About Mike: Mike Morgan (’23) is a first year at UCLA Anderson. Prior to Anderson, he was a Consulting Manager at FactSet Research Systems in Los Angeles, and he is planning to pivot into real estate investment post-MBA. In his free time, you can find him on his local beach in Playa Del Rey, following LA sports teams but hiding that he’s from the east coast, or coaching kids golf in Orange County with a non-profit called The First Tee.
A couple months after graduating college in 2016, I moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles to begin my first full-time job. Funny enough, my first boss in that job was an alumnus of UCLA Anderson. Among the many great things that he had to say about Anderson, the impressive, well-rounded, and genuinely solid people that made up his MBA class, along with the school’s culture of “sharing success” were the aspects that stood out to me the most. Needless to say, my expectations were high when I put down my deposit to come to Anderson.
Five months into business school, Anderson has exceeded those expectations by far. I’ve been taken aback by my classmates and their perpetual willingness to help—be it academically, professionally, or even personally—while expecting nothing in return. A few examples come to mind.
The “sharing success” seemed to materialize from the jump. On just the second day of school during a fifteen minute break from Leadership Foundations class, I found myself in the corner of the lecture hall scrambling to pull together some formatting changes to my resume before a submission deadline from the career center. I’ll admit that formatting my resume has never been my strong suit. Without missing a beat, two of my new classmates, who hardly even knew my name at the time, identified that I was stuck on something and swung their chairs over to help me get the submission across the finish line in time.
As a career switcher looking to pivot into real estate, I was apprehensive about acquiring all the industry knowledge necessary to be competitive for real estate internships. Fortunately, Anderson has it covered by placing first-years into Anderson Career Teams (ACT) and Interview Prep Teams (IPT), which are student-led groups designed to educate first-years on the industry they’re targeting to prepare them to pursue careers in their desired fields. I’ve found these teams to be immensely helpful to ready me for recruiting, but I’m also appreciative of the fact that they’re run by second-year Anderson students (who may or may not have their own recruiting to worry about) who sacrifice their free time to ensure the first-years are able to put their best foot forward in recruiting. My ACT and IPT coaches have been accessible to answer any and all questions throughout, and have (thankfully) assured the group that “there are no dumb questions” during our sessions. There are twelve or so first-year real estate ACT members, and although we are all theoretically competing with each other for employment opportunities, the group remains collaborative. We regularly share notes and tips on recruiting, and we alert each other when a local real estate firm posts a job opening on its career site so nobody misses out on an opportunity.
At the end of summer quarter, a classmate spent an hour with me before an 8am accounting class to help me practice and prepare for a speech I was giving to my section to run for Section President. Again, he didn’t expect anything in return for the favor, but he was happy to do it (and probably would’ve been upset with me if I didn’t use him as a resource). I wouldn’t have put together half as strong of a speech if this classmate hadn’t taken time out of his day during a hectic summer quarter to help me achieve a personal goal of mine.
I could go on with a dozen more examples, but I’ll stop there. Bottom line: If you’re looking for a cutthroat MBA experience, Anderson is not the place for you. But if you’re looking for a collaborative environment where classmates will lend you a hand simply because you’re a fellow Bruin, you won’t regret spending your two years of business school here in Westwood.
Student Blogger: Mike Morgan ‘23
Undergrad: Lafayette College ‘16
Pre-MBA: Consulting Manager, FactSet Research Systems
Leadership@Anderson: President, Section B; Director of Prospective Student Affairs, Admissions Ambassador Corps; Director of Events, Association for Real Estate at Anderson (AREA); First Year Director, John Anderson Golf Club