The MBA Student Voice

Student Spotlight: Katherine Ozmeral

This post is a part of the Student Spotlight series where we highlight a current Anderson student and learn about their experience at Anderson. We will also get hear about their favorite Anderson memories and get their advice for current and prospective MBA students.

Today we are featuring Kathrine Ozmeral '17.

 

Tell us a little bit about your background.

I majored in Finance & Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Following school I started working at an insurance company where I sampled different areas finance: including investments, accounting, business strategy, and internal audit. Looking to transition into the retail industry in a marketing or merchandising capacity I decided to start preparing my MBA applications. While doing so, I moved to Thailand where I taught English & volunteered for the year leading up to my start at Anderson. Now that I'm here, I'm hoping to combine my passion for retail with my "social good" attitude.

 

What has been your favorite thing about Anderson so far?

The people. I was really sensitive to culture when looking for an MBA program - my undergraduate business school was very congenial; however, my first job had a very competitive culture which didn't fit my personality.  At Anderson, I've noticed that "Share Success" isn't just a saying, but a notion that every student lives and breathes. When interviewing for internships, I didn't have a shortage of alumni, second years, and even fellow first years sharing helpful tips and performing mock interviews with me. You spend a lot of time with your fellow classmates, so it's important that you enjoy their company!

 

A Culture of Happy

Here's an interesting question to ponder:

What would your Netflix watchlist and queue reveal about your personality, your priorities, your mood, and your interests? With the Breaking Bad chapter of my Netflix life finally concluded, I recently embarked on a summer documentary binge-watching streak, with the most recent one being Happy, a 2011 film directed by Roko Belic and focused on positive psychology and happiness.

Belic's film features a variety of individuals from around the world (a rickshaw driver in Kolkatta, a Louisiana fisherman, a single-mother family living in a Danish housing cooperative, among others).  At one point in the film, Knox College Professor of Psychology Tim Kasser explains how true happiness and life satisfaction is tied most deeply to four intrinsic human goals/desires:

- close community of family and friend relationships

- opportunities for personal growth

- status and personal recognition

- ability to help others and the world at large

These goals seem relatively self-evident and almost obvious, but the film raised lots of questions that I had already begun to ask myself when I started the business school application process: how can you create a genuine staff culture in schools (and an organizational culture in general) that allows for employees to hit all of these four benchmarks of happiness without negatively affecting productivity, efficiency, or the bottom line, whatever that may be (profit margins, standardized test scores, win-loss records, etc.)? Can happiness and an optimal bottom line truly coexist?

As I peruse the first year curriculum at Anderson, I'm looking forward especially to two things:

- taking Organizational Behavior during the Spring Quarter.

- attending Anderson's Management and Organization Speaker Series. There was a really interesting talk last November by Hengchen Dai about the "fresh start effect" on motivation and willpower (if anyone here has ever thought New Year's resolutions to eat better and exercise more are silly and pointless, this is for you!). 

Is it possible to systematize and sustain employee happiness and motivation, in our schools and in our businesses? As teachers, my colleagues and I have always focused on improving student and classroom culture- ensuring that our classes provided a safe, focused atmosphere where students could be comfortable making mistakes, collaborating with their classmates, reading difficult literary texts, etc. Yet, we often inevitably overlook our own mental and physical health- our staff culture- as I learned the hard way my first year teaching. So what DOES it take to create a culture of happy?

The End of Two Years, The Beginning of a Lifetime

A little over six weeks ago, I graduated. Almost two years ago to the day, I moved to Los Angeles. 

Wow. 

I felt prepared for business school before I had started - I'd been given advice by recent grads, read blog posts, done some prep work, but there is nothing that can truly prepare you for the transformative experience that takes place over two years. Even by the end of year one, when I thought "Ok, now I know what to expect in year two", I didn't appreciate how much could be packed into the remaining 50% of my time at Anderson. 

Now that I've had a chance to step away from school and decompress a little bit, I wanted to write one final post to share some lessons learned and thoughts, along with a good collection of photos from my Anderson journey. The thoughts are in no particular order of importance, but the pictures start from pre-Anderson and end at graduation.

Enjoy!

Pre-MBA / Starting MBA advice

(Statue of John Anderson at the entrance to school)

If you are considering applying to business school or have already applied, you've probably spent a lot of time thinking about what getting an MBA means in the context of your career. Yes, an MBA is a means by which you can career switch or advance further in your current field, but a full-time MBA is also a two year experience that has a significant personal life impact. 

