The MBA Student Voice

Spring Quarter Wrap-up @ UCLA Anderson & Disbelief that First Year is Over!

How is it possible that half of my MBA is over?!? I looked back at the first blog post I wrote on the MBA Student Voice just under a year ago and it was bittersweet - in some ways, it felt like a month ago, and in others, like forever. So much has happened in the last year! Almost all of it amazing.

But first, a wrap-up of the spring, as I have been delinquent in posting this quarter. I will start by blaming my new position as President of the High Tech Business Association (HTBA), a role I am honored to hold for the year starting this Spring through next Winter. My amazing board of Vice Presidents and I are taking an already great club and making it even better. Special events next year include Career Nights, Tech Trek company visits, and I am so excited to announce our inaugural Case Competition next fall! I can't tell you the sponsor yet, but it's a fantastic company. Some advice for the class of 2014: start thinking about applying to be a First Year Director and also forming a team for this special event. This will give you a great jump on a successful year!

Yes! Membership does include a T-shirt featuring this amazing logo!

Classes were as tough as ever this quarter, but it was hard to get mad at our strategy teacher Prof. Florian Ederer when he taught an incredibly interesting class by day and joined us at night for karaoke (or as it was also known, Eder-Oke). Other fun things included the marquee event of the spring, AnderProm at the luxurious Biltmore Hotel in Downtown LA. This featured everyone at Anderson dressing up to the nines, taking limos, and dancing around like a bunch of idiots. In short, it was a blast.

Guess which one is my husband. Bonus points if you guessed "Neither!" 

Unless you know what a Canadian tuxedo is, I don't even know where to begin explaining what is going on in this picture. 

Before you start to wonder what happened to said husband, he and I were able to sneak away for a few nights after our March 31st wedding (wrap-up here, you know - the one where we got married Saturday night in Atlanta and I was in class on Monday in LA!). That's right, we sailed away from the beautiful Port of Long Beach on an exotic 3-night cruise to Enseneda, Mexico. 

I thought it would be a fun surprise for Stanton if I had our stateroom festively decorated for our arrival. He wasn't sure whether to be horrified or relieved that I might have confused this trip with our actual (TBD) Honeymoon.

Just getting away was nice, even if this was one of the few moments on the trip I was actually awake. Much of my time was spent catching up on much-needed rest, much like the Mexican seal in the right of this picture.

I also got to do my first sight-seeing in LA (at least, that didn't occur as part of a run) when my parents came to visit us for the long Memorial Day weekend. Having been meaning to go to the Getty Center for approximately five years since I first came out to LA on business, it was a real treat to actually go. And it didn't disappoint! This is a must-do activity, if for nothing but the amazing views.

My father Jeff, who spent a summer in Compton in the '70s, finds Los Angeles much more to his liking this time around!

One of the most exciting things I participated in this spring was the TED TOMS Shoes Case Challenge. My amazing team of fellow first-years Alisa Sommer, Lauren Logan, Remy Monteko and I made it to the finals, where we had the chance to present in front of an esteemed group of judges from the TED organization, TOMS Shoes, and Anderson. Coming up with our own product idea that combined TOMS core values of companies engaging in sustainable giving with the ideals of TED was an extremely exciting and gratifying experience. Another tip to future students: jump on any case competition opportunities you get! They are great ways to improve your public speaking, work hard under pressure, and get to know your amazing classmates on a more intimate level.

Lauren Logan, Remy Monteko, me, and Alisa Sommer ready to present, wearing our TOMS shoes of course!

Our blockbuster idea, "Products Worth Sharing"

So after an insanely busy, exciting, fulfilling, fast-paced year, school is over and I am leaving for Seattle, WA for my summer intership as a Product Manager in Kindle at Amazon. I am really looking forward to it! It's going to be fantastic and I am so excited and grateful to have the opportunity.

Two of the best things about Seattle!

Naturally, the first thing I am doing in my new city is running the Rock 'N Roll Seattle Marathon on June 23rd. I like to consider it a great way of sightseeing, although I realize that might make me sound insane. Either way, it's going to be an amazing summer! I'll see you guys in the fall as I share my continuing adventures as an MBA student at the best business school in the country, UCLA Anderson School of Management!

