The MBA Student Voice

Recruiting, Races, Amazing Weather: Winter Quarter at UCLA Anderson!

It's hard to believe winter quarter is already halfway done! If I thought that things were going to slow down a bit after the craziness of Fall (full disclosure: I did.), well, I was wrong! But, at the risk of sounding like a broken record in all my posts, I am still loving all of it.

Where to begin: it's been a crazy quarter, full of RECRUITING and schoolwork and RECRUITING and wedding planning and Marathons and RECRUITING. That's right, first-years are allowed to attend company presentations and network in the Fall, but companies can't actually solicit applications from us until the Winter. So they do! Before we were even back to class, I was in Seattle for the great Days on the Job event put on by the High Tech Business Association (HTBA), visiting the offices of Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, and T-Mobile. Resumes and cover letters were due en masse all throughout January, and interviews are still being conducted as I type. I have been lucky enough to interview with some truly excellent companies; a sampling of them includes:

Awesome companies that came to UCLA Anderson to recruit it's even awesomer students!

The process has treated me well with all my hard work this Fall and Winter paying off in the form of second round interviews and even an offer so far. You'll have to stay tuned to this blog to find out where I decide to spend my summer! But I do want to offer faith for those career and function switchers out there: if I can go from being a real estate developer to a product manager at a top-tier technology firm, anyone can do it!

In between recruiting I have managed to squeeze in two big races, qualifying for the 2012 New York City Marathon by running a 1:35 at the 13.1 Los Angeles Half Marathon in January, and qualifying for the 2013 Boston Marathon by running a 3:32 at the Huntington Beach Marathon last weekend. I bring this up here because I was talking to a prospective member of the class of 2014 over coffee the other day, and he told me he had heard that there isn't time for exercise because you are so busy in school. Well, he obviously asked the right (wrong??) person, because I set him straight. Continuing to run during all the insanity has kept me centered and provided me with some coveted "me time." In addition, I'm exploiting the fact that we don't have to look neat and polished like in a work setting at school, as I will go running around campus at lunch and then return just in time for class. This might explain why no one ever sits next to me, but hey, at least I'm staying sane. (Just kidding, I do have friends - honest!- and with SoCal's dry weather, I sweat about 1/16th as much as I did in humid Florida.)

This begs the question, was it me... or was it those amazing pink socks???

I should clarify that I did not photoshop myself into a beautiful beach background in the above photo, this is actually what I ran along for 26.2 miles. Yeah, it's pretty nice here. The weather has been downright amazing for the last two months. Temperatures hover around 78 degrees every day, the sun is shining, the air has a light breeze, people are wearing shorts- I feel like I need to pinch myself to be sure it's really January and February. Having experienced the fantastic weather out here, I think YOU would have to pay ME to go to business school in New England at this point! 

Winter Break? Not Quite

I’d like to start this post by wishing everyone a happy holiday season. I’m especially happy this holiday season because finals are over. Not that I don’t like taking four three-hour exams in consecutive days, but…wait, yeah, I don’t like taking four three-hour exams in consecutive days.

All kidding aside, last week was finals week and it was an incredibly challenging experience. After I wrapped up my accounting exam, the final of all finals, I thought I’d want to run out of the room and be greeted by falling confetti and an overflowing bottle of champagne. Instead, I was so mentally exhausted from the week that all I wanted to do was sleep. To all of my classmates, I apologize for my zombie-like demeanor the rest of the day. 

But honestly, now that I’m a week removed from finals, I can look back on the quarter and really appreciate how much I learned. The professors were fantastic, the material engaging, and the classmate collaborators inspiring. It was an unbelievably arduous and humbling quarter, but one that I can look back on quite fondly.

You know what else I can look back on fondly? The Anderson Breckenridge Ski Trip. Yep, once finals wrapped up, I, along with 100-plus of my classmates, left on a jet plane to (John) Denver and bused to Breckenridge, Colorado. There we skied (or boarded depending on your preference), hot tubbed, enjoyed a few adult beverages and were model guests at the Mountain Thunder Lodge. Jim Mora, Jr. would have been proud.

 Sitting by the fire in Breck-not a bad way to recover from figuring out LIFO and FIFO!

But the fun didn’t end once we got back from Breckenridge. Some of us headed immediately to the San Francisco Bay Area for “Silicon Valley Days on the Job.” The High Tech Business Association and Entertainment Management Association hosted this trek and it was nothing short of amazing. In a three-day span I visited eight companies, including YouTube, Twitter, Pixar, Meebo, Yahoo!, Pandora, Ustream, and Revision3. Others made stops at Google, Visa, and eBay to name a few. I’m amazed at how much I learned in such a short time at each company. Even better, I met several fascinating people who hopefully will be great contacts down the road as I search for a summer internship and, later, a full-time job.

