The MBA Student Voice

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

My apologies to all for yet another writing hiatus.  Those midterms took a lot out of me and the rehab from the exam related injuries took longer than expected.  First, there was some carpal tunnel as a result of using some Excel functions too much, and then I tore my ACL walking to a printer in the computer lab to collect an accounting problem set that I printed out.  All kidding aside, there's not much of an excuse except to say things have been busy.

So, what have I been busy with?  Well, as I've eluded to before, I'm trying to balance the holy trinity of academics, job search, and a social life.  Of late, I've been attempting to focus on the job search and the related requirement of networking.  Since I want to get back into the entertainment world post-MBA, albeit on the business side this time around, I joined Anderson's Entertainment Management Association.  The organization regularly puts on panels to educate its members about various portions of the industry, be it film, TV, videogames, and music.  These presentations are led, more often than not, by alumni within said fields and they've proven rather informative.  Additionally, the EMA organizes Days on Jobs (DOJ), where we have an onsite visit with a particular company and executives talk to us about their various functions.  We had one such DOJ last week at Fox. 

Long story short, classes take up your mornings and afternoons and then there's plenty more activities to gobble up the rest of your day.  The key, it seems, is to choose the right events and not spread yourself too thin, especially this first semester.  Maybe if I do that, you'll hear from me a wee bit more.  But for now, I gotta go ice my ACL. 

Week 2/2.5 Orientation - Recap

Week 2/2.5 of orientation may have occurred about 3 weeks ago but I'm just getting around to blogging about it now. The reason for the lag? Mounds upon mounds of readings, assignments, club events, speakers, and info sessions. As soon as orientation ended, everything hits REALLY FAST. But that will be the basis of a later post. For now, we'll reminisce about the good times we had during week 2 /2.5 week of orientation. Specifically I'll highlight 2 events.

Section Olympics -

All incoming students are placed in one of 5 sections. The people in your section attend all the required classes together during first year. Section Olympics pits sections against each other in a variety of events: kick-ball, trivia, volleyball and dodgeball to mention but a few. Below is pic of Section B decked out in our theme gear (Indiana Jones) and Lena, in official mascot garb (B is BANANAS!!).

Section B either dominated or was dominated in the events and did not end up winning the Section Olympics, but good times were had by all.

The 80s Party -

Capping off orientation is the legendary "80s Party". The name pretty much sums it, as does the picture below. Pictured in order from left to right are: Edison, Nadine, Kate, me and Michi. Nadine, Kate, Michi and I are part of the same Learning Team. We work on all group assignments together in the first quarter. More on learning teams later, but the 80s Party was VERY good times.

Now that orientation is over, the gloves are fully off now and the reality of business has firmly set in. What's that like? Keep coming back to MBA Student Voice to find out.

--JP

~ Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.~ Dr. Emmett Brown, from Back to the Future

Mad Crazy Biz

I have never been this busy.  Crazy enough, business school is busy.  Who knew and why didn't they tell me?  Why have I been so busy?  Well, first off, contrary to the fun and games and camp-like atmosphere of Orientation, school itself is time consuming.  But let me back up a bit.  I am striving to make my posts especially helpful to two kinds of prospective students:  creative types and New Yorkers.  This post relates more to the former.  You know, a person who probably studied History or English in college and can actually express him or herself using the written word, but doesn't know a thing about Excel (ie. you think it simply puts words and numbers in tidy rows and columns) or equity research ("You research how to make things equal?  That's really great!  We should allocate more resources to that wonderful goal!").

Needless to say, I'm that guy.  And if you're that guy or gal too, you're probably a bit apprehensive about using a part of your brain that's remained dormant for years.  Well, turns out, you should be.  But not too much.  You see, Anderson starts you off with four core classes, three of which are Accounting, Managerial Economics, and Data and Decisions (statistics).  You know how you'd have maybe one really hard class each semester in college?  Try taking four of them at once.  These courses are challenging even if you've been exposed to the material before, and especially if you nearly wrote an undergraduate thesis on the naval campaign in the Pacific during WWII and subsequently interviewed bands and actors for a living before attending business school.  And they are also time consuming.  Beyond my own personal study time, there's plenty of learning team meetings where group projects are completed (I spent about 10 hours with my group this weekend, at least).  However, despite this perhaps dour sounding scene, I believe my head is above water.  So, if there's some hope for me, there is probably some for you as well.  Of course, this could all change at the drop of a hat.

