This post is a part of the Student Blogger series - each post is written by a current UCLA Anderson student, and provides first-hand perspectives and experiences about being an MBA student at UCLA Anderson.
Hi Everyone!
I’m Angela Chau and I’m a first-year student at UCLA Anderson. A bit about me, I grew up in San Francisco and earned my undergraduate degree at UC San Diego. I began my career in sales operations then transitioned to go-to-market program management. I came to business school for personal development and to be better equipped to transition to a role where I can drive user adoption, identify user pain points and influence the product roadmap.
I know many of you are curious to know what a typical day is like at business school, but I have to say that every day is very different depending on the course schedule, company presentations, group projects, etc. That said, below is what one of my recent days look like. Enjoy!
A DAY IN THE LIFE...OF AN ANDERSON 1ST YEAR
8:00 am: I wake up, eat my yogurt and scan through my emails. I have a Visa on-campus Info Session today so I browse my closet for a business casual outfit. My econ midterm is in the afternoon, so I better review the major concepts as a refresher before I head out for class. I only live about 4 miles from campus so the commute is not bad. Occasionally there will be traffic and that’s when I’ll get off the main streets and opt for the residential streets.
9:45 am: Financial Accounting class. Today we learned about inventory accounts and different accounting methods and how they affect cost of goods sold, net income and tax expenses. It’s not the most exciting topic but it’s quite useful.
11:30 am: AnderTech club board meeting. I recently joined the board as a Director of Marketing and Communications so it was exciting to attend me first board meeting and meet most of the board members. Today we celebrated wins from having great turnouts at recent events and debriefed on what we can do to improve moving forward. We also discussed upcoming events such as the Tech Treks to Seattle and San Francisco! Anderson has a DOJ (Days on the Job) week where students can take a break from class and go visit different companies.
12:45 pm: Economics midterm. Was I nervous? Oh yes. Did I get through it? Yea and it was not as bad as I expected so now I’m relieved!
2:30 pm: AnderTech Marcom meeting. The entire marcom team met to go over our goals for the year and how each of our roles are intertwined. We also locked down cadence for the year as well as next steps.
3:00 pm: Time for me to catch up with my friend who works at Cisco and see how she’s doing. We use to grab lunch once a month or so back when I worked in the Bay Area so it was nice to catch up over the phone now that I'm in LA. I find this to be a good time to take a break from studying and reconnect with a friend.
3:30 pm: Email my resume to my Parker Career Management Center TA and mentor so that we can talk about it next week. Continue researching Visa's digital solutions and recent partnerships to prepare for the info session.
4:30 pm: Visa Info Session. Learn about how Visa views itself in relation to its competitors and the company culture around diversity, collaboration and productivity. I was intrigued by the 90/10 innovation program. Typically, after company presentations and info sessions, there will be time to mix and mingle with the company representatives to ask additional questions to help you determine whether the company will be a good fit for you.
7:00 pm: Unfortunately, it’s not dinner time yet. My ACT (Anderson Career Team, I’m in the Tech-Marketing one) group meet our ACT coaches at Westfield mall (about 15 minutes from campus) for our store visits. We visited Apple and Microsoft stores to assess the store layout, customer experience, product placement, etc. And then we discussed how the companies cater to their target audience.
8:30 pm: Time to have a quick dinner and do the readings for tomorrow’s marketing class. Then I take a look at the highlights of tomorrow’s schedule: General Mills Lunch & Learn, Marketing Class, catch up with a friend at Facebook and play boardgames with my friends! My boyfriend and I like to chat or watch TV together to unwind at the end of the day. We recently finished Narcos and we’ve been watching Luke Cage.
I hope this gives you an idea of what is in store for business school!
Student Blogger: Angela Chau '18 Undergrad: UC San Diego Pre-MBA: Verizon, Intel, Cymer Leadership@Anderson: |
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