Year 1 finish line

This week I realized that the first year of MBA is done. Yes, I still have a couple of take-home exams to submit by Wednesday, but the mood is already in the summer mode and the time has come to make conclusions about first year experiences and set the goals for the next year.

In the past couple of months I have met a lot of people thinking about getting an MBA or who were admitted to UCLA Anderson and the most common question I hear is "why did you choose UCLA Anderson" and what were your experiences like?". You can read my reasons to choose the school in my last year post. In terms of the experiences, this year has been awesome and I can't be happier to have chosen UCLA Anderson a year ago and further I will tell you why.

• School name is a very good brand. Whenever I mention I am attending UCLA Anderson, people say it is very good school with strong reputation and community. A lot of companies have very strong relationships with Parker Career Management Center and they hire a lot of Anderson folks. Alumni network is also very strong and supportive: whenever I had any queries about the job in a company, I could always reach out to alums and ask for an informational interview - even top level managers could always find the time for me.
• Community at school is super supportive. Should I have any issue with not understanding a concept in class or personal issue like getting to another part of the city without a car, my classmates are always ready to give a helping hand. It is also true for people several years out of school - I got the mentor from Women Business Connection Club and she has been very helpful to me in terms of advice on my career search and she helped me to get ready for the interviews for my summer internship. This kind of relationship is very valuable and clearly demonstrates the community at school.
• Career services. We all come to school to ultimately find a job or start your own business. This year has been very stressful in terms of the career search but Parker CMC has been my point of contact, my family, my psycological center, my decision-making place and advice center. I am looking forward to helping Parker CMC with the newly admitted class of 2016 in their career search.
• Location. Honestly I don't go to the beach very often but being 1 year in a wonderful climate helped a lot. I became more healthy in terms of food I eat and amount of exercise I do, I have seen a lot in the city and fell in love with it, so I will be interning here in the summer as well.

When someone asked me what I didn't like at UCLA Anderson, I could not come up with something on the spot, but now I know what it is - I don't like that the time here flies by so quickly.

XOXO,

Alena

Guest Post: Lessons Learned to Make the Most of your MBA Experience

With a little over one week left in my 5th quarter out of 6 at Anderson, I've begun getting a little nostalgic. When I look back at my first year and where I was prior to starting school, I'm amazed at the number of experiences I've been through and how much I've changed personally and professionally. 

I started thinking of lessons learned to share with prospective MBA students, but was saved by a classmate of mine, Nathan Adelman. 

He recently wrote the below 5 lessons learned for The Anderson Exchange, our student newspaper. 

Keep in mind that these lessons are Nate's view on how to maximize your MBA experience at Anderson, and thus might not all be applicable to those of you who are reading this for fun and might not attend our program. 

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As I approach the home stretch of my Anderson MBA, I have had some time to reflect on some of the most meaningful lessons that I have learned as both a student and as a Teaching Assistant.  I believe the following ideas apply to most Anderson students, regardless of your career track.  Here is my list of the top five things to help you make the most of your time at Anderson.

 

Half-year MBA point

 I remember speaking to one of the Orientation Leaders back in September about how quickly time flies at Anderson and I didn't believe her words back then. I just realized that today is the last day of February (!) and I feel as if I just came to school literally yeasterday. But in the meantime, so many things happenned during the first half of the year at Anderson. I will highlight the most memorable things in this post.

• The busiest quarter ever. We had 5 core classes and a specific career related class which helped us in the career-related issues: resume and cover letter drafts, networking 101, company research and so many different things.  On top of it, first year students ran for Director positions for different clubs on campus to make the real change and have influence on the process. We bring a lot of changes to school everyday and I was amazed how open the administration is to students' feedback and ideas. Examples include the initiative with The Exchange, which saw life and gets more and more supporters, volunteers and fans every day, and the inclusion of VP of Diversity into the ASA which resulted from Jess Kimball's passion for the community and idea to bring more diversity to UCLA Anderson.

AMR Midpoint Update

As many of you who have been researching Anderson know, an integral part of the second-year experience is the Applied Management Research program. 

If you've been following my blog posts from year two, you also know that I'm on a project that is working with a breast cancer clinic in Ethiopia (if not, you can catch up here). 

