The MBA Student Voice

California Dreamin' in the San Fernando Valley

For incoming and prospective UCLA Anderson students, the search for suitable housing can be a stressful and time-consuming project.  The MBA Student Voice and similar blogs  provide an abundance of information on the neighborhoods closest to the school: Westwood, Brentwood, and Santa Monica. For this week's post, I thought I'd provide a different perspective and talk about where I'll be living during school: The San Fernando Valley.

Sometimes referred to as "America's quintessential suburb," the SFV is "an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it. Home to 1.76 million people, it lies north of the larger and more populous Los Angeles Basin." (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

The San Fernando Valley has a rich history, deriving its name from the Mission San Fernando, founded in 1797 by Spanish priest Father Fermin Lasuen. Once primarily a ranch and farming community, the Valley has evolved into a suburb heavily populated by commuters into Los Angeles along the 405 freeway.

Unfortunately, the Valley has some negative cultural associations. In the 1980s, making fun of "Valley Girls" (ohmigod, those girls who say "totally" like, all the time) was all the rage. The Valley is also known as the home of the United States' adult entertainment industry. And let's face it, some snobby Angelenos would sooner snap a heel off a Jimmy Choo than set foot in Encino or Van Nuys.

Nonetheless, the Valley has many positive aspects. A big one is the cost of living--you could easily buy a house with a lower monthly mortgage payment than one month's rent in a Santa Monica apartment. The suburban lifestyle also attracts families and dual career couples. You can tour Mulholland Drive, visit Ritchie Valens' grave, and go rock-climbing in Stoney Point Park. And for me, a huge plus are the many nearby parks where I can walk and play with my dogs.

                                                                      Before Nic Cage became a serious actor, he starred in Valley Girl.

So if you're a dual career couple looking to split the distance between your Sig-O's workplace and campus, or if you're just looking for something different to do on the weekend, consider a trip to the Valley. And let me know if you come out my way and we'll grab a burger at this place!

                                                                          

Beeps on Sherman Way. I can imagine hipsters eating here to be "ironic."

-Ann Ching '14

Follow me on Twitter: @annibbler

 

What Do You Do? I Drive.

For those of you that haven't seen the movie Drive with Ryan Gosling, the title of this blog comes from one of the few times he speaks in the movie (really - for a main character of a movie, he says only a few hundred words the entire film) when he responds to "What do you do?" with "I drive." Not "I drive a race car" or "I drive a school bus" but simply "I drive."

After completing the move from Houston to LA via Interstate 10 West, when someone asks what I do, I too can now respond "I drive (u-hauls)."

(Not as fancy as a race car, but has a surprisingly good turning radius for a large vehicle.)

Airplanes, Apartments & Anderson

Can you spot the UCLA campus?

I am fascinated by air travel. In addtion to my little-kid-type awe of airplanes, I find commuter airline operations beyond impressive. Until something like the following happens:

1. Board airplane #1
2. Sit on airplane #1 thirty mintues past departure time
3. Deplane airplane #1 due to maintenance issues
4. Board airplane #2
5. Sit on airplane #2 thirty minutes past delayed departure time
6. Deplane airplane #2 due to maintenance issues
7. Board airplane #3 and arrive at destination 3.5 hours late

Because, yep, that's exactly what transpired during my return trip from Seattle to LA. Now don't get me wrong, I'd much rather experience delays than be 30,000 feet in the air in a faulty aircraft. And any worries that I had about my future Anderson roommates, Mike and Reggie, were put to rest when those guys napped in a rental car in the airport garage waiting for me to arrive. Thanks, y'all.

Lease signed. First thought: Housewarming party?

By the next day, I had forgotten all about my travel drama because our housing search couldn't have gone more smoothly. We had identified a promising three-bedroom apartment near the intersection of Wilshire and Bundy via Westside Rentals. Upon visiting the property, we were excited to see that the unit was even nicer and more spacious than expected. We immediately submitted our applications for approval and signed the lease the following day.

Now that I've secured a roof over my head for the next year, I'm beginning to get really excited about my upcoming trip to Japan. In the meantime, Anderson is doing its best to keep me busy. I recently completed the Academic Readiness Quiz, which is designed to highlight the quantitative areas in which I should brush up my skills before class begins. Despite my limited quant experience since college (high school, really), I scored surprisingly well on the quiz. Except for that calculus section... that might as well have been an alien language. But I'll soon be starting my MBA Math lessons to ensure I'm better prepared.

Before I sign off, a couple miscellaneous items:

The UCLA athletics site has conveniently listed out all of the Bruin athletes participating in the London Olympics. Be sure to cheer them on.

