The MBA Student Voice

Summer’s Over But the Fun Is Just Beginning!

This blog entry marks the end of the summer fun I’ve had from finishing my job to a week at the beach to a beautiful weekend running the San Francisco Marathon to wedding planning in Atlanta to lots of running and biking to spending as much time with my friends and family as possible, and the beginning of my new life in LA! Well, almost. This actually finds me back in Atlanta, which is the first stop on our cross-country haul from South Florida to Los Angeles. Stanton and I depart tomorrow at 6 am for the second leg, a 14+ hour slog on I-20 from Atlanta to Dallas since the truck can’t go above 60 mph. After that, we’ll probably find ourselves following I-20 to I-10 with another stop in New Mexico before rolling into LA late Friday night. And let me tell you, I CANNOT WAIT.

Jealous??

Everything I’ve been working so hard for during the last year is becoming a reality, starting with deciding to study for the GMAT “just to see what happens,” to fully committing to the process and applying to schools and all the ups and downs that come with it. And the To Do List that I have been working on all summer is finally down to a few entries. Everything from renting out my house to finding a place to live in LA to fixing our cars to enrolling in my $633/month COBRA health insurance (eek! Can’t wait to switch over to UCLA’s GSHIP!) to the Intro to Accounting summer homework assignment (full disclosure: I haven’t actually done this yet)… the list goes on. Having all of our worldly belongings loaded into a 22’ Penske (complete with trailer for my car on the back) and heading west is a huge accomplishment. It is finally becoming real that I will be a full-time MBA student at UCLA Anderson starting in under a month!

Once in LA, I have a week to move into my new University Village digs (and work on Accounting of course) then I get the opportunity for my first taste of the wild west in Yosemite National Park with nine of my fellow classmates. Because isn’t the amazing weather and natural scenery a major reason for going to California in the first place! We are part of one of Anderson’s “Pre-O” or pre-orientation trips, which offer the chance to get to know intimately a handful of classmates while exploring one of the great natural wonders within a drive of LA.

My particular trip will be to hike in the mountains and valleys around the Hetch-Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite, but other choices include rock climbing in Sequoia, kayaking and hiking in the High Sierra, and white water rafting the Kern River. How awesome can it get! I’ll be sure to provide a full report after my trip, which is at the end of August. 

Full disclosure, this pic of Hetch-Hetchy was taken from the internet, but I’ll be sure to get the real thing in person!

Immediately after that we dive into a 2 1/2 week orientation, and there’s no turning back. I feel so excited and privileged to be embarking on this new chapter of my life!

-Charlotte Baxter

Go west, young man

Over a year after first mapping out my plans, I'm now actually on my way to living them out. Driving cross-country in my 8-year old Honda Accord, with the 165,000 miles, for the next several days to kick-off my UCLA Anderson experience.

It's been great getting a chance to see all my friends and family in Philly one last time over the past couple weeks. I feel sad, a bit wistful leaving all of them. Like I mentioned previously, this'll be my first time living away from Philly. But at the same time, you feel like you're in a bit of limbo. Not quite where you are and not quite where you should be. So I'm looking forward to finally getting this show on the road, settling in and meeting my classmates. Summer accounting homework has been fun and dandy, but uh, you know, we're just talking bout homework man. Homework. Not work, homework. It'll be good to get the game started.

Now with that said, I just need to figure out how exactly I'll get there. What I'm going to see. Where I'm going to say.

• All the ghost towns in the midwest
• Random roadside oddities like the world's largest basket
• The flatlands and farms of Kansas (I heard it's so flat you can see cows 12 miles away!)
• Casa Bonita in Denver, because I hear it's totally awesome
• Natural wonders like Zion National Park or the Grand Canyon

Or maybe I'll just decide that driving for 12 hours a day sucks and I just want to gun it as fast as possible to LA. I dunno, I'll figure it out. I traveled Japan for three weeks like this, waking up and figuring out where I was going, what I was doing the day of, so it'll be fun to get a chance to do the same in the US. I'll see y'all soon.

