About Arjun: Arjun Rajesh (’23) is a true “citizen of the world” growing up in Hong Kong, Canada, and the United States. He graduated from Babson College with a Bachelors in Business Administration and focused on corporate strategy. Post-undergrad, Arjun worked at FedEx as an internal strategist before shifting to become a founding member of FedEx’s new data science arm, helping drive an enterprise-wide digital transformation. At Anderson, Arjun will use the learnings he derived from transforming one of the world’s largest companies across a wider spectrum of verticals by shifting to a career in Management Consulting.
Why should one pursue an MBA? The opportunity to career pivot, change locations and 2x a salary are all common but very fair reasons. Another is the vaunted “network” but what does that really mean? Does it mean in 20 years you will have a close contact in senior leadership at most of the Fortune 500? Sure (nah). Does it mean you will rub shoulders with a future unicorn founder who will one day hire you as an overpaid brand consultant? Likely for the former part, less likely for the latter. Does it mean that you now have access to inspirational alumni who are doing incredible things in the field and will personally invest in your success? Okay, this one’s actually pretty true, both here at Anderson and at many other programs as well.
How about this one: one should pursue an MBA to learn. Wait wait wait don’t click away! I promise I have a point here. I know between your various undergraduate degrees, Master’s programs, flight schools, culinary academies, Hogwarts, semi-supervised independent studies and schools of hard knocks you have learned plenty at this point, but I’ve got one noticeable distinction for you. At those other institutions, you learned from a teacher (or football coach depending on what part of the country you’re from). At an MBA program, you learn from your peers. Think about it, an MBA program is the densest concentration of talented people in your age that you will likely ever experience. Each of them comes with a diverse background and 4+ years of genuine field experience and you will spend a fair bit of time with them academically, professionally, and socially.
Don’t get me wrong. You will have amazing professors too, irrespective of where you chose to enroll. Just about all of my professors are wildly respected in their fields and the only limit to what you can learn from them is your own time and mental capacity. But I don’t spend 8 hours straight with them working on a high-pressure deliverable. I don’t go through painstaking details to plan club events with them. I don’t study alongside them in preparation for their exam (if I did, someone should probably call Academic Services). I do all that with my peers, and that is where much of the learning comes from.
At UCLA Anderson, we have operationalized the peer-to-peer learning benefit by creating designated “learning teams”: fixed teams of 6 who you will complete all of your assignments with over the course of the first year. I know what you’re thinking - sounds like an absolute nightmare right? I was skeptical when I found this out too, but I am happy to report that my learning team experience has been the best part of my time at Anderson! Instead of your typical miserable group project on loop, our team spends hours together on end mostly spent laughing and somehow we wind up with a super high quality deliverable and learn plenty from each other along the way. How’s that for networking?
I appreciate your readership and would love to make this real for you by telling you about the five people who have taught me so much in just four short months. Without further ado, introducing the E5 Bee-Hive!
The E5 “Beehive” from left to right: Yonghwan, Tommy, Yours Truly, Emily, Karen, and Ali
YONGHWAN “OPPA” CHOI:
The senior-most member of our team, our “Oppa” hails from South Korea where he previously served in the Korean Air Force and led data science efforts for the Korean Customs Office in a senior role. Now at Anderson, he will be pivoting to a career in operations for big tech where his previous leadership experience and data science efforts will serve him very well.
What I learned from Yonghwan: Yonghwan is fluent in 4 languages: English, Korean, R, and Economics. Everything I know about R and Econ comes from Yonghwan. I have also appreciated his wisdom regarding matters like avoiding toxic workplaces and responding to failure.
Fun story about Yonghwan: Our team has a shared fund where we make a small dollar contribution every time we teach Yonghwan something NSFW. We will use this fund for a team dinner at the end of the year. We will be eating well.
TOMMY “TOMTOM” JIANG:
There are a lot of people I never would have met without Anderson but Tommy probably tops the list. Originally from Chicago, Tommy is a dual-degree MD-MBA, said differently, he’s literally going to be a full-fledged Doctor of Medicine who also has an MBA. Smart money is on him opening up his own highly successful practice and using the business skills he picked up to complement topflight medical expertise. I should probably mention that Tommy is going to be a urologist – yes, it is ok to laugh, we’ve made just about every joke there is.
What I learned from Tommy: The most serious jobs require a sense of humor. Always back a smart person who learns lightning quick even if they don’t have conventional business experience. Also - very specific instances in which one needs to see a urologist ASAP.
Fun story about Tommy: In a nod to his profession, our team got Tommy a certain plushie for his birthday and delivered it to him in the middle of class. Will leave it at that.
EMILY “E!” HUD:
Our team’s closest thing to a native Californian, Emily has been here on the West Coast for the past 10 years. Before Anderson, Emily was a CPA, working in big 4 accounting at KPMG and then later in corporate finance at Clorox. With a detailed understanding of the financial levers required to operate a company and the CPG segment, Emily will likely transition to a marketing role for prominent beauty brand, combining the aforementioned financial skills with a creative lens.
What I learned from Emily: How to maximize a diverse team. Not to rely on abstract factors and to use logic when solving complex business problems. The importance of having friends with different perspectives.
Fun story about Emily: Emily is helping me get rid of my natural discomfort around dogs with the help of her pup, Kurt. Also, she’s the one who came up with the “Bee-Hive” name! Royalties apply.
KAREN “Kay-Z” ZHANG:
Hailing from China, Karen joins us from a past-life in CPG marketing, where she was a brand manager at Procter & Gamble. Now at Anderson, she will use her past marketing expertise and creative genes to make a pivot to tech marketing. Her deep consumer understanding and experience with bringing new products to market positions her to be in high demand come recruiting time.
What I learned from Karen: Karen is probably the smartest person on our team and we literally have a doctor. After countless late-night hours of arguing about accounting, I learned Karen is pretty much always right and to just listen to her. She also joined like 10 clubs and is a fantastic reminder for me to keep trying new things and bring natural energy and curiosity.
Fun story about Karen: I have hired Karen as my entirely commission-based agent for my dating life. Reach out to her with any inquiries.
ALI “No nickname yet” AL-MOULAH:
Ali got his start in the oil and gas sector, working at Schlumberger and Halliburton across the oil fields of Texas all the way to his home country of Kuwait. He’s going to join the good fight (no bias here) by pivoting to a career in consulting with an eye on his home market in the Middle East. With detailed knowledge of the energy sector, Ali projects to be a really strong consultant as the industry prioritizes ESG and the needs of Middle East clients.
What I learned from Ali: Ali went from > 300 pounds to a champion-level Iron Man. His motivation and dedication are massively inspiring to me, and I push myself to emulate him in my life as a future consultant.
Fun story about Ali: Ali and I once won a piggy-back relay race as part of our Section Olympics. He doesn’t talk about it much but I tell everyone I literally (physically) carried an iron-man. Also, he once invited the rapper “Russ” to his house and the man actually showed up.
Student Blogger: Arjun Rajesh ‘24
Undergrad: Babson College (’18) – B.S. Business Administration
Pre-MBA: Digital Transformation at FedEx
Leadership@Anderson: Director of Yield & Special Projects, Admission Ambassador Corps; Director of Days-on-the-Job & Special Events, Management Consulting Association
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