The MBA Student Voice

Los Angeles Startup & Non-Profit Scene

This past Friday I volunteered at Entrepreneur Impact Day (EID). The event was organized outside of UCLA but I was able to participate through Entrepreneurs Association (EA) on campus. It was a first in LA where startups and non-profits got together to solve some of the most challenging problems the non-profits are facing. I was assigned as program manager on the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation or LA River Corp. for short. Their main focus is to turn 51 miles of the LA River into a public space with parks, trails, bridges, etc. and make it a landmark for the city. Currently their challenge is awareness and fundraising. Employees from two startups, MuckerLab and PicPlayPost were on hand to help them with both these challenges. By the end of the full day event, the team came up with a pitch deck for the initial fundraising and strategies to improve project awareness in the general public.

After just three weeks of school I was able to attend this event through my network at Anderson School of Management. Since my long term goal is entrepreneurship, hopefully in the social impact space, it was amazing to be able to participate in EID. I made some great contacts and am looking forward to more such events in the future. Thanks to the organizers of the event for putting together an amazing opportunity for all LA residents.

The event was hosted at the beautiful Bel-Air Bay Club

Orientation & the section cup - Repost from FT

Originally posted on Financial Times MBA Blog - http://blogs.ft.com/mba-blog/2014/10/17/orientation-week/

The first question that came to mind when I saw my MBA schedule was what will we do for almost three weeks of orientation. During my undergraduate degree at the University of Westminster, we had a total of three days orientation. But business school is a different ball game.

Section C - My assigned section

The first year class was divided into five sections and pitted against each other for the section cup, which was awarded at the end of orientation. I have highlighted a few of the activities here:

Scavenger hunt – UCLA is a huge campus and the scavenger hunt was one of the best ways to explore it and get to know my learning team. We do most of our assignments in our learning team, which comprises of five to six members. Photos here

Game day – I don’t remember the last time I had so much fun in one day. We had volleyball, Wiffle ball, dodgeball, kickball, trivia, and tug of war. The team aspect of each sport really brought the diverse people together. Photos here

Odyssey challenge – The Odyssey rope challenge was all about confronting your fears, trusting your team, and pushing yourself. One of the activities was to climb on top of a tall tree log and jump off.

By the end of the three weeks, I must have met most of my 360 classmates and made some great friends. The icing on the cake was that my team (section C) won the cup.

Please send any questions, tug of war tips, and MBA orientation ideas via the comments box below. You can also follow me on Twitter @0jain

The Perks of Being in LA

Classes started last Thursday, and I am not sure about my classmates, but I feel like I am drinking out of a fire hose.  Stats, Econ, Accounting, Marketing, ACT Groups, Parker, clubs, Amazon Case Competition... WO.  Even though it has been a little stressful, it's been a great week!  Outside of class, on Monday, Google came and did their company presentation, it was pretty exciting.  To follow that up, Amazon was here on Tuesday.  

Later that night, after the Amazon presentation, just a couple miles away from campus, Google's Executive Chairman and former CEO, Eric Schmidt, and former Senior Vice President of Products at Google, Jonathan Rosenberg (currently serving as an advisor to Google CEO Larry Page), spoke to a small group of about 200 people.  A few of my fellow Anderson classmates and I were lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend and listen to them speak.

It was a fantastic experience!  They gave the audience a pretty unique prespective of Google, and also some great general leadership insights as well.  One of the things that stood out to me most was when Eric Schmidt spoke about "thinking 10X."  To quote from Eric and Jonathan's book, How Google Works,

"Too many people are stuck in the old, limited mindset... 'Think 10X' – helps fix that.  It encompasses the art of the possible... and the impossible."

"The obvious benefit of thinking big is that it gives smart creatives much more freedom.  It removes constraints and spurs creativity.  Astro Teller, the head of Google[x], notes that if you want to create a car that gets 10 percent better mileage, you just have to tweak the current design, but if you want to get one that gets five hundred miles per gallon, you need to start over.  Just the thought process - How would I start over? - can spur ideas that were previously not considered."  

This was just one of the many golden nuggets of wisdom Eric and Jonathan shared.  It was very inspring.  There aren't many other cities where you would have the opportunity to be less than 30 feet away from and get to hear such influential business leaders.  Definitely one of the many perks of being in LA.  You can check out the interview in its entirety here.

- James Huntington, MBA '16

Follow me on Twitter @jhuntington14 and UCLA Anderson @UCLAMBA