The MBA Student Voice

Academic, Professional, Social, Oh My!

Happy Halloween, readers! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekends. We had an Anderson Halloween party on Friday night which was a blast! It was a great end to a busy and stressful week full of midterms. But that’s what’s great about business school. There is a good mix of academic, professional and social activities, and in my opinion, to get the most out of your experience, you have to participate in a combination of all three. Last Friday was a perfect example of this. We had our Marketing Management final at 8:00 in the morning. It lasted three and a half hours (brutal), but the best part? The best part is that they had mimosas waiting for us on the North Lawn afterward. What a great way to celebrate finishing three midterms and a final in one week.

After the mini celebration, I attended Deutsche Bank’s office hours. Office hours are chats with recruiters from firms that actively recruit on campus. I sat with another student and a recruiter from Deutsche Bank at a table at the local coffeehouse and talked for about 15 minutes. It’s a more personal way to interact with the recruiters. Also, it’s really a great way to find out more about the companies you are interested in and a fantastic way to network and meet people who could be the ones hiring you at some point! Anderson takes the recruiting process very seriously and the Parker Career Management Center tries to provide as many opportunities as possible for students to get the job/internship of their dreams. After an informative chat with an associate at DB’s LA office, I left the office hours feeling confident and headed to the library to study some investment banking interview questions with three classmates. We decided to meet every Friday for a couple hours to prepare for the interviews that we hope to have in January. Investment banking interviews are very structured and one can expect a mix of personal and technical questions, which is what we were studying.

After the study session in the library, I went home to get ready for the Halloween party. It was truly the best way to let off steam after midterms and a great end to a busy week. See what I mean about a mixture of academic, professional and social activities? I did all three in the same day and it’s not uncommon. This coming week, recruiting really picks up for investment banking with several corporate presentations on campus every single day, so I have to rest up for that. Until next time, I wish you a happy week and thanks for reading!

Kelly

Building Your Brand

Building a Brand is usually something you associate with companies, products, and even celebrities, but through the Parker Career Management Series, a weekly class in the Fall Quarter dedicated to developing career management skills, we have learned that building your OWN brand is a critical factor to your success.  

• How do you want people to perceive you?
• What adjectives would you like others to use to describe you?
• How can you effectively project those descriptions in a short period of time (like 30 seconds)?

These are things that we are learning are not only critical for networking and interviewing, but for your career as a whole.  Whether you are applying for higher education, a job, or just meeting new people, your ability to articulate who you are, what you value, and what your skills are can open new doors and opportunities that wouldn't have been available otherwise.  This isn't something that stops when you get a job either; in some industries you have to effectively network and sell yourself within your company to gain a spot on a desirable project.  Needless to say, time spent understanding who you are, what you value, and how you want others to see you is a valuable investment in your future.  

If you are a prospective student knee deep in writing your essays or are still brainstorming ideas, this is a perfect opportunity for you to start thinking about your own brand.  Who are you?  What are your key values and beliefs?  How do you interact with people and what kind of a lasting impression do you leave on them?  If you can effectively and authentically convey this in your application you will make it significantly stronger.  After you get into the school of your choice (hopefully UCLA Anderson) you can build on that to get the job of your dreams, or one step closer to it.

For readers out there I'd like to leave you with a challenge.  Take 10 minutes for each of these questions:

• What do you value? What's important in your life?
• How do others perceive you?  What adjectives would others use to describe you today?
• How do you want to be perceived?

After you've jotted down a few notes, think about how your chosen career path is in alignment with your values and what you can do to overcome any differences between how you're perceived and how you'd like to be perceived?

If you visit campus or have questions, be sure to ask students or our friendly Admissions staff about Parker Career Management Series and  its pivotal role at Anderson. 

Matt ('12)

'You friendly neighborhood Camper'

 

 

Unfortunately, Time To Get To Work

Firstly, I apologise to all of my regular readers for not chiming in sooner.  So much has happened since I last posted that I really don't know where to begin.  Second, a hearty thank you to my fellow first-year blogeteers for picking up the slack!  Hopefully they have entertained in my absence. 

So you are probably wondering...where have I been? 

First quarter of Year 2 is the meatand potatoes of the MBA experience.  Networking and career hunting take top billing; our field study projects -- the Anderson acronym for this is Applied Management Research or AMR -- heats up; classwork is all through electives which have a significantly different culture to the core classes.  All three of these have soaked up all of my time over the past couple of weeks.

More than anything, everyone in my year is at a high level of stress.  We all have come to realize that our MBA experience is drawing to a close, and the end product now has to justify the $200,000+ that we have spent on it. 

