The MBA Student Voice

It's Always Sunny in California

I remember the day like it was yesterday. "Evan, we've got a great opportunity for you in Vancouver!" As an east-coaster, my body numbed at the thought of leaving behind my friends and family in the only coast I had ever known. It was 2009 and the 2010 Winter Olympics were on the horizon. What better time to try something new and push myself? I had spent my entire life between Toronto and Montreal, almost entirely surrounded by familiar friends and family, and the move to Vancouver would present a new opportunity. I had a day to decide whether or not I would accept the offer, and before talking it over with anyone, I turned to my then-boss and said "I'd be foolish not to do this. I'll take it!"

I now face the prospect of an entirely different sort of move. A self-initiated, international move down the coast to not only a new city and country, but a shift in lifestyle from budding young professional back to humble student. Moving to Vancouver taught me a lot about not only what I love in a city, but also how to find what I love. Having known since April that I would be moving to Los Angeles to pursue my MBA at UCLA Anderson, I promised myself that I would use this summer to best position myself to embrace the change that would soon be upon me.

I needed money for school, but I had become disconnected from my current job as I knew that my upcoming education was a way to change my professional direction. Naturally, I quit my job and decided my summer would be better spent working at a golf course pro shop four days a week. Free time and cheap golf were higher priority benefits to me than stock options and health care. My golf game has not improved at all. 

I had to learn to adapt to a tighter budget, knowing that I wouldn't be receiving a bi-weekly pay cheque anymore, so I bought a car as well as tickets to Coachella 2012, justifying them as 'essential elements of the California experience'.

Moving to Vancouver has forced me to be proactive in learning to love my new environment and taking advantage of what an area has to offer in food, music and travel. I plan to share what I uncover as I prepare myself to not only survive as a transitioning MBA student, but a new  California resident. I've created bucket lists before, but never documented or consciously pursued them. With hundreds of others going through the same transition as I am, I thought this would be a great way to log easy and spontaneous food and adventure ideas to help myself and others fall in love with Southern Cailfornia.

Week 1 - Food: The Grilled Cheese Truck

Things I like - butter, cheese, additional cheese, and bread. What better way to indulge and all of these concurrently than a great grilled cheese sandwich. And why make one at home when you can follow a food truck that clearly does it better. The Grilled Cheese Truck (http://www.thegrilledcheesetruck.com) offers $3 sandwiches if you want to go on the simple, or $7.50 masterpieces should you choose to indulge in something more extravagant like the Cheesy Mac and Rib - with macaroni, cheese, barbecued pork and caramelized onions.

Week 1 - Adventure: Revisit Yosemite National Park

I first visited Yosemite as a teenager, not mature or patient enough to appreciate elements that were apparently the foundation of Ansel Adams' portfolio. I'm eager to fill my car with others who want to help me revisit Mariposa Grove, Sentinel Dome and El Capitain. Requirements include a love of good road trip music, a desire for In-N-Out, and a good sense of humour (note the Canadian spelling).

Can't wait to see who I tackle this bucket list with as it expands, and hope everyone is having a wonderful summer so far!

Cheers!

Evan

I begin to feel like I belong...

I am writing this in good spirits even though Federer did not play Sunday's Wimbledon finals. Djokovic's sublime display against Nadal was heart warming.

I hail from the IT capital of India, which is now sadly an infamous moniker for its usage in the English language - Bangalore. I could easily be the person (at least one of the teeming thousands) you would imagine working at their cubicles in the offices of the Yahoos, Googles or MSs, while reading the introduction chapter of Thomas Friedman's famous first book. Literally by the way, I do work on that campus in front of the golf course where he got his epiphany about the new trends in globalization.  

Though, my life has been anything but 'Flat' for the last four years since I started working at Goldman Sachs or even before that. 

I was recruited out of an engineering college, what a surprise!, where I was to graduate in Electronics, to work as a software engineer, but to build applications for the financial industry. I was trained in New York (did visit LA and Las Vegas over the Labour weekend!) and have since worked in various equity trading technology sub divisions in Bangalore. 