-Brian Sim

Brunch with Fellow Admits

OK, let me try to get this correct (this was only part of the group).  From left to right:  Conner Chen, Leonard Lin, Akimasa Kaneda, Akimasa's wife, Satiya's mom, Liwen's friend Celine, Liwen Tsai, Satiya Witzer, her uber-lovely daughter.  I'm conveniently missing from the picture as I was playing photographer.

The lovely Satiya Witzer, her husband, her mom, and her dangerously-cute baby daughter hosted a brunch for fellow LA-area admits last weekend.  The food was, in true LA-style, eclectic, with salad, quiche, danishes, takoyaki, Chinese pineapple cakes, mango sticky rice (though it wasn't finished in time so only a few were able to taste its awesomeness), Lindor truffles, and my personal favorite, a 3-pound, no-nonsense tub of Philly cream cheese.  

A few others trickled in later on in the the afternoon:  Bradley Ross and his wife, Lauren, Felipe Cusnir and his girlfriend (or friend, or wife?  Sorry Felipe, I didn't get the details!), Ryan Aurori (actually Ryan was there early.  I guess he also conveniently excused himself from the above-group photo), Amanda Isaacson and her husband, and Daisuke Watanabe and his wife & kid.

There he is: Ryan Aurori with Conner Chen.  I wanted to take a candid photo but they insisted on posing & smiling for the camera.

Click on for more pics & details!

Saying Goodbye To My Kids

First of all, just to clarify, I don't have kids of my own. Now, let's continue.

I've been working at the LEU Foundation NGO for 3 years now and with closer and closer involvement with the children at the foundation, they've become a part of my everyday existence. And now comes the time to say goodbye to them.

* taking the junior class kids out for a movie

This past Wednesday was my last visit to the school where the children are taught. I tried to explain to them where Los Angeles was on the map, but they couldn't seem to get the concept of anything beyond New Delhi! I also explained that I was going to study for the next two years and one of the kids actually asked, "You have already studied so much. Are you going to start from Nursery again?"

There's a lot that we can do for economically marginalized families. At UCLA Anderson I'm looking forward to the Challenge for Charity (C4C) and I'm very appreciative of the fact that the money raised through this event goes to some excellent voluntary groups that support underprivileged sections of society!

 - Karan Kumar, MBA '13

UCLA Anderson takes over the Golden Gate

…well I may be slightly exaggerating but on Saturday, August 6^th, we grabbed our bikes and did our best.

Adam, Andy, Brian, Danny, Daphne, Simon and I met at the Golden Gate Bridge Visitor Center 9:30am. The meeting point: Adam’s Napa Wine Country Cycling Jersey!

We had a few route options but most of us rode between 25 and 45 miles that day. Everyone started at the south-east entrance of the Golden Gate. The fog was in; the air was amazingly fresh.

Click here to see our intended route

Usually cyclists get to use the west side walkway of the bridge during weekends, but because of construction we had the fun of sharing the east walkway with a plethora of tourists who, as usual, were unpredictable in their stopping and walking patterns.

We made our way over the bridge in a matter of minutes riding into Sausalito. Nine miles in, we approached our first turning-point: whoever wanted to could turn back and take the Ferry back to Pier 1. 

No one turned back and we headed up our first hill. This was my first hill – ever! Figures it would be a group from Anderson that pushed me to give it a try. Up to this point in my life, I’ve done my best to stick to non-elevated terrain... Making our way up was slightly painful yet definitely awesome. We all made it to the top, continued down and through more of the North Bay.

Feeling the symbolism, we stopped to capture the moment on Paradise Dr.