Back to the busy-ness.  In addition to classes, there are clubs.  I've joined my fair share and they are consistently having meetings about something and I want to be there.  That means that after class, I'm sticking around school for several hours for any number of reasons, be it a section meeting, a speaker series, a presentation, or a discussion panel.   

Making matters worse, but really better actually, people around here like to have fun.  And they go out.  There are opportunities to go out almost everyday, and it's tough to say no.  For instance, this past Saturday, I went to UCLA/Oregon game at the Rose Bowl.  As a graduate of Columbia, I have no concept of attending a school that actually cares about its sports program.  Even though there was a Marketing project due tomorrow morning, I had to go.  It was a moral imperative.  And it was awesome, except for the part where we gave up two touchdowns in 26 seconds at the start of the second half.  We were up 3-0 at the half, I went to the restroom, ate some macho nachos, and was a bit late getting back to my seat, but I thought the guy who said we were down 11 as I was walking back was making a horrible joke.  That kinda killed the buzz, but odds are I'll be there next week for the Cal game. 

The main point is, it's intense here.  I'm trying to walk the fine line between boning up on the subjects I never learned in college (but not so much that I'm in the library constantly), participating in clubs to help with the networking process (ie. getting a job), and having fun.  It's a tough equilibrium to establish.  Not sure I've succeeded yet.  And let's not forget about my comprehensive television watching schedule.  Sundays and Thursdays are killer.  Those nights alone add 10 hours to my DVR.  That's like 3 classes!  Something might have to give.  Or the day must be lengthened to 36 hours (I'm gonna work on that one for now).

Knock! Knock!

They say you better be ready when opportunity finally comes knocking on your door, but it doesn’t seem to apply to Anderson’s MBA program.  Here, you see, opportunity is a 300-pound sumo wrestler who will knock down your door and throw you in the street in your underwear.  At least that is the way it has felt to me so far.  The following is a list of professional opportunities that were made available to me during the last week only.  Granted, they might not all lead to something, but my point is that finding them was exceedingly easy; I either sent an e-mail or received an e-mail.  Keep in mind that I just started the program.

The first thing I did was to write to a few second year students to discuss their summer internship.  Next thing I know, I was speaking to the president of DCF Ventures, a consulting company that seeks to help researchers on campus commercialize their inventions.  I did not come to Anderson with that kind of career in mind, but considering my experience as a mad scientist I would find it very interesting.  I have applied for an academic internship with DCF, and we will see if I am selected.  In addition, second year students have allowed me to start making contacts at Amgen.

As you might remember, the CEO of DaVita made a strong impression on me, and I am hoping to visit Davita’s facility as early as next Friday.  If I am selected for DaVita’s Day on the Job event, I will get to visit the local facility, lunch with people who work there, and have my questions answered directly by the company.  Finally, I just participated in an All-Anderson networking event, where I met a fully employed MBA student with interesting ties to a growing tutoring company.  It’s just that easy!

–Simon

Orientation: A Response/A Recap/A Retrospective

So I've been slacking on this blog over the past few weeks.  Not for a lack of noteworthy inclusions, but rather that during my precious spare moments my body demands sleep, food, and the occasionally high-velocity impact with my surfboard (yeah, Jordy Smith I'm not).  Sorry, faceless internet readers, but this ode to summation will have to suffice.

Lots of my fellow blogateers (think musketeers but more prone to sunburn and spontaneous games of Risk) have touched on some of the more outstanding elements of UCLA Anderson's Orientation Program. We took metaphors to the extreme with the Odyssey Ropes Course and left with a better appreciation for our own capabilities and the strength of our peers.  We also spent a good portion of our adult lives orientation learning about the substantial career, academic, social resources available to us at Anderson.  At times, my brain screamed "uncle" and tried to crawl out my ear, but I can say with confidence that the information overload was of tremendous benefit.  While still slightly daunting, the prospect of achieving academic excellence, building a robust life-long network, and crafting a successful career path seems much more feasible thanks to the Orientation Program.  I owe a "slap/bump" (when you get here, this will become clear) to Susan Corley, the 2Y Orientation Leaders, and the wonderful folks over at the Parker CMC.

However, my personal favorite takeaways were the efforts of the rhythmically-challenged to learn the nuances of the UCLA 8-Clap (next: shoulder dancing!) and the wallflowers who were forced to exit their comfort zone and improv about robots.  Why robots?  Why not?  Lastly, the skits performed by each section showed that while many of us were Excel jockeys, pitchbook wizards, and masters of mgmt. consulting synergistic optimetrics in a past life, we do have the ability to bring the funny when it counts. Ultimately, orientation was an incredible opportunity to see that we are not just a collection of undergraduate degrees and job titles, but a dynamic set of individuals ready to take the reins at a moment's notice.

