The MBA Student Voice

Midterms

So the first years are currently knee deep in midterms. Accounting and economics are now under our belts with the Marketing final (at UCLA Anderson we have Marketing everyday for the first two months, followed by Financial Markets everyday for the rest of the quarter) and the Statistics midterm Monday. You can check out the first year curriculum here.

Coming from a non-quant background (I majored in politics in undergrad followed by law school) I anticipated that these core courses which we take in the first quarter would be a challenge. It certainly hasn't disappointed. This may sound funny, but one of the biggest adjustments for me has been to come to grips with the idea that in these classes, there's a "right answer". Coming from the liberal arts and law side of things, I was used to writing essays and analyzing cases. It was a new type of stress taking the accounting and economics midterms knowing that there was a definitive answer.

Being exposed to these topics for the first time, my knowledge has grown tremendously since the start of school. But I admit I sometimes find myself feeling envious of some of my colleagues who have a business background and seem to pick things up more quickly. Luckily there hasn't been a lack of colleagues offering to help me get through what are hopefully temporary growing pains. Good thing I've been trained in the corporate law firm experience and am used to putting in some long hours.

Speaking of which, I should get back to the books....

--JP

~I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman! ~ Homer J. Simpson

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!

Am I A Fool?

Please hear me out before answering…  In my first post, I explained that my main motivation for attending Anderson’s MBA program is corporate finance in healthcare.  While I am still interested in corporate finance, I must say that attending business school has been a real eye-opening experience so far.  The reason is very simple: mostly everything I am studying is new to me.  For example, one of my epiphanies occurred during Accounting, when I finally made the connection between the last line on the income statement and the (until-then) mysterious “bottom line” expression I’ve heard so many times before.  I also enjoy the theoretical aspects of Economics, although I question how feasible it is to collect data to test these theories.  But my greatest surprise so far has been Marketing.

Like most people, my marketing experience until now has been limited to ads, so I thought that marketing was just another word for advertising.  I now realize that there is a significant strategic component behind marketing, and I’ve discovered that functions like brand or product management for a biotech company are also an excellent way to leverage my scientific background.  How?  The obvious example is sales: you must understand your product in order to sell it, and I have an edge in that area because understanding the science behind the product will come easily to me.  The less obvious example has to do with interacting with the research and development team; it helps to understand the language of scientists and engineers, and to already think the way they think.

Last week, Abbott came to Anderson to talk about their marketing MBA summer internship program, and it was an excellent presentation.  Abbott is a large, global healthcare company with pharmaceutical, nutritional, and medical products.  Now that I understand accounting a little better, it is very impressive to see how its sales and operating income have been increasing since 2004 to reach $30 billion and $6 billion respectively in 2008.  According to Abbott, its marketing interns are directly linked to a domestic or international business unit. Interns work on projects that impact the business, and provide them with a broad perspective of the healthcare industry.  And so I’m left considering marketing as well as corporate finance, which really doesn’t help since I am widening my options.  But then, only fools never change their minds, right?

–Simon

Warning! Incoming Cold Call!

So I received my first cold call this week, in Managerial Economics.  And, of course, it had to happen the morning after I slept a grand total of 15 minutes thanks to having to get assignments done and to just not being able to sleep.  

Not that I'm making excuses. 

It must have been quite clear to the professor that I was having a hard time staying awake during class.  I didn't help my own cause much by getting to class later than others and therefore having to sit in Row 2; I'm easily a back-row guy both from personality and academics.  Here's a tip: if you think the professor can't see you blinking and nodding heavily, you are wrong.  So I should have guessed that a cold call was coming my way at some point during class. 

I wasn't as bad as Alex Ovechkin singing the Eastern Motors jingle but it wasn't a million miles away from that.  The question was about an article in the Wall Street Journal that we were meant to have read and analyzed before class. I had read it but as the professor surely knew I hadn't analzyed it much.

Prof: "Why would they follow this strategy?"

Me: "To gain market share."

Prof: "Why do they want market share?" 

Me: "Because they want profits."

Prof: "Do they want all profits?"

Me: "uhhhh...no....uhm, they want profits until Marginal Cost equals Marginal Revenue." (Class erupts in laughter.) 

Prof: "Do they want short-term profits?"

Me: "Yes, I mean...no, they want long-term profits." 

That's the answer he was looking for.  The professor went on to say that he wasn't just pushing back at me, but that he wanted us to understand what type of push-back we may experience in an interview.  I appreciated that, but like Henrik Lundqvist must have felt after giving up this goal to Niklas Backstrom last week, I wish I had that one back. 

Capitals update: 4-2-2.  Wished we had played better against New York Rangers and Detroit, but this would put us on pace for 41 wins and 102 points at the end of the season so not panicking just yet.  

'Till next time, keep Rocking the Red, whereever you are! 