We had an awesome Saturday morning, each leaving with a solid workout under our belts and great memories:

 “Right after we crossed the GG Bridge, we got caught in the mix of the bike race that was going on that day. Flying down the steep and narrow Sausalito hill dodging scores of racers (and cars) was quite a rush! I also really enjoyed getting to know everyone who joined us on the trip. I hope we make this a regular event!” - Brian, c/o 2010

 “It was great to learn that the alumni community cuts across the full-time, FEMBA, and EMBA programs. All Anderson grads are one family.” - Danny, c/o 2013

 “Going downhill with about 30 other riders into Sausalito – that was mayhem. I also really liked Lakespur. That looked like a really cool town and I had never been through it before.” - Andy, c/o 2011

 “We got to Tiberon, Daphne and I missed the 12:45 ferry and they didn't run another one until 3:00pm so we decided to bite the bullet and bike back which was 45 miles in total. Long day, but good none the less.” – Adam, c/o 2009

 “The 20-mile ride turned out to be an unexpected 40ish-mile adventure (as Adam and I took the wrong turn and in the end biked all the way back to SF).” - Daphne, c/o 2012 

After riding 45 miles, Adam and Daphne are smiling!

 

My GMAT Nightmare

Don’t let the title of this post scare you, as it is not actually a reference to what you typically face in the quest for that coveted 800. In fact, what I am hoping to provide is inspiration that you can do your best on this monster of a test, no matter how adverse the circumstances may seem!

I began studying for the GMAT in July 2010 when I enrolled in the Knewton prep course, which I would highly recommend. As someone who traveled very frequently for work, I needed an option with maximum flexibility, but didn’t want to suffer by not having the personalized experience that live classroom teaching provides. This was the best of both worlds—still a class with lots of opportunity for interaction and Q&A, but it was on-line, allowing me to participate from my home in Palm Beach, FL or from my hotel room in Seattle, WA. Plus it was a lot more affordable than some of the bigger outfits.

Although I had been a nervous wreck for the couple of weeks leading up to the test, I was able to calm down in the last few hours, realize I had put in the work, and even get a pretty decent night’s sleep. My test was scheduled for 8 AM on a Saturday at the closest center to me which was unfortunately in Fort Lauderdale, 50 miles away. When my alarm went off at 5:30, I had a nutritious breakfast, turned on some Classical music in my car, and serenely and confidently headed south on I-95 for my date with destiny.

As I rounded a corner in south Palm Beach County, with about 30 more miles to my destination, I saw what seemed like an awful lot of red brake lights ahead of me for 6:30 in the morning on a weekend. Then I came to a complete stop. Then I noticed that no cars were moving, not an inch. Then I started panicking! I called 511, the Florida Highway system’s notification service, and learned that ALL LANES SOUTH WERE BLOCKED due to a major incident just before the exit ahead of me. But I had already passed the closest exit behind me.  I was marooned!

International students

 Last friday was my last day with Goldman Sachs. I would like to think of it as declaring my innings after completing half a century of months, I use a cricketing analogy in spite of India's poor showing in the ongoing Test series against England. 

I started preparing a list of things to do in my last two weeks in India and it is kind of intimidating. I would like to discuss a few things here in the hope that the other International students can take a few hints (or maybe add to my list).

1. I am assuming that most people are done with their visa, definitely a major part of the preparation. Nevertheless I have to prepare a file with certain documents which should literally be at your fingertips at the port of entry. My I-20 and passport/visa. Few more might be a stretch but here goes - financial docs establishing liquid funds for a year of school, mark sheets/transcripts.

2. Loan processing with Eli Lilly. Finish your application and set up an appointment with Andy Promisiri at the financial aid office. You need to finish certain formalities like becoming a member of the Eli Lilly credit union before the loan is sanctioned and disbursed. My understanding is that full time students will get their first quarter bill on Sep 1 and have to pay by Sep 20. 

3. The accounting tutorial, http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x32956.xml . From work environment to having holiday homework, its a transition I am finding difficult to make! From what I have seen the tutorial is prepared in an interesting style, I think we are first batch to be exposed this 'Pre-Skilling'. 

4. In this market situation, there is one department at Anderson which we will rely a lot on. Parker CMC has already got us thinking on our resumes and career paths - http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x23554.xml. I think some of the self assessments take over two hours. 