I'll admit that I had a healthy amount of skepticism towards this Orientation after the first day.  I thought some of activities were more inline with summer camp rather than preparation for an MBA.  This is serious stuff!  We have business cards (eggshell with romalian type) and well-pressed suits!  However, I quickly realized the benefit of building a cohesive team.  By stripping down our pretenses and forcing us to think and react quickly, often in an unnatural setting, we built the foundations of trust and respect that will carry us through this experience.  While this may sound like your cue to bust out the acoustic guitars, I'm being entirely sincere.  Even after a few short weeks, strong bonds have been developed and the collective success of the Class of 2011 is everyone's priority.

Our Fall courses started last week and I'm waist-deep in acronyms, demand curves, and T-accounts.  The clubs and recruiting are also starting to ramp-up quickly.  While it may feel overwhelming, I remain calm knowing that I have a tremendous faculty and peer group ready to pick me up when I need a lift.  Check back soon for some insight on the core curriculum, the career search, and where to find a burrito the size of a football.  

Week 1 Orientation - Recap

As promised, my wonderful blogging colleagues have been sharing their orientation experiences, so here's my contribution. I wasn't quite sure what to expect with orientation. Having gone through various "orientations" in the past, I expected a few speeches, ice breakers, tours and some free food. I understood that it was necessary but I admittedly was not overly excited.

Happily I can report that UCLA Anderson's orientation far exceeded my expectations. The first week of the two and a half week program focused on getting the incoming class to interact with each other, learn more about UCLA Anderson's program and challenge ourselves to venture out of our comfort zones.

The highlight of the first week for me was the ropes course and the improv. Both were new experiences for me, and while it was a bit of an adjustment to get into the proper mindset, I came out of it having learned something new about myself. The ropes course was facilitated by Odyssey Teams, Inc., and I was thoroughly impressed by their energy and commitment. Walking across tightropes, climbing telephone poles and figuring out challenges as a team was a great way to meet and interact with others in the incoming class. 

And as for the improv, well Wayne Brady can rest easy knowing that I'm in no way a threat to his improv reign but nonetheless it was fun and I did learn among other things to "be in the present", be an active listener, create a supportive environment and "Yes and...".

Week 2 and 2.5 were just as jam packed and I will definitely provide a recap of those as well...but not right now. As "real" school has started, real readings have been assigned and I still have to finish those for tomorrow. Therefore: to be continued....

--JP

~The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

De-blasé-fied!

I am so jaded I would probably yawn at my own funerals.  Personally, I blame Hollywood movies and video games for murdering my awe, but every now and then something makes me go “Wow!”  Of course, I am too blasé to actually say it out loud, but nonetheless…  Thus, imagine my surprise when I had two such moments this week only, and this is only my second week as an Anderson MBA student.

My first “Wow!” popped out on Wednesday during a presentation by Kent Thiry, Chairman and CEO of DaVita Inc.  I will not bore you with details depicting how Mr. Thiry brought the company back from the dead over the last ten years, although the end-results are impressive.  Instead, I want to mention why I think Mr. Thiry has been so successful; he understands that happy employees have no incentive to leave or work poorly.  Big deal?  I think so, considering DaVita Inc. has over 15,000 employees.  How Mr. Thiry does it on such a big scale completely mystifies me, but it might have something to do with the fact that DaVita actually seems to take its values seriously.

My second “Wow!” moment was triggered by Pr. Al Osborne, Senior Associate Dean at Anderson, and entertainer (from what I can tell!).  I will not bore you with his accolades, for they are numerous, but I’ll attempt to recount an especially interesting part of his story.  Early in his career, Pr. Osborne decided that he wanted to promote entrepreneurial businesses, but was told that it was just a stupid idea that would kill his career.  Unsatisfied, he left his job for a position at UCLA, where he eventually founded the Price Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.  The Price center oversees teaching, research, extracurricular, and community activities related to entrepreneurship.  How’s that for seeing one’s vision come to fruition? 

–Simon

LA County Fair

The blur that was the first week of orientation just ended. It was informative, exhilarating, challenging and rewarding. Basically it was a microcosm of what I expect the UCLA Anderson MBA program to be for the next two years. But before I, along with my awesome fellow bloggers, regale you with stories of our adventures during the first week i.e. the ropes course, improv, negotiations etc., I want to take a quick pause and tell you about a non-orientation event I attended.