It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Have a great summer!

-Charlotte Baxter Maines

Follow me on Twitter: @CharlotteK

Global Trips, One Wedding, No Funerals: Spring Break @ UCLA Anderson

Spring Break! When was the last time you had 1 1/2 weeks off? No work, no school, no responsibilities, no kidding? Well, for me, it was just this Christmas (wrap-up post here), but you can have all these breaks too if you come back to b-school! I'm going to hit a few of the spring break highlights and what's happened since we got back. 

My fellow blogger Connie reported on her trip to Cabo, and a few other large groups of Anderson students dispersed around the globe to create havoc and get ideas for their next great business venture (depending on who you ask). Costa Rica got rave reviews for gorgeous weather and amazing scenery like the famous waterfalls:

Cloud forest vs. Cloud storage. (Photo by Marshall Mawson.)

And every picture I've seen from the legendary Japan trip that almost 100 students went on makes me either wildly jealous or hugely relieved I didn't go!

Luiz, Heloisa, and Camila prove that what happens in Japan should probably stay in Japan. (Photo courtesy Aspan Dahmubed.)

You may be wondering why I didn't get to partake in any of these amazing trips. That is, unless you are an avid reader of this blog, in which case you have been following along for the past 9 months and already know why (no, not THAT!). Stanton and I finally tied the knot!

Stanton manages to hold up his left hand in a salud despite the ball and chain beautiful ring he now sports.

Having been working on planning the wedding behind the scenes during all the craziness of moving across country, surviving fall quarter, and recruiting and doing four high-profile races this winter, it is definitely a relief that the big event has happened. That's easy to say though because it was such a huge success and my husband is so amazing! Really, to all bridezillas out there, it turns out you don't have to micromanage everything to have a fabulous wedding. Have good food, a crowd-friendly venue, an awesome band, and a guest list of people that love to dance, and you can't go wrong. We partied deep into the night and still no one wanted to leave when it was over!

It's my wedding and I will jump awkwardly higher than anyone else on the dance floor and otherwise show off my two left feet if I want to!

The big day was March 31st in Atlanta, GA, where spring had officially sprung. I'm always going on and on about the amazing weather here in LA, and I guess my hometown was getting a bit of a complex because the flowers were in bloom and it couldn't have been more perfect.

Although this pic was included to show off the illustriously blooming azaleas, I suppose it bears explaining that one of the activities at my bachelorette party involved puffy painting matching hoodies. What can I say, my bridesmaids and I are children of the 80s. (L to R: Kara, me, Lucy. Don't get any ideas Gentlemen, we're all spoken for.)

My beautiful family! I couldn't have done it without their support, especially my lovely mother Gaylen. Just in case you weren't sure, she's the one on the left. My sisters Jordan and Allie are next, then my Dad. He was really relieved I finally dragged another man into the family! 

So now it's back to the grind (yes, we got married on Saturday and I was in class on Monday), and the last week has been filled with getting up to speed on my new duties as president of the HTBA, starting my first TA position, and getting used to all the new classes. We had ASA Transition day on Friday, a 7-hour haul where we learned all the ins and outs of being presidents. It was a long day, but I am so impressed by all the leaders of the student council (ASA), the associations and clubs. The class of 2013 is pretty amazing! 

Finally, just because I spent so much time making this collage-style picture and in another plug for LA weather, here is a shot of me smiling with relief after finishing the LA Marathon in 3:29 on March 18th. I loved getting to tour my new city on foot with no traffic, but I did not love the fierce headwind for the entire race. I'll definitely do it again next year and recommend it to my readers!

Next blog post, I'll have more info on the events the HTBA is planning, as well as an update from the Knapp Business Plan Competition, where Sarah Fixler, Aviva Altmann and I are pitching our business plan Yogameo in the semifinals on Thursday. As always, we never stop here at Anderson!

-Charlotte Baxter Maines

Follow me on Twitter: @CharlotteK

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!

 

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! 