I wish all of my fellow second years the best of luck in their career processes.  The better that each one of us does, the better it is for our entire program.  For me personally, this all means one thing:

Time to get to work!

******

Having to get to work is something that my career shares with Wayne Rooney's. 

The Rooney fiasco was painful to watch.  Ultimately, it is now clear that (a) Rooney never intended to actually leave United, but that he was after a bigger contract, and (b) his agent has badly advised him.  Not only has Rooney lost tons of sponsorship money by damaging his brand, but also Rooney now has to contend with disapproving and disappointed teammates and fans that he will need to win back.

The only way he will be able to do that is to get back on the pitch as fast as possible, and produce goals in the way that he is capable of doing. 

******

The Glazer family took a massive public image hit as well.  Essentially, Rooney's criticism of the Glazers is the same as the fans' view. The average fan sees the amount of debt that the Glasers saddled the club with in their purchase and concluded that the lack of a "big name signing" is due to the club's debt service payments.

But let me put another spin on this issue: Since the takeover was finalized in 2005, United have won the Premiership three times, went to the Champions League final twice and winning once, and have captured both the FA Cup and the Carling Cup.  On the pitch, the case could be made that under the Glazer regime United have enjoyed their most successful five-year period in the club's rich history. 

So is it possible that the Glazers actually have done it right, that SAF truly does have the budget for any player in the world but just hasn't spotted genuine value?  Dennis Mannion, the former president of the LA Dodgers, came to speak on campus today; one of the things he mentioned was that any club that make on-field decisions based on marketing reasons is asking for trouble. 

Put another way - has Real Madrid earned anything on or off the pitch since they paid 80mm pounds for Cristiano Ronaldo?  Since Ronaldo headed for Spain, his career has plateaued - certainly not what Real Madrid thought they were getting when they broke every official rule and unwritten ethical code of conduct to get their man. 

Back to Rooney.  He will win the fans back pretty quickly, and hopefully he's bought enough rounds of (non-alcoholic?) pints to win the trust of his teammates again.  And when Real Madrid try to meddle and disrupt his career and commitment to United all over again, he can tell them to [expletives deleted].

Till next time!

-- Sreesha

Panic!

Midterms are here! This week is a blitzkrieg of review sessions, and the 1st year community is frantic. Economics and Statistics are without a doubt on everyone's mind right now. And while I'm certain these tests will be very difficult, I find myself really learning the subject matter well when studying and discussing the problems and applications of theories with my classmates and friends in the program.

The collegial learning environment is one of the aspects of MBA school I really looked forward to and the Anderson community has not let me down. No matter who we are, each of us has naturally found groups of people who we can trust and have meaningful and often insightful conversations with. Tonight I got together with 4 of my section mates, and we had a very productive, but totally impromptu, Economics study session, making sure to take Youtube breaks in between to share some laughs. This wasn't a group that I was assigned to worked with but over the course of our daily interaction, we just ended up together, crammed in a warm fishbowl on the 4th floor of the library, discussing elasticity of demand and it's relationship to marginal revenue.

Outside of class, fellow blogger Katie, myself and a group of committed powderhounds are in the middle of forming the Anderson Ski and Snowboard Club, which had gone dormant in recent years. You often read about B-schools enabling students to form student clubs, but I never thought it'd be ME who's starting a new club on campus. Once again, another example of how easy it can be to find like-minded individuals who share your interests who will help you mobilize and make an impact on the Anderson community. Pending review by the Anderson Student Association, our new club will be up and ready to ride come Winter quarter! I can't wait to be back on the mountain with my new classmates, and Economics and Statistics exams will be but a faint, distant memory!

--ML

An Ode to the Anderson 2nd Years

I have got to hand it to them.  2nd year MBA students at Anderson know how to generously 'pay it forward' for the benefit of the 1st years at Anderson.  

In one way or another, business school stretches the new student's ability to adapt, transform, and grow within a relatively short period of time.  On day one, we hit the ground running hard and fast.  The changes in environment come in many forms: new classes, new subjects, new faces, new social outlets, new career aspirations, new expectations, new resources, new love interests, and a torrent of event announcements flooding our inboxes at the rate of 100+ emails a day.  Comfort zones are shattered left and right.  24 hours never feels sufficient, as the options to fill our time abound and every appointment penciled into our calendars comes with a palpable opportunity cost.  Our brains generate an endless stream of questions and we realize that we need someone to help take the fire hose out of our mouths.

Where do we go?

Two words:

Second Years.