UCLA Anderson's admissions team has gone paperless, thanks to the Matchbox iPad app. I love to see the school embrace technology while saving a few trees. This video summarizes the benefits and (shameless plug alert) includes some awesome clips of our amazing campus.

Thanks for reading!

- Gregory Paige
  (Follow me on Twitter: @gregorypaige)

The Housing Search That Wasn't (Thanks to Social Media)

For those of you who have moved past the casual MBA program search into more in-depth research, you may have been as surprised as I was at how active most programs are on various social media platforms.

I'm a pretty active Facebook user due to being at Rice University when Facebook was only available at a select number of colleges. Through work, I've become an active LinkedIn user (it was a life saver during the interview process at UCLA, story to come later) as a means of connecting with professionals. Until this summer, my Twitter use was limited to obtaining Rice college baseball scores and... that's it. 

I was stunned to start the research process and, using UCLA as an exmaple, see a presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs (Admissions and Student Voice), and iTunes U. 

 

48 Days of Summer

Greetings from the Starbucks on the 40th floor of the Columbia Center in Seattle, WA. My name is Gregory Paige, and I'm honored to contribute to the MBA Student Voice blog as a proud member of UCLA Anderson's class of 2014. Please bear with me as I utilize this first post to share some introductory details. I promise we'll get to the fun stuff soon enough.

I was born in Philadelphia, PA and grew up in the area, attending the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey before heading down south to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for my undergraduate studies. Upon graduation I continued my southward journey, driving twelve hours to Miami to begin what would be a six-year career in account management at advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Fifteen months ago, I moved out west to help the agency expand its now flourishing Santa Monica office. Leaving CP+B was bittersweet to say the least, but I'm extremely excited and equally humbled to begin the Anderson chapter of my life.

I must admit, however, that I've enjoyed these past few weeks of "funemployment." I recently returned to Philly (for the first time in a long time) to see family and friends. Naturally, I acted like a complete tourist despite growing up in the area. Cheesesteaks, the Liberty Bell... the whole nine. Next stop: Seattle, where my parents and brother currently reside. I've been particularly observant here because Seattle is a potential summer internship destination. So far, so good. When the sun is shining, I'm not sure there's a more beautiful city in the country.

Philadelphia. This isn't the real LOVE Park sculpture, but it'll do!

When I return to LA this week, I'll have approximately six days to meet up with my future roommates (Reggie Hall '14 and Michael Leyva '14), find a house and move into said house. Good times. I'll have to unpack quickly, too. Six days later, my brother Michael and I embark on a long overdue trip to Japan. Keep an eye out for a post or two on that adventure.

I'm looking foward to sharing my stories and experiences with y'all over the next couple months and beyond. My road to business school has been long and windy, and it's amazing how much I've learned before even stepping foot in a classroom.

There are 48 days left until the start of orientation at Anderson. Let's make them count.

- Gregory Paige
  (Follow me on Twitter: @gregorypaige)

The Sky is the Limit at UCLA Anderson!

Wow, so much going on at Anderson as always! This month is especially exciting for me, not because it is my birthday (which it is, but at my age you try to ignore them not acknowledge them), but because it is my WEDDING! That's right, while many of my classmates including Rikin Mantri and Rob Michlovich are headed off on the awesome-sounding Japan trip sponsored by the Japanese American Business Association (JABA), or to Hawaii, a mere 5-hour flight away, like my friend Sarah Fixler, Stanton and I are headed back east to my hometown of Atlanta for the Society Event of the Year. Just kidding, but it is going to be wonderful and I can't wait! (Less wonderful will be getting married Saturday night EST and being in class on Monday PST, but what are honeymoons if not opportunities for learning and stress?)

Stanton and I actually met because we discovered we both enjoy long walks on the beach.

For those of who you who totally freak out reading about something like a wedding, fear not, most of my fellow students are single and living the swingin' LA life. There are about 1,000 fun options to choose from any night you can possibly go out,and the always-amazing In-N-Out burger stays open late for your post-party hunger cravings.

There are many other activities besides nightlife- just this weekend was a fun visit to a winery up in Malibu that members of the Anderson Wine Club took advantage of a beautiful Saturday to enjoy. Check out that attire, yes it was 78 degrees!

Alan Druckman (far left) apparently mistook the theme of "wine party" for "pool party" but other than that it's a pretty solid group! (Thanks to James Vogl for photo.)

In other news, I know I mentioned in my last blog post that I was still conducting interviews with various companies to lock down my internship for this summer. I am pleased to say that I have now accepted an offer and will be headed to Seattle, WA to be a Product Manager at Amazon!