From Dec 30 to Jan 12, right in the middle of the AMR experience, AMR Team 49 (Bo Pulito, Lindsay Todd, Devin Scott, Briana Kelly, and myself) had the opportunity of a lifetime to travel to Ethiopia to conduct primary research for our client. 

Here's some pictures from our trip and an update on what's next with our AMR project. 

We flew from LA to Dubai, had a 14 hour layover, and then Dubai to Addis Ababa. Pretty incredible to think that we managed to stay in the dark part of the world for the entire duration of the flight. I may or may not have taken advantage of Emirates in-flight entertainment to watch 6 full movies...

During our first day of interviews in Addis Ababa, we had to stop for the obligatory UCLA photo overlooking the city. 

Life as a 2nd Year

It's official - now I understand why I didn't see that many posts from 2nd year students on this blog last year. Upon returning from summer, 2nd years have been doing any number of the following things: 

- Taking a full load of electives for the first time

- Working on their Applied Management Research (AMR), Business Creation Option (BCO), or a special project that in effect serves as a master's thesis

- Diving back into the recruiting cycle

- Maximizing what could be their last year in Los Angeles by hiking, going to the beach, or enjoying the wide variety of multi-cultural options available in the city

Given how quickly a schedule can fill up, it's extremely easy to look down one minute... and look up the next and realize the quarter is almost over!

I'm going to focus on two aspects of the fall quarter so far - my AMR project and the additional schedule freedom you have as a 2nd year to take advantage of Los Angeles. 

Applied Management Research Project

As a quick overview, AMR is a requirement for 2nd year students. As mentioned above, there are 3 options for students to fulfill the requirement. They can choose Business Creation Option and help start a business; they can choose a special project (lots of options exist here); or they can go the route that the majority of students do, and participate in the AMR Field Study. For more info about AMR in general, check out the AMR website. 

My team is doing the AMR Field Study option. 

Here's everyone! From left to right, our team consists of Bo Pulito, Lindsay Todd, Devin Scott, Briana Kelly, and myself. 

MBA Orientation 2015: We Belong Here

Four days ago, we stepped foot on the UCLA Anderson campus with a few friends, some butterflies, and buckets (briefcases?) full of questions. Who knew in such a short time, we would already feel right at home?

Four days of Orientation in, two weeks until classes, we can already feel that we belong here.

I belong at UCLA Anderson because…

Aimee Musil: I belong at Anderson because, even though my classmates are amazingly diverse, we’re already showing signs of the engaging, supportive, collaborative, and open-minded community they talk about in those shiny admissions brochures.

What exactly does that mean? As for engaging, over the past four days we’ve spent more than 9 hours watching presentations on what some might consider dry material - ethics, technology services, and the Anderson library (I apologize in advance to my mom, former librarian). However, from Jackie Reynolds, the Chief Technology Officer (and Anderson alum!) who had us cracking up to the saucy Angela Horne, newly appointed head of the Rosenfeld Library, the staff consistently impressed with their charm, wit, and genuine interest in helping us succeed during our time here.

Our collective open-mindedness came into play later, during our class photo scavenger hunt, when the accomplished and successful professionals of the class of 2015 literally ran around campus sweating profusely, planking, twerking, and screaming at tour guides/undergraduates, “Where’s the tree of knowledge?” All in all, I’ve been so impressed by the people I’ve met both on the staff and student side, and am excited to spend the next two years with this great group of people.

Looking Ahead to Year Two

It's finally arrived... the end of the internship chapter of my MBA and the beginning of year two. Nothing sums it up better than a song I'll be sure to karaoke this year, The Final Countdown.  

While many of you have been hearing a great deal about why Anderson and how to prepare for the MBA experience from the fantastic bloggers in the class of 2015 (Aimee, Alena, Buzz , Daniel, Devon, Lorraine), this post will provide some perspective on what I'm looking forward to as a 2nd year student. 

Internship wrap-up and career decisions

As of today, August 30th, I'm officially done with my summer internship with HP. It's been a wonderful learning experience. I worked with an incredible team, discovered what it's like to actually work for Corporate HR, and even gained exposure to additional functions, such as Supply Chain. 

While my time at HP helped me realize that I could have a future career within Corporate HR, especially at a company like HP, or others within the technology industry, I now have a lot of thinking to do as to whether Corporate HR, or another function, is the right next step for me. I'll give you an update on my career decision in the coming month.