Talk about adding value to a campus.  While they are some of the busiest people at Anderson, second years make themselves incredibly available.  Here are only some of the ways they do it:

* Anderson Career Team (ACT) Coaches:  On a weekly/bi-weekly basis, over 60 second year students volunteer their time to mentor and advise 30+ industry/function-specific teams of first year students in their career pursuits.  The teams work together to review resumes, polish networking skills, and motivate each other to secure a summer internship.  My ACT coaches, Justin and Matt, have been phenomenal to date.

* Club Leadership: Anderson is a heavily student-run campus, and it's the second years who have the institutional knowledge to make things happen, and therefore do most of the heavy lifting. 

* Coffee Chats/Informational Interviews: On a weekday afternoon in Roma (Anderson's central cafe), I often see tables saturated with pairs of MBA students (one first year & one second year) chatting about a wide range of topics: summer internships, company and industry insights, recruiting advice, "can't miss" club events, candid professor assessments, case competition coaching, where to get a quality haircut or car wash, etc.

When you get in to Anderson and arrive on campus next year, don't forget to show your second years some love.  They truly deserve it.

-- Jesse Ferlianto ('12)

 

* Picture of Section C (first year class is divided into 5 sections) after being awarded the coveted Section Cup during orientation.  We were led by two fantastic second year orientation leaders: Andrew and Stef!

Anderson's Amazing Facilities

UCLA Anderson has many qualities that makes it a top-tier University; our Faculty, extremely talented and diverse student body, global network, and limitless career opportunities.  In addition, one of UCLA Anderson's hidden gems is our amazing Facilities.  I am currently spending close to 12 hours on campus every day attending classes, meeting with my learning team, and studying, and I cannot over emphasize how important it is to have facilities that easily support our Full-Time MBA class of over 700 1st and 2nd year students.

While there are many facility resources that I feel are invaluable and should definitely be taken into consideration for prospective students, I want to focus on the Rosenfield Library, because it really impressed me when I visited Anderson last Fall and it is where I find myself spending most of my time studying and meeting our learning teams.

Part of the UCLA Anderson campus, the Rosenfield Library has tons of resources for research and 4 floors of studying space that meet your every need.

• 1st floor "The Vault"- The first floor of the Rosenfield Library reminds me of studying in a Bank Vault (which I've actually been in before).  It is  very quiet and there is an odd stillness, but it is a perfect place is you're looking to minimize distractions or just get away from the hustle and bustle of everything.
• 2nd floor "The Max" - The second floor is my 2nd favorite floor and has become my go-to spot for studying.  It's aesthetically very pleasing, has soft lights, there is plenty of space to sit at tables, and has many learning team pods that we can reserve.  The second floor reminds me of "The Max" from "Saved by the Bell", because of all the action that's going on there.  While everyone gets a lot of work done, there's quite a bit of traffic, and it's a great place to make impromptu evening plans after a hard day of classes and studying.
  • In addition to the resources in the Library on the 2nd floor, we also have access to 2 drop-in study rooms and a full computer lab with huge monitors.  The drop-in study rooms are spacious study areas with mounted flat panel monitors that are perfect for going over group project and meeting with up to 6 people.  The only problems with the drop-in pods is that they're not reservable and can sometimes fill up fast during the week.  I haven't had a problem finding an open one on the weekend though or later in the afternoons.

• 3rd Floor - The 3rd floor is the main entrance to to the Rosenfield Library and has plenty of tables where you can really spread out if you're one of those people that likes to do so (like me).  There are also public computers that everyone can use.
• 4th Floor - "First Class" - The 4th floor is by far my favorite floor.  On the 4th floor you can utilize our learning team pods (each with a flat panel monitor), reserve study cubbies, or just relax in one of our comfy chairs with rolling ottomans.  There's also a little perk that only current UCLA Anderson MBA students have access to it.  It's just one of the extra thing that makes us feel like we're really getting the most value for our resources on campus.

If you're a prospective student, I highly encourage you to take the time to take a tour of our buildings and facilities.  I'm sure you'll be just as impressed as I was. 

Alice, Jen, and Alex taking a quick break to pose for pics on the 2nd floor "The Max".

Arun, Cristina, and Anushka studying hard.  Friday afternoon...that must be Econ homework Arun is working on.

-Matt Camp

"Your friendly neighborhood Camper"

A Productive Day

Yesterday is a perfect example of what my life has been like as a first-year here at Anderson. After an invigorating* 8AM session of Financial Accounting followed by an exciting* discussion of Marketing Management, I went to an information session regarding the Knapp Venture Competition, a fantastic opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs offered here at UCLA Anderson. The Knapp Venture Competition, put on by the Harold and Pauline Price Center for Entrepreneurship, allows students to create business plans for their own ideas and present them to local venture capitalists, angel investors and entrepreneurs, and even win prize money to help launch these ideas. I hope to participate in the competition myself, and am looking out for the deadlines so I can be sure to become a part of it.

