing actually applies in the real world.

On top of that, it's been a good quarter so far for many of my classmates on the job front. While the majority of people find their jobs in the spring quarter, many finance, consulting and marketing focused students have found summer internships with top notch companies such as Goldman, Bain, McKinsey, Nestle and General Mills, just to name a few. Everyday brings more good news, and I think it's safe to say that everyone gets very excited for their classmates and friends!

And last but certainly not least, ADays 1 is a couple short weeks away - I hope that those of you who got in Round 1 attend. I did last year and it was an incredibly fun and informative weekend, and really showed me just how awesome Anderson is! I know it will do the same this year!

- Katie