Originally posted on Financial Times MBA Blog - http://blogs.ft.com/mba-blog/2014/12/05/tech-trek-week/
Day-on-the-Job events are onsite visits to companies to learn about MBA opportunities and get a sense of work culture. A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to visit tech companies in Seattle and Silicon Valley. I was surprised by the number of companies we could visit. UCLA Anderson and on-campus High Tech Business Club (HTBA) did a great job organising this trek of more than 150 students. Below is snapshot of my tech trek week.
Left for Seattle immediately after 12:45 pm class. Completed economics and accounting homework during travel.
Saturday 11/15, Sunday 11/16
Lunches with Anderson alums in Microsoft and Amazon. Little bit of site seeing – Visit to the space needle, Microsoft Bellevue office, Pike Place Market and Discover Park. Spent an evening researching about latest developments in companies which I will be visiting.
Monday 11/17
Amazon Company visit was in Seattle downtown. We were fortunate that it did not rain during our stay. According to a weather company, Seattle has 226 cloudy days per year. Our visit included a tour and panel discussion to learn about different MBA roles, work culture and recruitment process.
After Amazon, we visited Nordstrom to learn about their e-commerce operations and visited their first retail store in downtown Seattle. Also attended an alumni and student mixer in the evening to meet alums in a more informal setting.
Tuesday 11/18
Similar activities were organised for us in Microsoft headquarters, which is in Redmond, WA. Left for San Francisco late evening.
Wednesday 11/19 – Sunday 11/23
The Silicon Valley visit was great but exhaustive. We were visiting at least two companies everyday spread across San Francisco and the Bay area. I personally visited Adobe, Rocketfuel, LinkedIn, Yahoo, SonyPS, Twitter, Google and Autodesk. We had around 28 companies to choose from, ranging from $350bn company such as Google to hot start-ups such as Box and Shazam.
On Thursday, we had a large alumni mixer called the Anderson Evening. The event was held at Bryan Kane’s (’96) award-winning The Winery San Francisco and speakers included Google’s Darren Pleasance (’95) and Tapjoy’s Steven Wadsworth (’88).
Spent the weekend catching up with old friends in the Bay area and doing touristy things such as visiting the Golden Gate Bridge. Boarded the last flight on Sunday to Los Angeles, completing the stats homework on my way back.
Please send any questions, comments, startup pitches, and travel tips via the comments box below. You can also follow me on Twitter @0jain