After the Knapp info session I headed straight to Managerial Economics class, and then to my ACT meeting for investment banking, my main career focus at this point in time. What is ACT, you ask?  ACT stands for Anderson Career Team. ACT groups are industry-based career groups that consist of two second-year students in a particular industry/function and several first-year students who want to pursue a similar career path. These teams are invaluable in helping us first-years get ready to recruit for jobs. Our coaches help us with everything from resume editing to interview practice to networking strategies. The second-years have just finished internships in the fields we want to recruit in and there is no one else I’d want in my corner.

After my ACT group, I had a couple hours to do some homework and then it was time to head to the Investment Finance Association’s Investment Banking Career Night. That’s a mouthful. As my colleague, ML, mentioned in his post, this consists of several Anderson students networking with representatives from top investment banks. It’s no easy task to capture a banker’s attention and strike up a meaningful conversation, but that is what I attempted to do and boy, was it nerve-wracking! When it was all over, I could finally call it a day. To say that I am busy is an understatement, but I sure am having a blast. B school life is getting more and more interesting by the minute.

Kelly 
*Note sarcasm

Lean on Me, When You Don't Know Accounting...

This week I had my first bschool midterm, Financial Accounting. Now, I'd like to say that I played it calm and cool and was totally composed and ready to tackle all those financial statements. That I strutted down the hallway holding my Accounting book confidently in my arms. However, that would probably be the furthest thing from the truth. I was terrified. Terrified that I would do terribly.

I've never taken Accounting, but luckily for me many of my classmates had. Over the course of the last week, I've had many offers of help. I knew Anderson was not the type of place where people tear out pages from books in the library to get ahead - and it really showed this week. It seemed like everyone banded together to help each other get through our first exam. Even people who were not in my class because (they waived out) offered their time to run study sessions and help with individual questions. It was great to see all this teamwork in action. I even got some extra help from a second-year student who tutors - a free service that Anderson provides.

I don't know yet how I did, but I do know one thing: I did much better than I would have because of my wonderful classmates and friends!

- Katie

Texas -> New York -> Los Angeles

Hi, I'm Mark Chu, another first year student blogger excited to share what life looks like as an MBA student. Wanted to quickly introduce myself in my first post; I was born and raised in Texas, graduated from the University of Texas at Austin (yes, I'm still severely depressed after the loss to UCLA this year), and I spent the last 3 years working in advertising in New York City. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in the ad industry, and no, I did not have a bottle of scotch sitting in my office or an unlimited supply of Lucky Strikes.

Most of my colleagues strategically chose their schools based on academic strengths and potential careers offered, whereas my selection process was this: one east coast school (NYU), one west coast school (UCLA), or become a Longhorn once again. Even though coming back to school was a tough decision, and deciding on a school was an even tougher decision, my experience at UCLA Anderson has been incredible thus far. 

Stay tuned and I encourage you to read the blog posts from my colleagues!

M

2 weeks in and yet another fun-filled weekend

This has been an especially busy weekend full of fun events and a lot of studying!  On to the sharing...

After a Young Hollywood part in Hollywood after class on Thursday I spent the better part of friday morning meeting with my learning team to do homework on campus. I met other classmates and some Adcoms for our first Social Media Ambassadors meeting and then loads more studying.  After my brain was filled to the brim with Debits, Credits, and Journal Entries, I went with a few other Anderpeeps (Anderson peeps) to Knott's Scary Farm.  While we realized that we may have been a tad older than the average audience, the rides were still fun at night and the costumes were definitely impressive.  

On to Saturday, it was a gorgeous day, but sadly filled with lots more studying.   I even had to cancel on plans to see The Social Network.  Such is the life of a first quarter MBA student.  I did make time to go to Section G's first get together where I got to finally spend some time with both 1st and 2nd year LGBT students.  When I got home I got to really relax with a couple episodes of 30 rock on Netflix.

It's now Sunday and I got up early to head to Santa Monica Pier where a bunch of Anderson students were volunteering at the Special Olympics Pier del Sol event.  I ran a booth which was a variation of whack-a-mole and we gave tons of prizes to awesome kids.  I'm in-between a couple things right now, but shortly I've got to run back to campus to meet with a team and prep for the Reaching Out Case Competition.  The case looks like a lot of fun and I'm excited to work with my team on it.

Matt Camp

'Your friendly neighborhood Camper'