-- Sreesha

Marginal Competitive Advantage

One thing Anderson MBA students do is join an Anderson Career Team (ACT), a small group of 10-12 first years.  Led by a second year who guides us through our internship search, these teams revolve around either an industry or a function.  For example, while I considered joining the corporate finance ACT, I finally went for the healthcare one.  I find ACT meetings useful because they allow me to meet people with healthcare experience and share the internship-search workload with others.  We also discuss related topics, such as the need to send a thank you note to an interviewer after an interview.  The consensus seems to be that, while nobody likes to do it, you should do it anyway.  This of course brings me to our topic – marginal competitive advantage.

The quest for a marginal competitive advantage is akin to installing battery operated sound effects and twinkling stars in the background of your dinosaur shoebox diorama in the 2nd grade.  The idea is that, when facing tremendous competition, the little things will give you an edge.  Was it always so?  Well, I know an engineer who, laid off after 25 years of loyal service, must write cover letters for the first time in his life when applying for jobs.  Unfortunately for him, someone had an idea to differentiate himself sometime between now and two decades ago, and now we all have to write cover letters and thank-you notes.  In some way, we are all held hostage by the next guy who will raise the bar by coming up with a new marketing stunt to make an impression.  This raises the question: “What hoops will we have to jump through to get a job twenty years from now?”

In 2029, we will have to include a box of chocolates with each resume we send.  In order to better connect with the interviewer, our cover letters will end with “Big Love” instead of “Best Regards”.  Actually, cover letters and resumes won’t be electronic anymore because, let’s face it, e-mails are so 2009 and who has time to read the tens of thousands they receive anyway?  Instead, job applicants will hire people to intercept interviewers on their way to work, sing their resume, and maybe even top it off with a nice back rub.  We will also notice the emergence of a new trend: candidates bringing a bottle of wine or flowers to the interview.  Finally, we will prepare engraved gold thank-you placards written in haiku format, and make sure to send one to interviewers AND their immediate family.  So, you see, it’s good to live in 2009!

–Simon

Week 2/2.5 Orientation - Recap

Week 2/2.5 of orientation may have occurred about 3 weeks ago but I'm just getting around to blogging about it now. The reason for the lag? Mounds upon mounds of readings, assignments, club events, speakers, and info sessions. As soon as orientation ended, everything hits REALLY FAST. But that will be the basis of a later post. For now, we'll reminisce about the good times we had during week 2 /2.5 week of orientation. Specifically I'll highlight 2 events.

Section Olympics -

All incoming students are placed in one of 5 sections. The people in your section attend all the required classes together during first year. Section Olympics pits sections against each other in a variety of events: kick-ball, trivia, volleyball and dodgeball to mention but a few. Below is pic of Section B decked out in our theme gear (Indiana Jones) and Lena, in official mascot garb (B is BANANAS!!).

Section B either dominated or was dominated in the events and did not end up winning the Section Olympics, but good times were had by all.

The 80s Party -

Capping off orientation is the legendary "80s Party". The name pretty much sums it, as does the picture below. Pictured in order from left to right are: Edison, Nadine, Kate, me and Michi. Nadine, Kate, Michi and I are part of the same Learning Team. We work on all group assignments together in the first quarter. More on learning teams later, but the 80s Party was VERY good times.

Now that orientation is over, the gloves are fully off now and the reality of business has firmly set in. What's that like? Keep coming back to MBA Student Voice to find out.

--JP

~ Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads.~ Dr. Emmett Brown, from Back to the Future

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!

Mad Crazy Biz

I have never been this busy.  Crazy enough, business school is busy.  Who knew and why didn't they tell me?  Why have I been so busy?  Well, first off, contrary to the fun and games and camp-like atmosphere of Orientation, school itself is time consuming.  But let me back up a bit.  I am striving to make my posts especially helpful to two kinds of prospective students:  creative types and New Yorkers.  This post relates more to the former.  You know, a person who probably studied History or English in college and can actually express him or herself using the written word, but doesn't know a thing about Excel (ie. you think it simply puts words and numbers in tidy rows and columns) or equity research ("You research how to make things equal?  That's really great!  We should allocate more resources to that wonderful goal!").

Needless to say, I'm that guy.  And if you're that guy or gal too, you're probably a bit apprehensive about using a part of your brain that's remained dormant for years.  Well, turns out, you should be.  But not too much.  You see, Anderson starts you off with four core classes, three of which are Accounting, Managerial Economics, and Data and Decisions (statistics).  You know how you'd have maybe one really hard class each semester in college?  Try taking four of them at once.  These courses are challenging even if you've been exposed to the material before, and especially if you nearly wrote an undergraduate thesis on the naval campaign in the Pacific during WWII and subsequently interviewed bands and actors for a living before attending business school.  And they are also time consuming.  Beyond my own personal study time, there's plenty of learning team meetings where group projects are completed (I spent about 10 hours with my group this weekend, at least).  However, despite this perhaps dour sounding scene, I believe my head is above water.  So, if there's some hope for me, there is probably some for you as well.  Of course, this could all change at the drop of a hat.