This past Saturday, I went to the LA County Fair.

I love fairs/carnivals - the sights, sounds, smells and general atmosphere. As soon as I step onto the fairgrounds I'm instantly taken back to when I was 7. Fairs are one of my favorite parts of summer and I make it a point to go at least once.

Food is a big part of my annual fair experience. Normally I try and watch what I eat but all bets are off on my annual fair day. That day is by far my worst eating day of the year. It's like a cross between Man v. Food and Bizarre Foods - I try and eat the most copious amounts of weird, unusual, and usually very unhealthy food that I can. My visit to the LA County Fair was no different as you can see by the pictures below:

HUGE corndog

Deep fried twinkie with chocolate sauce

Deep fried cheeseburger

I also had some delicious BBQ corn to break-up the fried food monopoly. I considered soldiering on and eating chocolate covered bacon and meat flavored ice cream but alas while my mind was strong, the body was weak. Actually my body and I are currently not on speaking terms; it is a tad upset and rightfully so. Needless to say I'll be hitting the gym quite hard this week. =X

--JP

~Not sure I'm going to feel too good after I eat this...but I'm still gonna. ~ Me

An Amazing Anderson Outdoor Adventure

As a native Californian I have always loved California's natural beauty and all the awesome outdoor activities that California has to offer.  My love of the outdoors is one of the reasons I was really drawn to the UCLA Anderson community, there are lots of people like me who love the outdoors, there's even a student club dedicated to outdoor adventures. Anderson also has a really cool series of pre-orientation trips for incoming students, the trips send groups of about 15 classmates to a number of California's nicest areas.  Some of my classmates canoed in the Colorado River, others spent time in the Channel Islands and a number of the trips went into the High Sierra's. 

I grew up camping and hiking in the High Sierra's so when I saw that one of the pre-orientation trip options was to spend six days backpacking 26 miles in Hetch Hetchy I jumped at the opportunity to go. The trip was held about a week before orientation started, our group was made up of two guides from UCLA Outdoor Adventures, one second year Anderson student and twelve incoming students.  I wasn't totally sure what to expect going into the trip, I hadn't met any of the people coming on the trip beforehand but I figured spending six days together would end up being an amazing way to get to know my classmates.

The trip ended up being better than anything I could have imagined.  Our guides were amazing, they were very knowledgable and put together a program that facilitated all of us getting to know each other.  Our second year student was really cool and filled us in on what life is like at Anderson.  And most importantly all of my classmates turned out to be really great to camp with and very interesting to talk to.  Through a combination of structured activities and unstructured time while we were hiking, camping, swimming and exploring we really got to know each other very well.  My time in the mountains with my classmates really validated the fact that the Anderson campus culture was a good fit for me.  And the greatest thing was that after the trip I had a group of classmates who I'm really close to, so when campus orientation started earlier this week I already had friends in all of the sections and two of the people I camped with live within a block of my apartment so we already have a neighborhood hang out crew and carpool to campus. 

I had so much fun on my pre-orientation trip that I am already planning to volunteer to go as a second year on one or more of the trips for next year's incoming students.  For anyone reading this post who loves the outdoors and is considering Anderson, I can attest to the fact that there are lots of outdoor lovers at Anderson and if you end up coming to Anderson DEFINITELY do a pre-orientation trip.  My pre-orientation trip was one of the best trips I've ever been on. 

International Student Orientation Days

Like pitchers and catchers who report early for spring training, international students are required to report early to UCLA Anderson and participate in International Student Orientation Days (ISOD). This year ISOD took place on September 3 and September 4, a couple of days before general orientation begins. It was great to meet my international classmates, and it was very cool to see all the different countries from which they originated. Especially handy was the fact that everyone wore name tags with their country of origin. Made it very easy to walk up to someone randomly and strike up a conversation.

The two day session covered issues that are relevant for international students. This included sessions on visa/immigration issues, finding a job as an international, general tips etc. Not the most glamorous topics, but all necessary and important to ensure a smooth transition into the actual MBA program. And just as important, it allowed for us to start getting to know each other.

With my appetite now whetted by ISOD, I'm excited about meeting the rest of my classmates and the orientation and Leadership Foundations that will comprise the next three weeks. I'm not exactly sure what to expect, but I already get the sense that it's going to be interesting, fun and certainly memorable. 350+ people, coming from all over the world, spending most of 3 weeks together....*woot!*

~Before beginning, prepare carefully.~ Cicero