Finally, A Break! The Holiday You Haven’t Had Since College

Greetings from VACATION! When is the last time you had a holiday longer than a couple of days over Christmas? Who needs the working world when you can be off from December 8 to early January???

My blogging skills were recently tapped by the prestigious third-party MBA Admissions website Accepted.com who interviewed me for their series about Top MBA programs. I was more than happy to provide them with my thoughts on UCLA Anderson, please check it out! (Note: I prefer the adjective “thorough” to “overshare” but there’s so much good stuff to say I had a hard time editing!)

So since that gives you more than anything you ever wanted to know about Anderson, and I’m on vacation anyways, here is my Christmas blog entry.

Usually I only get to sneak home for a few days over the Christmas holiday because of work, so it was a real treat this year to head to my hometown of Atlanta for a week and a half! This year it was especially important too, since I have this little thing called a wedding in March and there is lots to do! (Further evidence of the general over-ambition of b-school students: the wedding is in Atlanta on Saturday of Spring Break, and I will be back in class in LA on Monday!)

Although my mother has done a yeoman’s job of wedding planning this fall, I still had a few priorities of things I wanted to be involved in. Topping this list, naturally, was the cake tasting. How many weddings have you been to where the beautiful cake tastes like…. nothing? Not the case at my wedding! After much intense discussion (see below) a delicious decision was reached.

One of the most important wedding decisions is made.

My absolutely delectable Vera Wang dress, purchased this summer (described here) had also come in so I got it fitted.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that my fiancé checks this blog from time to time (I think), no pictures will be posted here except this teaser.

I modified the old adage to say “Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something fabulously sparkly!”

Why UCLA Anderson Is a Great Choice For B-school IMHO

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone had a wonderful day spent with family and friends. I know for us students, it was a welcome day off from studying as we approach finals. There are only two weeks left in the now-infamous first quarter of b-school (I say “now”—I think it was always infamous, I just didn’t really understand until I lived through it myself!), and I will admit to being incredibly ready for the holiday! That said, business school so far has been an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything. And one quarter into it, I can also safely say that I wouldn’t trade UCLA Anderson for any other business school either.

Another satisfied student votes Anderson!

It’s a tough question- there are many amazing business schools to choose from, how do you know which one is best for you? Complicating things is when you get your heart set on a school and for whatever reason are not able to attend (and by whatever reason, I mean you don’t get in). I've been blogging on this site for awhile, and with luck I've built up a bit of street cred amongst our readers. So I hope you'll trust me when I say that I encourage you to consider UCLA Anderson as seriously as you would any other school, and I include the Top 3 in that as well. Why? Where do I begin…

1)      The quality of people. Every day, every hour, I am amazed, surprised, and delighted by the sheer intellect, ambition, savvy, wisdom, goal-orientation, creativity, and overall high caliber of each of my fellow students, first and second year alike. This is truly a top notch institution to have attracted such amazing talent. There is no doubt in my mind that many people I walk the halls of Anderson with today are going to be tomorrow’s Fortune 50 CEO’s, start-up darlings, and revolutionaries in the non-profit space. It's just an added bonus that everyone is also friendly & helpful, normal (loosely defined), and quite often, hilarious. (At least in Section B, the most awesome section there ever was.)

What was that about “quality of people”??

First Quarter at Anderson and Loving It!

I think the last blog post I wrote was shortly after classes began, and when I look back over my Outlook calendar at what I’ve been up to in the interim, the hiatus makes sense. Even before school when I was working full-time, traveling several times a month, and training for races, I don’t recall feeling this busy. Maybe it seems so hectic because I am constantly changing my focus from academics, to company presentations, to resume and cover letter work, to fulfilling my duties as a First Year Director for three clubs, to a million other things, every day. Or maybe it’s just that even after my 10-12 hour days on campus, I still have homework to do!

In any event, midterms wrapped up on Thursday. Getting back into intense studying mode nine years out of college, for classes I never would have voluntarily picked if I knew I was getting a grade in them, made this quite the experience. If you’re like me, the following looks more like gibberish than the Significance Test for Proportions, but that was something on the Statistics midterm.

I actually wrote this equation in my spare time.