I couldn't be more thrilled, as I have been incredibly impressed by the company, its people, and a philosophy that really clicks for me. Plus they are doing some amazing things in the tech space and it seems like they are only getting started! I'm pretty psyched about spending a summer in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where we get to live in downtown Seattle in South Lake Union near the brand new Amazon HQs and take the light rail to work!

It's pretty cool of Amazon to put its interns up in the Space Needle for our summer housing!

 

TED's Takeover of Our Campus

Today marks the final day of TED's four-day Takeover of UCLA Anderson.  This partnership was TED's first with an institution of higher education.  The "takeover" was designed to immerse the UCLA Anderson community in the TED experience, and I must say this event has to be one of the most memorable on-campus events of the quarter.  I'm sad to see the splashes of TED's signature velvet red go, but it's been quite a run.  Bold ideas, lively discussions, insightful panelists, challenging calls to action -- we students were treated to a highly concentrated dose all of these things as we wandered into the brightly decorated student lounge in between classes to see live recordings of various TED speakers from the 2012 conference in Long Beach.

One of the featured speakers was Jim Stengel, former Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble and current adjunct professor at UCLA Anderson.  He made the case that we are entering an era where the narrative of business must change.  Companies must be driven by higher-order brand ideals in order to achieve truly sustainable growth.  These companies will attract the best talent and innovate in ways that make life better for the people they serve.  Without an ideal to guide an organization, people lose their passion to create and do meaningful work.  And without passion, your organization may be relegated to a future of mediocrity and underachievement.

The capstone event for the TED Takeover was an afternoon "campfire" with TED-inspired talks with some of our fellows classmates and professors.  Prof. Rakesh Sarin proposed his equation for the science of happiness, Prof. Bhagwan Chowdhry discussed his Financial Access @ Birth campaign, and fellow classmate Stephen Lehtonen challenged us to join the fight to design education around children's passions rather than standardized testing.  Class of 2013 students Stuti Goswami and Guy Holzman delivered inspired talks about the Dream Act and the need for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.  Prof. Benartzi proposed a strategy for saving in the future by keeping a lid on your lifestyle while increasing earning potential.  The energy in the crowd was electric.  Standing ovations and loud cheering rumbled through the alumni plaza.  Great food and drinks + being surrounded by good company + bold innovative ideas = a night to remember.

Wish you all could have seen it for yourselves.

-- Jesse Ferlianto '12
Twitter: @jferlianto

 

 Stephen Lehtonen - my friend, classamate, and founder of Breakaway, giving his talk about education reform that had the entire room engrossed from beginning to end.  No joke.  That's tough to do these days, and this just gives you a sense of how gifted this guy truly is.

Recruiting, Races, Amazing Weather: Winter Quarter at UCLA Anderson!

It's hard to believe winter quarter is already halfway done! If I thought that things were going to slow down a bit after the craziness of Fall (full disclosure: I did.), well, I was wrong! But, at the risk of sounding like a broken record in all my posts, I am still loving all of it.

Where to begin: it's been a crazy quarter, full of RECRUITING and schoolwork and RECRUITING and wedding planning and Marathons and RECRUITING. That's right, first-years are allowed to attend company presentations and network in the Fall, but companies can't actually solicit applications from us until the Winter. So they do! Before we were even back to class, I was in Seattle for the great Days on the Job event put on by the High Tech Business Association (HTBA), visiting the offices of Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, and T-Mobile. Resumes and cover letters were due en masse all throughout January, and interviews are still being conducted as I type. I have been lucky enough to interview with some truly excellent companies; a sampling of them includes:

Awesome companies that came to UCLA Anderson to recruit it's even awesomer students!

The process has treated me well with all my hard work this Fall and Winter paying off in the form of second round interviews and even an offer so far. You'll have to stay tuned to this blog to find out where I decide to spend my summer! But I do want to offer faith for those career and function switchers out there: if I can go from being a real estate developer to a product manager at a top-tier technology firm, anyone can do it!

In between recruiting I have managed to squeeze in two big races, qualifying for the 2012 New York City Marathon by running a 1:35 at the 13.1 Los Angeles Half Marathon in January, and qualifying for the 2013 Boston Marathon by running a 3:32 at the Huntington Beach Marathon last weekend. I bring this up here because I was talking to a prospective member of the class of 2014 over coffee the other day, and he told me he had heard that there isn't time for exercise because you are so busy in school. Well, he obviously asked the right (wrong??) person, because I set him straight. Continuing to run during all the insanity has kept me centered and provided me with some coveted "me time." In addition, I'm exploiting the fact that we don't have to look neat and polished like in a work setting at school, as I will go running around campus at lunch and then return just in time for class. This might explain why no one ever sits next to me, but hey, at least I'm staying sane. (Just kidding, I do have friends - honest!- and with SoCal's dry weather, I sweat about 1/16th as much as I did in humid Florida.)

