Post is a part of the Day in the Life series - each post is written by a current UCLA Anderson student who shares their "Day in the Life"
Hi everyone! My name is Austin Josiah and I am a rising 2nd year at UCLA Anderson. Originally born in Southern California (Orange County), I grew up in the other Orange County in Orlando, Florida. For undergrad, I attended the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School where I studied finance and legal studies and was also heavily involved with the sports business club. Upon graduating, I began my career in financial services, working as a rotational analyst at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. During my last two years before business school, I pivoted to the Private Wealth Management division at Morgan Stanley, working on the strategy and business management team helping grow the ultra-high net-worth business at the firm. I came to business school to pursue a career in strategic planning within the sports industry and was able to land a strategy and operations consulting position at Deloitte. However, due to COVID-19, Deloitte shortened the internship to a two-week virtual program, and in the meantime, I was fortunate enough to land a job as a strategy intern at Erewhon Market, a high-end LA-based grocery chain. Thus, I will talk about these two weeks where I am navigating both internships.
7:15am: My alarm goes off! I roll out of bed and read some of the news and updates currently going on in the world before I grab some cereal and get ready for my first Zoom meeting. Today is the end of the first of two weeks at Deloitte and it begins with a debrief networking session with 25 other Deloitte Summer Associates and Practitioners based in the LA office at 8 AM PST.
12:00 pm: I just finished up my 3rd and last Deloitte session of the day. Today we learned about the importance of health and wellness and all the great things Deloitte focuses on with its’ consultants given the stressful nature of the job. This can be achieved through breathing and mediation techniques, the ability to plug-in and out throughout the day, and the importance of finding your passions. We also had a session where we learned about specific client work within the healthcare space and how Deloitte consultants were able to add value and redefine the strategic priorities for a large-scale healthcare client even in a short time period. It is almost noon, so I pack everything up and I head over to the Erewhon corporate office.
3:00pm: After arriving at the office, I spend an hour meeting with my Manager, the Chief of Staff at Erewhon, updating him on the status of my projects, and set out tasks to accomplish for the rest of the day. I am working on ways to bolster the e-commerce presence as many shoppers decide to order online and avoid the stores altogether while in quarantine. I take a break to try one of the sample sparkling waters that are stocked on the Erewhon shelves in the 5 locations throughout LA--how refreshing! It is now time to prepare for a brief 20-minute networking call to get to know other Deloitte practitioners based in the LA Office.
7:30pm: Yet, another long day navigating two internships. I finally arrive home and it is time to de-stress for the day after a quick evening snack. My favorite way to de-stress is by working out and hopping on my Peloton bike to crush a 30-minute ride to round out my day! While balancing two separate jobs is not the easiest, it only spans two weeks and I do appreciate all of the learning and excitement involved with working at both Deloitte and Erewhon, especially given the genuine level of support and understanding from both companies. I’m definitely in a unique situation--one that I did not predict. Despite that, it has absolutely worked out in the end and I’m excited for another great week next week!
-- Austin Josiah
ABOUT AUSTIN
- Hometown: Orlando, FL
- Undergraduate Studies: University of Pennsylvania, The Wharton School
- Pre-Anderson: Assistant Vice President, Morgan Stanley
- MBA Summer Internship: MBA Summer Associate, Deloitte / MBA Strategy Intern, Erewhon
- Post-MBA Goals: Sports / Entertainment
- Leadership@Anderson: Co-President, Black Business Student’s Association; VP of Equity Diversity and Inclusion, Anderson Ambassador Corps; Consortium Liaison
- Activities@Anderson: Sports Business Association, Anderball Basketball Club, Entertainment Management Association, Social Impact Consulting Corps, Strategy & Operations Management Association
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