Pixar won these Oscars. Not me.

So winter break is underway, but it hasn’t been much of a break. I think that’s a theme here at the MBA Student Voice. But it’s better to be busy than bored, so I’ll take this hectic December. However, once the college football bowl season picks up, I'll probably revert back to my zombie-like state. Just fair warning.

 -Willem

Follow me on twitter: @willsouthwood

 

First Quarter at Anderson and Loving It!

I think the last blog post I wrote was shortly after classes began, and when I look back over my Outlook calendar at what I’ve been up to in the interim, the hiatus makes sense. Even before school when I was working full-time, traveling several times a month, and training for races, I don’t recall feeling this busy. Maybe it seems so hectic because I am constantly changing my focus from academics, to company presentations, to resume and cover letter work, to fulfilling my duties as a First Year Director for three clubs, to a million other things, every day. Or maybe it’s just that even after my 10-12 hour days on campus, I still have homework to do!

In any event, midterms wrapped up on Thursday. Getting back into intense studying mode nine years out of college, for classes I never would have voluntarily picked if I knew I was getting a grade in them, made this quite the experience. If you’re like me, the following looks more like gibberish than the Significance Test for Proportions, but that was something on the Statistics midterm.

I actually wrote this equation in my spare time.

Similarly, you Econ majors might recognize the following as the Cobb-Douglas Principle, but Cobb to me is a salad, not something I am prepared to use to analyze a regression like I (sort of) did last Tuesday.

Cobb-Douglas Principle; Not Pictured: Avocados, bacon, any shred of logic.

But in between all this hard work there has been some fun. There are social activities scheduled many nights of the week, such as Lit Club (Wednesday nights), Anderson Afternoons (every Thursday after classes, free beer on campus!), and football games & tailgates (UCLA beat Cal (Berkeley) in the Homecoming game this weekend!).

Go Bruins!

Two of the highlights have been the 80s Party and the Halloween Party. I’m not sure if it’s an Anderson thing, or a business school thing, but when costumes are involved, people really go all out!

This is a situation where a picture is worth a thousand words.

UCLA Anderson Entrepreneur's Conference

This Friday, May 7, UCLA Anderson will be hosting its annual Entrepreneur's Conference.  This is the 25th year of the conference, bringing together budding entrepreneurs, small businesses, financiers, and established businesses under one roof to discuss entrepreneurial ideas in various industries.  

Because so many of my classmates here at UCLA Anderson are eager to start their own business either now or in the future, this conference has become the signature event on campus each year.  There are some incredible speakers coming to the event from all angles.  It's open to the public as well -- you can get your tickets online -- so if you are planning to be in the Los Angeles area this weekend, it's definitely worth checking out. 

I'm organizing a panel focused on new media technologies in the sports business.  The panelists include folks from the NFL, ESPN, a division of CAA, plus a consultant and a digital media venture focused on the sports industry.  The other panels are also very fascinating for their industries as well, from finance to green tech to entertainment to fashion! 

As a first-year student here, there are many opportunities to be involved in organizing the conference.  It also is a great opportunity to meet people in the industry that you want to work or start a business in -- UCLA Anderson has many opportunities for that, but you can never really have too many. 

* * * * * * *

Thank you to everyone for their kind condolence messages on Thursday and Friday.  After the Capitals lost Game 7 to Montreal and were knocked out of the playoffs, I received so many thoughtful messages from family and friends.  At some point, I had to laugh; I don't know anyone on the team, no one died...but when you are emotionally invested in something that is taken away from you, it does leave you feeling very hollow for awhile, as Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post noted on Thursday. 

Most inspiring was Brooks Laich, who stopped to change a flat tire on the way home from the arena that night.  Here is someone with so much on the line in Game 7, with so much on his mind, and he still took the time to help a stranded motorist change a flat tire.  Incredible story. 

What can I say about my beloved Capitals that hasn't already been said?  

* we desperately needed a second scoring threat so that Montreal (or any other team) couldn't focus on Ovechkin and Backstrom.  Thus, it's hard to see where Alex Semin fits into the picture when he's gone goalless in 14 playoff games.  He's the most talented player in the NHL when he's on, but when he's off it's a struggle to see why he's in the lineup.  Not sure how much more patience Boudreau is supposed to have. 

* it didn't help that Semin didn't have a proper second-line center: Morrison has looked off since the Olympics, and Belanger never gelled with Semin the way he did with Fehr and Chimera.  Laich is better suited to the wing, and Fleischman is better suited to the press box.  Compare centers with Pittsburgh (Crosby, Malkin, Staal), Detroit (Datsuyk, Zetterberg), Chicago (Toews, Sharp) ... 

* Mike Green has been awful in the playoffs in the past two years as well -- I would argue that he's been passed on the depth chart by Tom Poti, John Carlson, Jeff Schultz, and possibly even Karl Alzner.  

