After I got admitted I was wondering what would happen next, how I would make a transition into business school and how I would manage to get to know my future classmates while I was more than 6000 miles away from school. Everything turned out to be quite easy and I was amazed by the speed I virtually met my future classmates: once I joined Facebook group, it all began! The group is very active, there are so many topics to discuss and people are ready to answer questions and give advice. But today I want to tell about a small group of us who met on the Facebook Anderson Class of 2015 page and decided to take part in Nike+ Women's Marathon in San Francisco.
As for me, I have never run half/marathons before and I just decided to try a half when I saw on our Facebook group that several girls plan to participate. I think it was very right thing to do as now I have wonderful party of like-minded classmates who became my first Anderson family and I hope will become close friends in the turn of my MBA journey. At least now we have our e-mail thread and refer to each other for help, advice or with some questions regarding different parts of enrollment process. It is very important for me as an international student as I leave my family and friends behind and It is very cool that I had an opportunity to find such warm attitude from my new Anderson family. So, Dear readers, meet my wonderful friends!
Annette was the one to propose taking part in the half/marathon in the first place. She currently works as an operations manager in the fashion industry, but she plans to transition into management consulting after Anderson and probably specialize in fashion consulting.
In her free time Annette loves to read, cycle, run (of course), and design jewelry (!!!!). Annette is very passionate about encouraging women to succeed in education and business and that's how she has become Forte Fellow within Anderson with the mission of promoting women's rights in Business.
This is going to be Annette's first (half) marathon!She has always wanted to run the Nike marathon (she is Nike fan) and she believes it will be even more exciting to run with our new Anderson family. Annette confesses: "I have been running for a few years but I have never trained this hard, and knowing that you guys are all also training with me, encourages me to push harder and run faster and further each time".
Alexa is an educationally-focused volunteer, she did Minds Matter,which is a mentor program aimed at gifted, low-income youth. She worked with the Senior year program helping kids select colleges to apply to, work on their essays and apply for financial aid and scholarships. Then, she also worked with City Readers, which was started just three years ago, and raises money to buy new library books for low-income elementary schools. Alexa wants to pursue management consulting career upon graduation from Anderson.
Hobbies/Interests: Bikram Yoga, Photography, Hiking, Golfing, Volunteering, spending time with her three nieces and two nephews
Alexa is one of the most experienced racers in our small group:she took part in San Luis Obispo Triathlon 2012 (olympic length), NYC Triathlon 2012 (olympic length), NYC Half Marathon 2013. Her favorite part of NYC Half Marathon was running through Times Square and having the streets all to the runners only :)
Molly Felz grew up in Manhattan Beach and has lived in San Francisco since she graduated from UC Berkeley in 2007. She currently works in Brand Management at Cengage Learning, an academic publisher, developing new digital textbooks. She has been building her stamina for long days of studying/networking at Anderson, by running the hills in SF and even completed her first marathon (SF Marathon) in June! Her ultimate goal is to run the Nike half marathon in 2 hours.
After Anderson, Molly wants to be in marketing in the tech sector. She is most passionate about publishing, education, and new technologies in those industries! She also really likes practicing yoga, going to live music shows, and hiking!
Bianca has experience in asset management where she managed an institutional portfolio of mortgages for a retail bank before she switched into the strategic planning group. In both roles she helped build the largest direct consumer bank in the US, ING DIRECT, before selling the company to Capital One. Her near term career goal is to work in management consulting to use her knowledge and skills and gain more exposure to various industries.
It will be the first half-marathon for Bianca and I am sure she will do fine there as she trains hard and I can see the intensity of her trainig in Nike+Running App that we are both using. Bianca also loves to hike, swim and dance. She studied ballet as a kid and jazz/modern jazz into her adult years and her next goal is to learn a variety of ballroom styles she could do with a partner.
Lily loves filmmaking, photography, hiking, watching documentaries, traveling as much as she can and learning anything she can about health, wellness, nutrition, and natural medicine.
Lily was born in Moscow (to Armenian parents), then lived in Germany, then in New York, settled down in New Jersey and moved to San Diego when she was 12. In 2009 she decided to move to Armenia, starting as an intern at a documentary studio and stayed there for a whole year. As a result, she speaks English, Russian, Spanish and Armenian. Lily is interested in entrepreneurship, social impact, and tech—and that's why she is so excited to be attending Anderson this fall.
Fun Fact: for the last few years she has worked for Tony Robbins and so has learned a LOT about personal development (I hope she will share some insights with us:). Lily has run two half-marathons, her first one in January and the second one in June of this year.
Ledia grew up in Albania and lived in Italy since the age of 18, when she started her undergraduate degree in International Business at Bocconi University in Milan. During the last 5 years Ledia has worked in the M&A and in the Private Equity sectors at Rothschild and Tamburi Investment Partners in Milan, mainly in the cross border industrial transactions. Currently she is experiencing the US business culture through a pre-MBA internship at the finance division of Datalogic, a bar code readers producer, in Pennsylvania.
Ledia is passionate about dancing, hiking, watching movies and chilling at the beach with friends. Her goal is to finish her first half marathon with her new group of Anderson peers and run many others after that.
In the long term Ledia hopes to make a positive impact in her native country by starting a social enterprise-oriented investment fund in Albania.
So, I am super happy to have met this wonderful running team that very soon will become a part of our big Anderson family. And I will tell you more about our experiences (and of course, records) later!
Alena Kostenkova, MBA'15 @UCLAMBA