The MBA Student Voice

International students

 Last friday was my last day with Goldman Sachs. I would like to think of it as declaring my innings after completing half a century of months, I use a cricketing analogy in spite of India's poor showing in the ongoing Test series against England. 

I started preparing a list of things to do in my last two weeks in India and it is kind of intimidating. I would like to discuss a few things here in the hope that the other International students can take a few hints (or maybe add to my list).

1. I am assuming that most people are done with their visa, definitely a major part of the preparation. Nevertheless I have to prepare a file with certain documents which should literally be at your fingertips at the port of entry. My I-20 and passport/visa. Few more might be a stretch but here goes - financial docs establishing liquid funds for a year of school, mark sheets/transcripts.

2. Loan processing with Eli Lilly. Finish your application and set up an appointment with Andy Promisiri at the financial aid office. You need to finish certain formalities like becoming a member of the Eli Lilly credit union before the loan is sanctioned and disbursed. My understanding is that full time students will get their first quarter bill on Sep 1 and have to pay by Sep 20. 

3. The accounting tutorial, http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x32956.xml . From work environment to having holiday homework, its a transition I am finding difficult to make! From what I have seen the tutorial is prepared in an interesting style, I think we are first batch to be exposed this 'Pre-Skilling'. 

4. In this market situation, there is one department at Anderson which we will rely a lot on. Parker CMC has already got us thinking on our resumes and career paths - http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/x23554.xml. I think some of the self assessments take over two hours. 

5. House search. I know that unless we walk around in the neighbourhood ourselves we will not make a right choice but always good to be prepared with a list of places. Looking for a 2br/2ba to be shared by four of us. Variables like distance from school, bus stop, grocery stores, furnished, un-furnished, pets, rents, etc could easily make this exercise a complicated math problem. 

6. Insurance for travel and for a few days before orientation. I think this may be a wise choice given that we will be carrying many important and costly items to our new abode. I have signed up for pre-orientation trips as well so some kind of insurance makes sense :). 

 7. International driving license. This should be handy though I am not completely aware of the CA rules.I have an Indian license and should get an International permit valid for at least a year after which I would have take the test (heard its difficult to pass in one go!).

8. Find out hassle free and cheap options to transfer money to the US. From India I am getting a picture of a few common methods to do this. Most banks do this directly or through their commercial branches. Get Forex, loaded cards (can be used like a debit card in US), Demand Drafts (in your own name or college's if you want to pay the fees using that) and direct money transfer to accounts in US. 

9. Smooth culmination of services in your home countries like phone, internet, redundant bank accounts cause the last thing we want to be doing is calling back home and enquiring why money is still being debited for the calls we never made / services we did not use. 

10. I have heard that most universities in US need a MMR (measles, mumps & rubella) vaccination certificate. In absence of documents in the required format we might need to do some running around there as well but I am not very clear on this requirement. 

I think ten's a good number to start with. I welcome any suggestions and corrections on the points above.I may write another list of things to do as soon as you land in US (My google calender shows I am attending overlapping events already!) but as they say one thing at a time.

Of course Anderson's consistent mails and reminders are great, their interest in helping the students have a smooth transition is very apparent. Its up to us now to face up to the challenge.

Cheers,

Rahul Bala,  MBA '13

Sports!

I woke up at 6:00am on a sunday morning! We had this event organized by the running club of GS for selecting members for 5km * 4 relay corporate team event. Once all the other participants in front of me had faded into oblivion, I thought it wise to settle for a stroll and concentrate on the music on my iPod. It was time to explore the beauty of the park, primarily because I had no idea where the end line of the race was!

It was not all lost because once the main event ended it was time for Frisbee. I had no idea that this childhood pass time is a major sport now. There are clubs with a lot of enthusiastic participation. Did you know that forehand, backhand, push grip, hammer are various terms in frisbee? Or that there are competitions that are held with 7 on 7 member teams?

I am definitely going to be a part of the 'Ultimate Frisbee club' at Anderson. 

I have been a sport enthusiast all my life and have played Badminton at the National level. I am really excited to get involved in all the sporting opportunities I am reading about at Anderson - Tennis, Golf, Running, Volleyball, Soccer. There is a UCLA badminton club but no Anderson specific one. Those interested in the fastest racket sport - Badminton, please get in touch with me.

I start off with our Pre-Orientation outdoor trip - 'Kayak and Hike High Sierra'. I am definitely looking forward to C4C events as well, have heard a lot about our storied conquests (Golden Briefcase) and contributions (Volunteer hours). 

I have found many of my closest associates and friends while pursuing various sporting activities. Since networking is going to be a key skill in all our careers what better place to start than at internal sporting events. 

Cheers,

Rahul Bala,  MBA '13

Slowly sinking in..

The irony of an US Embassy situated on a street named 'Ho Chi Minh' could have unfolded in a city none other than Kolkata, India. That is where I interviewed for my F1 visa a couple of days back. After all the anxious moments spent waiting for the I-20, receiving the visa within two days came as a pleasant surprise.

It is really sinking in now that in a month's time I will be flying to LA. I put in my papers this week. After having worked with GS for four years I wonder how I am going to feel on my last day there. Most people interested in finance aspire to be a part of GS. I hope to come back too, in a different function though. 

I want to transition to Investment Banking(IB) with the help of my MBA. Notwithstanding my various futile pursuits at obtaining an internship on the finance side, I am tryinig to orient myself by reading relevant material. The financial crisis has ensured that all books available for general reading on the financial industry just balk your enthusiasm. It does help to put everything in perspective though, the 'Trillion Dollar Meltdown' by Charles Morris is a definite case in point. I am confident that Parker CMC with its many strategies is going to back all of us to follow our industries of interest.  

Next big item on the list is the house search and the many others on the to-do list I see in the mails from Anderson. I can already see why people say MBA is a hectic program. But its all in pursuit of a better life, so bring it on. 

Cheers,

Rahul Bala,  MBA '13

I begin to feel like I belong...

I am writing this in good spirits even though Federer did not play Sunday's Wimbledon finals. Djokovic's sublime display against Nadal was heart warming.

I hail from the IT capital of India, which is now sadly an infamous moniker for its usage in the English language - Bangalore. I could easily be the person (at least one of the teeming thousands) you would imagine working at their cubicles in the offices of the Yahoos, Googles or MSs, while reading the introduction chapter of Thomas Friedman's famous first book. Literally by the way, I do work on that campus in front of the golf course where he got his epiphany about the new trends in globalization.  

Though, my life has been anything but 'Flat' for the last four years since I started working at Goldman Sachs or even before that. 

I was recruited out of an engineering college, what a surprise!, where I was to graduate in Electronics, to work as a software engineer, but to build applications for the financial industry. I was trained in New York (did visit LA and Las Vegas over the Labour weekend!) and have since worked in various equity trading technology sub divisions in Bangalore. 

I have played Badminton since '94 and have been lucky to carry this passion through school, college and my corporate life. I am really excited about all the sports and outdoor activities we are going to have on campus. Just in case anyone is wondering if something is wrong with me, I love our national passion - Cricket too! 

I am going to reign in my excitement to share too much too soon. I would like to say that I am happy to share this blog space with our past, present and future contributors and more importantly, all our readers. Hope this blog becomes a repository of all our good memories which we can keep coming back to many years from now. 

Cheers,

RB