I have played Badminton since '94 and have been lucky to carry this passion through school, college and my corporate life. I am really excited about all the sports and outdoor activities we are going to have on campus. Just in case anyone is wondering if something is wrong with me, I love our national passion - Cricket too! 

I am going to reign in my excitement to share too much too soon. I would like to say that I am happy to share this blog space with our past, present and future contributors and more importantly, all our readers. Hope this blog becomes a repository of all our good memories which we can keep coming back to many years from now. 

Cheers,

RB

Just Admitted: Pre-MBA Experience at UCLA Anderson

I'm a recent admit of the full-time MBA program here at Anderson. Originally from the Ukraine and later San Francisco Bay Area, I cannot wait to make the transition down to LA and keep you guys posted on what it’s like to be a b.student at UCLA Anderson. Housing is in-the-works (driving to LA this 4th of July weekend to look at neighborhoods), first homework assignment is in hand (accounting), recruiting for 2012 summer internships is already underway and all of this is weeks before classes begin. Exciting!

 

UCLA Anderson Here I Come!

My name is Charlotte Baxter, and I am absolutely thrilled to be a student blogger representing UCLA Anderson and the Class of 2013! You'll be hearing a lot from me over the next two years, so it seems the best place to start is with an introduction.

I grew up in Atlanta, GA and attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 2002. I worked on Wall Street at UBS for the next couple of years but ultimately decided that finance was not my calling. For the last six years, I worked as a real estate developer of hotels for a REIT based in Palm Beach, FL. However, although the home office was there, my territory encompassed regions as far-flung as Seattle, Long Island, DC and San Diego. So I traveled a lot!

One of the perks of my job, although I didn't know it at the time, was that I had a project obtaining the entitlements for a hotel in El Segundo, which is in Los Angeles just south of LAX. Frequent trips to LA over the course of two years introduced me to the city, and I fell in love with the amazing weather and the many unique towns that make up LA as a whole, particularly the charming and beautiful beach towns of Hermosa and Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica.

When I was accepted at UCLA Anderson, I already knew that LA would be a fantastic place to spend two (or more) years!

Other sound bites about me: I am undecided if I want to stay in real estate, but I do want to leverage my MBA to start my own company, I am recently engaged and my fiance (who owns an e-commerce company that specializes in hotel marketing) will be moving with me to LA, and I am an avid marathoner and triathlete.

Over the next couple of months, I am going to bring you with me on my journey as I plan and execute my cross country move from south Florida to Los Angeles, which is already proving to be a formidable task! I'll also share everything else I am up to this summer, which will include the prep and logistics required to hit the ground running at UCLA this September, running the hilly San Francisco Marathon on July 31st, and planning my Bridezilla-free wedding.

I will also take some time to re-visit where I was in the process at this time a year ago for all of you potential admits just beginning to navigate the b-school admissions gauntlet. I'm really excited to share my adventures with you and give you some flavor for business school and Anderson!

By way of introduction, here's a photo of me running the Boston Marathon taken after Heartbreak Hill somewhere around mile 22. You can tell from my gesture across my throat that it was not my finest hour, but at least I was still smiling!

Leap of Faith: An introduction

"If you dream big, you play big. If you play big, you win big."

In my experience, optimism is the best medicine. Optimism is a great gimzo to pack away those blues, negotiate your problems differently and look at your life in a whole different way. Also, it's contagious!

While I can't say that I'm an optimist every day of the year, I can say that my admission to UCLA Anderson has taken my Optimism Quotient to a whole new level. UCLA Anderson has a reputation of delivering on creativity, research, collaboration and practical training that I simply adore.

Coming from a technical background of numbers and analytical models, my decision to take up a program on business and management has been any easy one. The opportunity to learn about business practices from some of the best professors and thought leaders in their respective fields is something I'm looking forward to.

"a plan is a plan until it is executed"

I enjoy contributing to things I believe in. In the Social Work space I've been working with a small but diligent NGO on everything from teaching underpriviledged children Math to raising funds through fundraisers and other social events. Also, I've been a Toastmaster for three years and have just completed my one year stint as President of my club.

Once at Anderson, if not in the classroom, you can find me at the UCLA Recreation Center swimming pool or perhaps with some fellow amateur musicians, jamming on my guitar to Porcupine Tree or Tool!