5. House search. I know that unless we walk around in the neighbourhood ourselves we will not make a right choice but always good to be prepared with a list of places. Looking for a 2br/2ba to be shared by four of us. Variables like distance from school, bus stop, grocery stores, furnished, un-furnished, pets, rents, etc could easily make this exercise a complicated math problem. 

6. Insurance for travel and for a few days before orientation. I think this may be a wise choice given that we will be carrying many important and costly items to our new abode. I have signed up for pre-orientation trips as well so some kind of insurance makes sense :). 

 7. International driving license. This should be handy though I am not completely aware of the CA rules.I have an Indian license and should get an International permit valid for at least a year after which I would have take the test (heard its difficult to pass in one go!).

8. Find out hassle free and cheap options to transfer money to the US. From India I am getting a picture of a few common methods to do this. Most banks do this directly or through their commercial branches. Get Forex, loaded cards (can be used like a debit card in US), Demand Drafts (in your own name or college's if you want to pay the fees using that) and direct money transfer to accounts in US. 

9. Smooth culmination of services in your home countries like phone, internet, redundant bank accounts cause the last thing we want to be doing is calling back home and enquiring why money is still being debited for the calls we never made / services we did not use. 

10. I have heard that most universities in US need a MMR (measles, mumps & rubella) vaccination certificate. In absence of documents in the required format we might need to do some running around there as well but I am not very clear on this requirement. 

I think ten's a good number to start with. I welcome any suggestions and corrections on the points above.I may write another list of things to do as soon as you land in US (My google calender shows I am attending overlapping events already!) but as they say one thing at a time.

Of course Anderson's consistent mails and reminders are great, their interest in helping the students have a smooth transition is very apparent. Its up to us now to face up to the challenge.

Cheers,

Rahul Bala,  MBA '13

We're all a little crazy

My UCLA Anderson plans started a little more than a year ago when I made an informal visit to the campus. I started thinking about the west coast, because I wanted to get into product management in the high tech industry, and there were more of those types of opportunities available than there were in the east coast, and near Philly specifically. I knew Anderson provided some great programs and opportunities. So I thought, "hey, this should be a good idea".

A year later, I still think it was a good idea, but you know what? It was also a crazy idea.

If someone suggested that you uproot your life, move away from your family and friends, leave an interesting, well-paying job for two years - basically, leaving a good, comfortable, established life, for the promise of something different/better, what would you say? You gotta be a little bit of a gambler, a little bit of a dreamer, and a little crazy, right?

But it's not just me, everyone else in the program hsa come to the same conclusion too. People choosing to uproot themselves from all over the country, even all over the world. Forsaking a couple prime earnings years, all to converge with others, who like them, are tied together by their willingness to take a risk and chase something different, something better. 

This time next week, I'll be starting my drive across the country and to start something new. It's a little risky, it's a little crazy. But hey, that's what I signed up for. 

-Brian Sim

Breaking Bad (Habits)

In less than two weeks I will be saying 'goodbye for now' to Vancouver - a city that I have called home for two years and have loved living in for just as long. My summer has been one of transition that has seen various phases come and go. What began as an exhale after leaving my full-time job to begin my summer of Funemployment, shifted to angst as I started preparing for my move to California. As August arrived, my to-do list only seemed to grow, and each day presenting a new learning as to what I, a Canadian coming to the US, would need to do prior to school starting. Domestic moves are rather seamless - your bank accounts stay in tact, your cell phone number comes with you, and your social insurance number (what my neighbours to south called a SSN) makes transferring credit a breeze. Not so for a move across the border. Cash deposits for cell phone contracts? Full tax returns from the last two years just to get a debit card? I guess it's all part of the process of getting your feet wet in a new country.