Similarly, you Econ majors might recognize the following as the Cobb-Douglas Principle, but Cobb to me is a salad, not something I am prepared to use to analyze a regression like I (sort of) did last Tuesday.

Cobb-Douglas Principle; Not Pictured: Avocados, bacon, any shred of logic.

But in between all this hard work there has been some fun. There are social activities scheduled many nights of the week, such as Lit Club (Wednesday nights), Anderson Afternoons (every Thursday after classes, free beer on campus!), and football games & tailgates (UCLA beat Cal (Berkeley) in the Homecoming game this weekend!).

Go Bruins!

Two of the highlights have been the 80s Party and the Halloween Party. I’m not sure if it’s an Anderson thing, or a business school thing, but when costumes are involved, people really go all out!

This is a situation where a picture is worth a thousand words.

School Begins, Breathing Ends: First Quarter at UCLA Anderson

Classes started just over a week ago, and if I thought things were going to slow down after Orientation, I was W-R-O-N-G! I have classes beginning at 8 am every day and I rarely leave the Anderson campus until around 8 at night! Good thing it is such a nice facility, but perhaps it could use a few futons… One of my top priorities right now is figuring out how to make everything fit! For the first couple of weeks of class, a typical day looks like this:

6 am – Wake up, chug coffee, catch up on e-mails that have already come in from the East Coast.

8 am – First class begins. My classes this quarter are Managerial Economics, Financial Accounting, Marketing Management, Data and Decisions (don’t be fooled by the name, this is STATS!), and Management Communications. For a liberal arts major many years out of school like me, there is a steep learning curve!

2:15 pm – Classes end, time to meet with my 5-person Learning Team to work on group assignments for a couple of hours. We use one of the awesome group study pods in the beautiful Rosenfeld Library. You can even write on the glass walls!

No, not these glass walls.

4:30 pm – Meet with a career advisor at the Parker CMC (Career Management Center). I’m working hard to get my resume in recruiting-ready shape!

5:00 pm – Squeeze in a quick run. An easy, hilly 4-mile route is simply to run around the UCLA campus. The beautiful Drake Track is very close by and a good place to get in some speedwork. Or get hit on, if you are Bill Wells.

6:30 pm - Change into business casual or a suit for evening recruiting events or professional association meetings. Last week alone, I attended events put on by Amazon, Microsoft, and SanDisk, as well as meetings for the Marketing Association, High Tech Business Association, Women’s Business Connection, and Net Impact.

9:00 pm – Arrive home. Check to see if my fiancé still recognizes me. Begin homework.

You get the idea! But before it sounds like I am complaining, things are certainly busy but it is very empowering to feel like I am in charge of my own destiny and making choices every day that affect the quality and success of my business school experience.

And there are still the weekends! Although I spend the majority of them catching up on all the work the above schedule didn’t permit me to get to during the week, there’s still time to enjoy fabulous Los Angeles.

Making a friend at Malibu beach.

Even if I anticipated this big life change, that doesn’t make it easy. In an effort to maintain some vestige of my former life as a regular competitor in triathlons and marathons, I took my first dip in the Pacific Ocean in the form of the LA Triathlon last weekend. Much to my surprise, I actually got my best time ever at the Olympic distance (.93-mile ocean swim, 25-mile bike, and 10K with two surprise enormous hills). As has become my habit, I am attributing it to the cooler, less humid, amazing weather I am so enjoying here. Stanton came Downtown to LA Live to watch the run, and probably because it was a rare chance for him to actually see me!

Catching some air!

We also bumped into Greg Booth, Anderson ’12, whose fiancé Hadley Hughes (below right) was doing her first ever tri. We all agreed it's much easier to smile when the race is over!

So life continues to evolve here at UCLA Anderson. On balance, I am loving it so far. But speaking of balance, I will certainly be happier when (if??) I ever get any!