That said, Los Angeles is halfway around the world from home. Will it be easy to remove myself from everything I know and love? Will it be easy to embibe a totally new and different culture and adapt to a way of life? I'm not sure I know how to even begin with this. What I do know is that the Anderson family is waiting for me and I can't wait to find out what's in store for me over the next two years!

- Karan Kumar, MBA '13

The road to LA: introductions are hard

If you're reading this - welcome and hello! My name's Brian Sim, noob incoming class of '13.

I'm excited to be heading out to LA, albeit in a "I'm not really thinking about it, because it's a long time away (even though it's really not)" way. And heading back to school, after working for the past several years, will definitely be interesting. Can't say I'm looking forward to fun with homework and exams (who is?), but I am looking forward to meeting my classmates and being back in a social scene where everyone's working towards similar goals.

Well... all except the icebreaker process, I guess. Why is that? Maybe because it always feels so proper and impersonal. 

• Answer some basic questions like: where are you from? Where did you go to school? Where did you work? What did you do this past summer? What are your hobbies? What do you want to focus on at UCLA?
• Answer a random icebreaker like have you saved any cute, endangered species?
• And then it's onto the next person. 

Plus, it's your first impression! No one wants to be defined by your response to a silly icebreaker question! I relate this whole thing to anticipating swallowing a spoonful of medicine. No, no, no, no - GULP - whew! Yes, it's over! Now we can have fun.

But enough rambling. For the sake of forward progress, let me be proper and impersonal so that we can graduate towards being improper and personal with each other.

Where am I from? Where did I go to school? Where did I work?

I've been a Philly boy for basically all my life, from birth all the way to now. I concentrated in Marketing and Communications at the Wharton School of the U of Pennsylvnania, and ended up working in marketing agencies after graduation. Started out at a small boutique ad firm, helped it morph into a digital consultancy, with my most exciting contribution being helping to develop a new 2D barcode technology and company called Jagtag. After there, I joined a large firm called Digitas, focusing on digital marketing within the pharma agency. Eventually, I decided massive, worldwide conglomerate companies were not my cup of tea, and for the past year or so, have been splitting my time as an independent marketing strategist for another smaller, healthcare focused agency, and working on a startup technology company.

What did I do this past summer?

Besides working, I had a chance to take a pretty long trip, backpacking through parts of Asia. Actually, I thought I was going to be unique in this regard, but then I learned that a bunch of people were doing similar trips! So now I feel less special (cue the "awww" audience track). But back in April/May, I went off for 6 weeks:

• a couple days Macau (meh)
• a week and a half in Hong Kong (fun!)
• a day in China (counterfeit goods!)
• 3 weeks in Japan (my 2nd visit, and my favorite of the bunch) 
• and a week in Korea (my 5th visit, but my 1st traveling alone)

The plus side of going in April/May was that the weather was awesome throughout the whole trip. I'm pretty familiar with the sweltering summers in these places, so I wanted to avoid that. The only downside was that I think I left before our class of '13 Facebook group was formed, so I missed out on some chances to meet up with fellow admits around the world.

What are my hobbies?

Duh, winning? Heh, had to sneak in a Phillies reference in here somewhere. I'm looking forward to checking out the ghost town that is Dodger Stadium (sorry Dodger fans, but I hope the McCourt disaster drags on for a while).

What do I want to focus on at UCLA?

I'm thinking strategy or entrepreneurship, focusing more on the tech side, because that's what I enjoy thinking about and working with. But actually, I'm trying to remain pretty open-minded. I figure the whole MBA experience is one of the rare "reset" or "redirect" opportunities you get, as far as your career goes, so best to expose yourself to as much diversity as posible. You never know what you might be enchanted by.

Have I saved any cute, endangered species?

Why, yes I- actually, no I haven't. ;__;

One last one for the heck of it, what's next?

The road to LA has been a long one. Planned out for the past year or so - I think it was about this time last year I started doodling with the essays - but time flies, so it's a little astonishing for me to look forward and see that I only have about 6 more weeks before driving out west.

Looking forward to meeting the rest of you soon enough, that is once we get past the icebreakers. ;-)