The MBA Student Voice

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.