In three weeks, I will be touching down in Los Angeles, and I can only hope that my moving truck of things coming down from Vancouver meet me there as well. When the summer began I found myself focusing on things I had to do before leaving Vancouver, and now I find myself thinking more and more about what I have ahead of me in Los Angeles. The first month in LA already has a pre-orientation camping trip, a Dodgers game, Anderson and International Student Orientations, and a full slate of getting to know the classmates I'll be spending all of my time with over the next two years. It's pretty awesome!

I'm curious to see how the transition goes from a relaxing, non-academic summer to an intense quantitative first quarter, but I can already tell from the community on the class Facebook page that everyone will be helping eachother through the ups and downs of a busy first year at UCLA. If I felt like Anderson was the right choice for me after A-Days earlier in the year, my feelings have been more than validated by seeing how our class has interacted for the months leading up to the start of this two year journey.

Week 4 - Food: Having just watched a recent Curb episode about a hypothetical Palestinian chicken restaurant in Westwood, I thought it would be a great time to share Zankou Chicken (http://www.zankouchicken.com). The closest one to campus is on Santa Monica Blvd by the 405, and I plan to make a few detours to and from class to pick up what is supposed to be some delicious chicken.

Week 4 - Adventure: Camping and Hiking in Los Padres National Forest (Big Sur): There are no shortage of places to camp and hike in Southern California (preferrably not in the valley in the middle of the summer). Kirk Creek Campground in Los Padres is apparently one of the state's most beautiful, and provides access to some awesome hikes that provide views of the Pacific Coast Highway and the ocean:

 

 

I'm not sure what I'm more excited for - the ocean or the chicken.

Cheers,

Evan

To be Indebted

Within the incoming students' Anderson Facebook group as well as in the Google group, there is a raging debate about the current state of student loans.  And in light of the recent bill that was signed into law just earlier this week, it's safe to assume that in some way or another, all of us will be affected.  

A vast majority of incoming students received notificaton of our financial aid awards for the upcoming school year last week.  Most received a combination of grants, subsidized loans, unsubsidized loans, and Grad Plus loans.  This mixture of loans amounts to our total cost of tuition + room & board + extraneous expenses.  However, pinching us students right now (besides the doom & gloom of the stock market) are the lending interest rates and the sheer discrepency between the lending rates and the savings rates.  Take a look at this breakdown:

• Rate for subsidized loans: 6.8% fixed.
• Rate for unsubsidized loans: also 6.8% fixed, but unlike the subsidized loan, the unsubsidized loan will start accruing interest as soon as it's disbursed.
• Rate for Grad Plus loans: 7.9% fixed.  Interest starts to accrue immediately after disbursement.
• Rate for money market and savings accounts, national average according to Bank Rate: 0.16% APY, as of 8/3/2011.
• Rate for 1-year CDs, national average according to Bank Rate: 0.44% APY, as of 8/3/2011.

Sure, we can always open a CD account with a "teaser" rate and keep rolling over our funds as they mature from bank to bank, but who has the time & patience to be able to do that?  And for what--1% difference, at most?  There are also a number of private student loans floating out there (get the pun?  Because they have floating rates.  OK, that was lame, sorry), but apparently there is quite a bit to read and digest in the fine print and it's always a risky move, especially given the possibility of a US debt-rating downgrade, which in turn may lead to a rise in short-term interest rates (though, to be clear, Moody's already stated that the downgrade will not happen in the near-future, S&P has been keeping quiet and S&P has just now downgraded US debt to AA+).

So to wrap this spiel up: If you have cash saved up that's--most likely--earning next to nothing (and is not earmarked for anything in particular, such as a possible down payment or emergency funds), then it may be a better idea to bite the bullet and just pay up for tuition in cold, hard cash.  Of course, that is after you've accepted your grants & subsidized loans!

With that, I'll leave you with a recent article written by the venerable Mr. Frugal himself, Clark Howard: 

http://tinyurl.com/3tpytr3

 

Obligatory yet Important Disclaimer:  Please note that I am only providing my own opinions on this matter and my opinions do not reflect the views of UCLA nor any of its affiliates.  This is not to be taken as real financial advice as everyone's needs & situations are different!