* Boudreau was out-coached and had no good ideas other than the obvious, of putting Semin with Backstrom and Ovechkin.  I would have used Belanger-Chimera-Fehr on the power play with the first unit struggling.  I also think Knuble needed more ice than he got. 

* the only person with a Stanley Cup ring on the team is spare part Scott Walker. (Knuble was a spare part with Detroit in 1998, so I'm not counting that one). 

In all, this clip pretty much summed up the playoffs. Absolute bummer.  Can't wait for the slate to be wiped clean in a few months! 

UCLA Anderson - MBA Struggles and Rewards

Hey Everybody! Oh my gosh - how long has it been? Sigh, no I didn't drop off the face of the earth and no the big scary MBA program didn't swallow me alive. I just had to get through first quarter finals, which were a bear! However, I survived relatively unscathed.

So, I finished winter break, and it was sooooo fun! Good time to catch up with family and friends in the Bay Area. But it wasn't ALL fun and games. No, our diligent student club put together some DOJs (Day on the Job) for several companies in the Bay Area. A bunch of us visited some awesome companies like Apple, Google, HP, Adobe, Cisco, and on and on and on. Each company gave a presentation about their products and positions and then we got a chance to network with the employees. It was a hectic schedule but very exciting and worthwhile.

The DOJ took up a good 3-4 days of my time and after that I headed off to Reno with family. I gave myself a $30 budget and proceeded to lose it all.....but hey, I had a fun time losing it! Now I'm back in LA and have already completed the first week of the second quarter. What have I accomplished so far this quarter you might ask? Well, I participated in a case competition and had a job interview. Not a bad way to start of the new year. I didn't win the competition, but had lots of fun. We worked something like 20 hours straight analyzing the case, got two hours of sleep, and then presented our recommendations to executives at Deloitte. It was a one-of-a-kind experience and something I recommened all MBA students try at least once in their lives. Btw, my team didn't win the competition, but quite honestly we felt like we had because of the feeling of accomplishment after such hard work.

The second quarter class schedule has been much more manageable, although I can see it getting really hectic once interviews pick up. Well, that's about it thus far.

I know many of you out there must be thinking about MBA school, whether it's the right thing to do, or how to get through the application/interview process. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Until next time!

Anderson is in the House - Get Going on Your Career

Hey Everyone,

Hope all of you out there in cyberspace are doing well. It is getting harder to come up with a catchy article title - hopefully I didn't disappoint. I have been getting emails from some of you (you really like me, you really really like me! .......sorry, I just had to pull a Sally Field). Okay, what was my point? Ah yes....I have been getting emails about my blog and general questions about the application and MBA environment; I am glad some of you got some use out of this. Feel free to contact about me about anything like the application process or why the heck you should even care about an MBA or whatever else is on your mind.

My week has been has been a little less hectic, although I am still writing this blog at 10pm, so not sure what that means. I'm a night owl I guess. I have been spending a lot of time working on my resume these days. The Parker CMC and my lovely ACTgroup have given me some good tips and pretty much inundated me with comments and revisions - but it's all good. It's amazing how much you improve with a little constructive feedback. My resume has gone through three revisions and will be seen another two times before I submit my final version to the career management center. Company recruiting has been picking up lately too. It's getting near that time when we will be applying for upcoming summer internships - oooh scary! I have also been practicing my 30-second pitch in the shower - hey! practice makes perfect - don't judge. FYI:  a 30-second pitch is a succinct and memorable way of describing yourself (in 30 seconds) to recruiters at company events. Now comes the next hard thing - coming up with a list of companies I am interested in working for. Yikes. Again, my ACT teamcomes to the rescue. They gave me some templates for how to evaluate companies and how best to pitch to to them. For those of you who haven't been reading my previous posts (I shudder at the thought), the ACT group is led by two second year students who have been there and done that when it comes to first year recruiting. They lead a session every week or every two weeks and basically keep you on track. With all the fun college times to be had, we definitely need people to keep us in check. The ACT coaches, which are the 2nd year students, guide you through all the elements of recruiting from learning to handle yourself at company presentations, preparing a rockin' resume, marketing yourself, to grabbing an interview, among so many other delicious things. I am part of the Strategic Ops and Management ACT team. There are also a gazillion databases available to Anderson students (including our large and helpful alumni database). These databases contain every company known to man (or woman) based on industry or location or whatever other manner of search criteria you choose.

Okay, some of you may be wondering what this poor blogger does for fun. Is she all about resumes and internships? I must dispel that opinion at once! Aside from getting some exercise on the weekends and checking out the town, I joined Riordan Scholars on campus where I will be mentoring high school students. I've also attended so many fantastic workshops offered through many campus clubs. One in particular that I just attended yesterday was titled "Launching an Internet Business in One Hour." How awesome is that? The speaker had launched several of his own companies and basically gave us an insiders look at some of the most common pitfalls to avoid and some of the great resources to take advantage of.

