The MBA Student Voice

MBA soccer champs!

A quick shout out to all you soccer fans out there as I just participated in the MBA Austin winter invitational tournament which is held annually and organized by McComb and I had one of my best weekends at Anderson so far. Not only did we win the tournament for the second time in three years but we did it in such a style and with such an amazing group of people that I am once again so grateful to have ended up at Anderson. I hope to be playing alongside many of you readers next year!

-Chris Varin, 14'

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Election time - Join the EA!

So it has once again been an eternity since I have written here but there have been a lot of things going on. When people say business school is really what you make of it they're absolutely right. For me there are four major areas that take up the majority of my time: classes, my internship at Muckerlab, my own business (which luckily partially counts for one of my classes) and most recently the Entrepreneurs Association has taken over a large chunk of my life.

The EA is the biggest organization on campus and is responsible for bringing together entrepreneurial minded people at Anderson and expose them to UCLA and the LA community to help them start businesses, get recruited at startups and learn more about entrepreneurship. This club has been an unbelievable resource to me so far and I urge any and all new studentsto join the club as it tends to have the most and the biggest events, bring in the best speakers and get the most funding. Now I'm just preaching of course and the reason for that is that I am now running the organization.

Being the biggest club on campus, the EA holds elections earlier than anyone else (including the student association) and the power transition starts very soon in the year. That means that for the past two weeks I have been running around trying to learn as much as possible about the diferent facets of the organization that I did not yet know about, putting together a team and networking with board members of the Price center and other entrepreneurship organizations around campus and LA. It's been a lot of work but I'm unbelievably excited about it and while he current EA board has done an amazing job this year, we're really hoping to jumpstart from that. We've been lucky enough to have a lot of potential candidates come through this year and talk to us about the EA so please don't hesitate to reach out at any point as we have so much to share.

-Chris Varin, 14'

Follow UCLA on Twitter @UCLAMBA

First Annual Challenge 4 Charity Sports Day

For those of you who haven't heard of Challenge 4 Charity yet during your UCLA Anderson research... here's the logo: 

and here's an official blurb about what the organization is: 

"UCLA Anderson’s Challenge for Charity (C4C) is the largest charitable organization at the Anderson School of Management. Last year, Anderson C4C raised $100,000 and volunteered over 5,000 hours for its three select charities: Special Olympics, Junior Achievement, and Project ECHO.  UCLA Anderson is one of nine West coast business schools in the MBA Challenge for Charity organization that competes annually for the coveted Golden Briefcase. The competition is comprised of fundraising, volunteerism, and the annual Sports Weekend hosted at Stanford University each April.  Over the past 14 years, the organization has volunteered thousands of hours and donated over $5.2 million to its selected charities.  We strive to help develop Anderson MBAs with a lifelong commitment to community involvement and social responsibility.  Challenge for Charity has a 501(c)(3) non-profit standing."

 

Why do you need to know that information you might ask? Well, a big part of the Spring Quarter is the Sports Weekend at Stanford. To get people excited about it, the UCLA Anderson C4C directors recently organized the first annual Anderson C4C Winter Sports Day.

80-100 first and second year students took over the intramural fields at UCLA last Friday, Feb 1, to compete in dodgeball, soccer, ultimate frisbee, and flag football. There was nothing at stake but pride (and maybe some rumored second year scouting for first year athletic talent to join the C4C sports teams.) 

Here's a few pictures from the event - and yes, it was a magnificent 72 degree, blue sky, sunny LA day. 

 

One of the competing second-year teams huddles prior to a play in flag football. Most teams were comprised of members from each class, but a few were organized by clubs (Latin American Business Association was one) or were mixes of first and second years. 

There was fierce competition in all the sports. People were laying out for frisbees, knocking over opponents while performing spin moves in flag football, and a surprising amount of heated debates concerning who was out or in during dodgeball. 

Here's a picture of the team of first-years I played on. We went 3-0-1 in the round robin, winning in dodgeball, flag football, and ultimate frisbee and had a draw in soccer. This allowed us to reach the finals, where unfortunately...

We lost to this team of second year's in flag football. It was a competitive game, but a few of the players on the second year team were on the C4C flag football last time, so their experience playing together gave them a competitive edge. 

Next up for C4C this quarter is Casino Night, where students, faculty, and alumni come together for a night of games, an auction, and an all-around good time at the Belasco Theater. I'll be sure to post some pics from that soon after!

Until next time, 

~Kyle Forrest, follow me on Twitter and follow UCLAMBA 

Lets talk High Tech!