Back to the busy-ness.  In addition to classes, there are clubs.  I've joined my fair share and they are consistently having meetings about something and I want to be there.  That means that after class, I'm sticking around school for several hours for any number of reasons, be it a section meeting, a speaker series, a presentation, or a discussion panel.   

Making matters worse, but really better actually, people around here like to have fun.  And they go out.  There are opportunities to go out almost everyday, and it's tough to say no.  For instance, this past Saturday, I went to UCLA/Oregon game at the Rose Bowl.  As a graduate of Columbia, I have no concept of attending a school that actually cares about its sports program.  Even though there was a Marketing project due tomorrow morning, I had to go.  It was a moral imperative.  And it was awesome, except for the part where we gave up two touchdowns in 26 seconds at the start of the second half.  We were up 3-0 at the half, I went to the restroom, ate some macho nachos, and was a bit late getting back to my seat, but I thought the guy who said we were down 11 as I was walking back was making a horrible joke.  That kinda killed the buzz, but odds are I'll be there next week for the Cal game. 

The main point is, it's intense here.  I'm trying to walk the fine line between boning up on the subjects I never learned in college (but not so much that I'm in the library constantly), participating in clubs to help with the networking process (ie. getting a job), and having fun.  It's a tough equilibrium to establish.  Not sure I've succeeded yet.  And let's not forget about my comprehensive television watching schedule.  Sundays and Thursdays are killer.  Those nights alone add 10 hours to my DVR.  That's like 3 classes!  Something might have to give.  Or the day must be lengthened to 36 hours (I'm gonna work on that one for now).

The DaVita Way

At this point, astute readers might suspect that I am on DaVita’s payroll since this is my THIRD post about this company.  Let me assure you that this Anderson MBA student is every bit as penniless as he was last week.  But since I am just back from a “day on the job” event at DaVita’s corporate headquarters where I was well-fed, which is the primary need of any graduate student, DaVita shall be today’s topic – yet again!  Note that students from USC – our archrival – also participated in the event, but no brawl ensued…

So a group of about 30 students showed up midmorning at Casa DaVita, the corporate headquarters, located in El Segundo, CA.  There, VPs explained opportunities at DaVita through their leadership development program and told DaVita’s remarkable recovery story.  We toured the headquarters and, since DaVita is a dialysis services provider, we also visited a dialysis clinic.  Overall, it was a very interesting and enlightening day, and I finally found the best way to articulate why this company is so different: DaVita strives to humanize work and the work place.  Let me explain how it became apparent.

On the inside, the Casa is a relatively large, airy building.  Since HQ employees rarely meet patients, enormous tapestries featuring pictures of actual patients hang from the high ceiling to remind employees of the purpose of their work.  Actually, there are no employees at DaVita’s, only teammates, and each division has been renamed to sound more fun.  For example, the legal division is called the Justice League.  Doing so makes sense since “fun” is one of DaVita’s core values.  Moreover, many walls at the Casa are ornamented with murals that were designed by teammates at clinics to represent the company culture.  You would be amazed to see the amount of work and the level of artistry that some of them represent.  DaVita is also very involved in the community, here and abroad, and I encourage you to read their community care book if you care about corporate responsibility.

I’ll now do something I never do in any of my posts: write a fourth paragraph!  If you are “too cool for school” and think DaVita sounds cheesy, or tacky even, you are completely missing the point.  I have visited the headquarters and I have met with the staff and what I am telling you is that, as a result, I believe that this company is true to its mission to be the provider, partner and employer of choice.  Did I drink the DaVita Kool Aid?  Maybe a little.  But if, like me, you are on the skeptical, cynical side of things, you know how exciting it is to finally find something for which you could stand.

–Simon

Knock! Knock!

They say you better be ready when opportunity finally comes knocking on your door, but it doesn’t seem to apply to Anderson’s MBA program.  Here, you see, opportunity is a 300-pound sumo wrestler who will knock down your door and throw you in the street in your underwear.  At least that is the way it has felt to me so far.  The following is a list of professional opportunities that were made available to me during the last week only.  Granted, they might not all lead to something, but my point is that finding them was exceedingly easy; I either sent an e-mail or received an e-mail.  Keep in mind that I just started the program.

The first thing I did was to write to a few second year students to discuss their summer internship.  Next thing I know, I was speaking to the president of DCF Ventures, a consulting company that seeks to help researchers on campus commercialize their inventions.  I did not come to Anderson with that kind of career in mind, but considering my experience as a mad scientist I would find it very interesting.  I have applied for an academic internship with DCF, and we will see if I am selected.  In addition, second year students have allowed me to start making contacts at Amgen.

As you might remember, the CEO of DaVita made a strong impression on me, and I am hoping to visit Davita’s facility as early as next Friday.  If I am selected for DaVita’s Day on the Job event, I will get to visit the local facility, lunch with people who work there, and have my questions answered directly by the company.  Finally, I just participated in an All-Anderson networking event, where I met a fully employed MBA student with interesting ties to a growing tutoring company.  It’s just that easy!

–Simon