This begs the question, was it me... or was it those amazing pink socks???

I should clarify that I did not photoshop myself into a beautiful beach background in the above photo, this is actually what I ran along for 26.2 miles. Yeah, it's pretty nice here. The weather has been downright amazing for the last two months. Temperatures hover around 78 degrees every day, the sun is shining, the air has a light breeze, people are wearing shorts- I feel like I need to pinch myself to be sure it's really January and February. Having experienced the fantastic weather out here, I think YOU would have to pay ME to go to business school in New England at this point! 

Winter Break is Here!

The last time I had a winter break (or summer break, or spring break, or any kind of "break," for that matter) was a whole six years ago. Re-reading that last sentence, I'm very tempted to wallow a bit in self-pity, but fortunately--or unfortunately--for most first-year students winter break allows no time for mindless dawdling. Please allow me to elaborate:

After the crazy & hectic orientation season came the crazy & hectic recruiting season.

After the crazy & hectic recruiting season came the crazy & hectic finals season.

After the crazy & hectic finals season came the crazy & hectic resume-drop season (present time).

After the crazy & hectic resume-drop season will come the crazy & hectic interview season (January & February).

And then it's time to let out a huge sigh of relief and finally get that haircut you've been putting off for a year and see friends that you've somehow managed to raincheck into oblivion.

Now, keep in mind that folks who are looking to go into marketing, media/entertainment, real estate, or other non-traditional fields will not follow the above-schedule. But for most students who are looking to recruit for consulting or finance, this schedule will hold true. And that's exactly why first quarter of first year is likened to the saying, "drinking water from a firehose." Because it is information-overload at every turn and you have to be comfortable with the dynamic and ever-shifting gears of business school.

And that brings me to point out one of the greatest characteristics and skills to hone in business school: adaptability. We all come in possessing varying degrees of this characteristic but soon will find that we're pushed to our limits. Ultimately, the sheer willingness to change and adapt according to the situation at hand is a great advantage. And this is the overarching theme beneath all the noise.

OK, I'm off my soapbox now. So now that first quarter is over and winter break has officially commenced, what to do? For starters, many of our fellow first years and second years have gone off to ski, snowboard, and just plain lounge in Breckenridge, CO. They seem to be having a blast from all the Facebook picture postings and I feel tinges of jealousy here and there. Alas, I didn't sign up to go so now I'm missing out. But never fear, there are always more cases to practice and cover letters to polish, so the next few weeks will be busy without a doubt. I just hope and pray that by this time next year, I'll be able to bequeath more of my insider knowledge and experiences with the readers--with a job offer in my back pocket.

-- Connie Kim

[email protected]

@UCLAMBA

 

Women's Business Connection Brunch Series II: Consulting

Gopi Jayaswal & Alli Alter, both MBA class of 2013. Thank you for organizing the event!

It's that time again: another post of the Women's Business Connection brunch series! This time, we're honing in on women in consulting in the greater Los Angeles area. The event was held on Sunday, November 20th at Hotel Angeleno in West Los Angeles (yes, I am behind on my posting schedule!). Companies in attendance were Bain, Deloitte (S&O and human capital), ZS Associates, Monitor Group, and PWC. Each company brought out two of its female representatives and it was another fabulous event hosted by the WBC here at UCLA Anderson. The great thing about these events is that us full-time students can also mingle & meet the fully-employed MBA students, who usually are only on campus once or twice a week as they're working full time and going to school (the resolve and dedication of these folks are amazing!).

So we all know the drill: consulting = incessant travel and time away from home. Ever see the movie, Up in the Air? Many fear that management consulting is a job for the lonely and emotionally unavailable. And it is true that the travel naturally comes with the territory and thus can easily burn out the most enthusiastic--but uninitiated--associate. This, however, is remediated by the fact that most consulting companies go above and beyond their call of duty when it comes to career development coaching and internal HR consulting services.

What was so important about this specific consulting brunch series is that these female consultants all focused in on the obstacles they have faced--and are facing--and how each company strives to tailor to their needs and accomodate their possible family plans. These are issues that hit close to home for many of us females and it's important that we all know what we're diving into when we face a new career. And as was the case for the previous finance brunch, all the reps in attendance were frank and candid in their experiences and that made the brunch experience all the more genuine and heartfelt. I know this sounds like a thinly-disguised plug, but the Women's Business Connection at Anderson really have set up a great set of brunches and events to make the business school experience all-the-more enriching for female students. I'm definitely looking forward to attending all of the brunch series and will dutifully continue to blog about them!

-- Connie Kim

[email protected]

@UCLAMBA