It is that time of the year where a lot of you must be deciding which MBA school to go to (of course you should choose UCLA Anderson!). For those of you interested in technology or those who have not decided what they want to do after their MBAs, I want to share with you why Anderson is such a great place for transitioning to a job in the high tech industry. 

 

Location!

Anderson is located very close to Silicon Valley, the San Francisco bay area, and Seattle. You can find the headquarters of all the major high tech companies in these areas. For example Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Ebay, etc. All just a drive or a short plane ride away.

Los Angeles is also home of many startups, including those in the high tech industry, but you don't have to take my word for it, click here to read a great article from Forbes about why Los Angeles is becoming the new tech startup capital. 

Lastly, we are very close to Las Vegas which is home of the annual CES convention. Fellow blogger Kyle Forest just wrote an awesome post telling you all about it which you can find here. If you haven't read it yet I highly recommend you do so! 

 

Parker CMC!

We just talked about the awesome location but how can you really leverage it? The Parker CMC , which is Anderson's Career Management Center, has a great relationship with all the high tech companies.  Most of them recruit on campus and post positions through Parker CMC. 

You can follow Parker CMC on facebook here. They do a splendid job coaching and preparing us for networking and interviews. They have a class just for this on your first quarter, they do workshops, and you can book an appointment with any of the advisors every week. Actually one of the greatest advices I can give you when you start your MBA is to meet with an advisor every week. They will do mock interviews with you, review your resume and cover letters, address your concerns, guide you on how to get your dream job, and so much more. I usually meet with Emily Taylor or Regina Regazzi, who have done an amazing job coaching me and I highly recommend both of them.  Needless to say you can't go wrong with any advisor you decide to work with, they are all great! 

This is Emily teaching us about Parker CMC during our first days of class! 

 

Alumni!

We have Alumni in almost any company you might be interested in and they are all happy to talk to you about their experience. It is actually one of my favorite things about Anderson, we have a great community where everyone helps each other out and that does not stop upon graduation. Contacting an Alumni is very easy, we have an ever growing database where you can search for them and obtain their e-mails. 

 

We have ACT Coaches!

You must be wondering what ACT Coaches are, they are second years who meet with a group of first years for an hour every week to guide and mentor them on their job search. ACT groups can be by industry or function, for example I am in an ACT group for high tech and in another one for finance. Let's discuss the high tech ACT group since this is a post about high tech. These are my Act Coaches: 

Meet Joshua Stark and Bradford Lyman from class 2013! 

Can we talk about how awesome Josh and Brad are? They keep us up to date with tech news, practice interview questions with us, and guide us all the way from how to decide what companies to target to how to get the most out of your internship. It is so nice to have a fellow second year to talk to about these things and their advice has been so helpful! I am amazed by how they know so much! 

 

We have Mentors!

If Parker CMC and ACT Coaches are not enough for you we also have mentorship programs in many of Anderson's clubs. I have a mentor from the HTBA (High Tech Business Association) and from the WBC (Women's Business Connection). When looking for a mentor in the high tech industry don't just look in the HTBA, many other clubs, like the WBC, will offer you mentors that match your function, country of origin, gender, etc. but that doesn't mean they can't also match your target industry! My mentors Daisy Chen and Shiva Ramesh from class 2012 have been providing me invaluable advice and connecting me with many other alumni. I highly recommend that you sign up for mentorship programs when you are at Anderson. 

 

HTBA and Tech Treks!

The HTBA (High Tech Business Association) organizes events throughout the year to help you meet and talk to representatives from high tech companies. Some of these events are:

-Career nights:  They are kind of like speed dating. You sit at a table with representatives from a certain company and after some time the organizer indicates that it is time to switch tables. It is really fun!

-Tech treks: The HTBA assigns companies for you to visit or you bid for them in a raffle system. You get to visit one or two companies per day and there is always an alumni networking event too. There is one for Seattle and one for the Sillicon Valley area and they usually happen during winter. 

Anderson students at Microsoft's campus in Seattle 

-Brunches: As the name implies it is a brunch with company representatives. There is going to be one this Sunday organized by the HTBA and the WBC (Women's Business Connection).

 

If all this did not convince you, I encourage you to visit our campus and talk to some current students. That played a big role for me when deciding what MBA to go to. If you can't come to campus contact some students by e-mail or phone, they are all very friendly and happy to help!

 

-Alejandra Rodriguez '14
Follow UCLA Anderson at @UCLAMBA