I am also itching to try the indoor rock wall at the John Wooden campus gym. It looks awesome. I just need to carve out some time and go.

Alright folks. It's been a pleasure as usual. Until next time!

Anderson Guide to MBA

Hi Everybody!

I'm back again for yet another delightful post - okay, I'm a little bit chipper today even though it's 11:37pm and I am catching up on some homework and also writing this blog. Now for those of you who are freaking out as to why I am up so late, let me tell you now that this is not unusual - well not for me. You see, as most of you might have read in my previous posts, I am a little unsure of what my career focus should be. Therefore, I ended up joining a ton of clubs to learn a little bit more about various industries and job functions. So, instead of having some nice quiet afternoons with my books, I've been in one company presentation after another. Don't get me wrong - I have enjoyed each and every meeting and only wish it were humanly possible to attend all of them. But the art to being successful in anything is having a good balance. So today, I decided to forgoe my club events and company meetings in order to catch up on homework.

There are still more events to come so I don't think I missed out too much. So, I'm feeling good because I have a better handle on my classes and ALSO because I just finished my ACT group meeting. ACT stands for Anderson Career Teams and is a small group that every student is assigned to based on their interests. I picked the strategic operations ACT group because I have an interest in operations and figure that this group paired with all my other clubs will nicely round out my plethora of informational sources. We just practiced our 30-second elevator pitches for potential recruiters. It was a really great session in that we discussed the pros and cons of different approaches and I received some valuable takeaways.

So back to the main goal. I laughed when I read my earlier posts because I sounded utterly lost. But surprisingly, due to the lack of time, I have quickly narrowed down my focus. There is simply no time to manage classes and eight different professional clubs. So, I've had to pick and choose which club sponsored events were more important to attend. It's amazing what you learn about yourself when you don't have a lot of time to waste making a decision. So here it is - the career options I am interested in: Strategic operations, finance, and business development (entrepreneurship). The industry I am most excited about is renewable energy - simply because it is cool to be part of the future (I got inspired during a recent club event). But I am also happy with high tech, manufacturing, or bio tech. Pretty much any industry will do.

My next task is to reach out to 2nd years and alumni for their take on the internship experience as well as any advice they might have. The great thing about Anderson is that the student body and alumni have been extremely helpful. I have not come across this degree of helpfulness in any other place - it really feels like family out here. Alright.....I'm getting a littly mushy. That means it's time to go to bed.

Until next time!

UCLA Anderson - Choosing a MBA Focus

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my first official blog. I am a first year MBA student at the Anderson School of Management. School has not yet begun, but I just attended a one-hour Q&A session at the Parker Career Management Center, which is a group that helps MBA students find internships as well as choose a career specialty (for those of us, like me, who are still not sure in which direction they want to go). The information session was informative to say the least. The discussion touched upon things like recruiting timelines, recruiting tips and tricks, and research tools and people that might help students decide on a MBA focus.

So, yes, the session was informative. Do I feel completely overwhelmed now? The answer is YES. You've heard it before, but I will say it again, students who know what they want to do with their careers have an easier time in MBA school. What the Q&A session reminded me is that B-school moves fast and decisions like career focus (and by extension the clubs you want to join) must be made within the first few weeks of starting school. The reason being that the summer internship recruiting process starts in the fall/winter.

So what am I to do? Some might call me a career-switcher, but I like to think of myself as an explorer - which still doesn't make it any easier but sounds cooler. I am not sure what I want to do, and I came to B-school to, dare-I-say-it, explore my options. Well, hope is not lost. I am not the first MBA student to feel this way, as the folks at the Q&A session reminded me, and I won't be the last. Countless students like me have made it work, so why can't I? The one great thing was that UCLA Anderson made me feel like they were there to support me in any way possible through one-on-one counseling sessions and other events. They also have second-years and a huge alumni network who are there to share their experiences and advice regarding summer internships and careers.  

I invite you all to join me on my quest in determining which career direction I should go. Will it be finance, entrepreneurship, marketing, strategic operations, consulting, or back to my previous career in accounting? I will describe the events I attend, the people I talk to, and the research I do to help me make a decision.

Until the next blog fellow explorers!

Follow 2d Year UCLA Anderson MBA Erica Marie Colon Here and on Twitter

The UCLA Anderson MBA Program welcomes 2d year student, Erica Marie Colon, as our first mini blogger on Twitter. Follow Erica as she attends classes, guest lectures, visits friends, and explores post-MBA career options. Erica Marie's Twitter feed and threads are along the right-hand nav bar of this blog, The MBA Student Voice.