 -Charlotte Baxter

Game Day, the Best Section Ever, and Life Adjustments: Anderson Orientation Part II

When I was describing the second week of Orientation at UCLA Anderson to my father, he remarked that it sounded like a true total immersion, and wondered if other MBA programs had something as intense. Although I do not know the answer to that question, I do know that he hit the nail on the head when describing our orientation. The second week included our first real paper and final exam for Management 414, improv and public speaking, a simulated climb of Mt. Everest, a day of team-building on the Odyssey ropes course (see Connie’s blog about that amazing day here), our first (sort of) recruiting event with Bain & Co., and the Game Day Section Competition.

Classes start on Thursday and thus begins the quest to settle into official school life. As much as I have enjoyed Orientation, and am so appreciative of the clear effort Anderson puts into it to ensure that we have the most valuable experience possible, it is time to get into a routine. Bet before I get ahead of myself, I have to talk about Game Day!

It’s amazing to think that a mere two weeks ago, we all showed up on campus not knowing one another, because from the look of the solidarity and enthusiasm that abounded at this section competition, we’ve been good friends forever. Our class is divided into five sections, the group we will take 3 of our 5 classes with all fall quarter. Game Day was a chance for us to put our section and Anderson spirit on display and spend a day outside in the beautiful LA weather participating in some classic kickball, dodgeball, and wiffleball competitions.

We created class cheers, painted our bodies and faces, and my beloved Section B dressed up our fearless second year orientation leaders Sean and Nora as Thor with a Six-pack and a Renaissance-era Taco (respectively). A highlight of the day for me was tapping into my roots as the coach of our company softball team and playing with the championship Wiffleball team. Note to The Islanders: I can still play left field! Here are some photos of the day (my most sincere apologies to Sections A, C, D, and E, but I only have pics of my section):

Serious business school students prepare for a somber day of competition.

Finally a Bruin! The First Week at UCLA Anderson

We are one week into our 2 ½-week Orientation, and it already seems as though Labor Day was months ago! So much has happened in a mere week! On the morning of the first day, I put on a new dress and packed up a lunchbox and my new bag with all my school books. It was like a time warp to first grade! Except the part where I drove myself to school.

When we first got to the Anderson campus, the whole class piled into Korn Convocation Hall for a welcome from the administration. There, we learned there are actually 379 of us! That was a lot bigger than I expected. But only 28% of us are female, which is a lot fewer than I thought. We also learned a few of the statistics that show just how impressive the 379 of us are. Grades, GMATs, jobs, travel, awards…. We’ve got a lot going for us.

Soon it was time to break into our sections, the group of 76 people you have most of your classes with for the Fall Quarter.  Mine is a diverse group ranging in age from 23-34, hailing from all over the world, and from the looks of it, very good at Powerpoint. We also learned who the members of our “Learning Team” are, or the group of five people from within the section that you do all your group projects with. In this small group alone, I am joined by a student from Serbia and one from Pakistan!

We are actually taking a class during this time, Leadership Foundation I, with a professor teaching us every other day. It was hard to be immediately thrown into hard work (and homework!) after not being in school for so long. Here is the final product of one of the hardest tasks he made us do.

Yes, that is a Lego Man.

I’m kidding, it was actually really challenging and an example of one of the many tasks we did to engender and practice effective teamwork. For those of us used to doing things our own way in our previous professions, the new way of thinking is going to take some getting used to! I guess that’s why we have grades, right?

We also had Undergraduate T-shirt day, which proved useful as many people who had been told by mutual friends that they had to be sure to meet me were finally able to pick me out in my very subtle undergrad garb.

This also helped me pick out my fellow Dartmouth-ites. John Hertzer (above) and I agreed that the weather in Los Angeles had it over Hanover, New Hampshire’s at least 8 months of the year!

Of course not everyone took such a standard approach to Undergrad T-shirt day.

Prof. Goldstein seems oddly unfazed by Kenny Liao’s outfit. I sure hope Kenny went to Texas!

Above all, it’s been amazing to meet so many great new people that I am privileged to spend the next two years with. It is very refreshing that everyone is so open and friendly and eager to jump right in. How many business lunches where no one knew each other at the outset look like this by the end??

On tap: another week of Orientation, including the famed “Odyssey” which is a day on the high ropes course. Sure sounds a lot more fun than the Trust Fall!

-Charlotte Baxter