The MBA Student Voice

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!

Since Graduation in June ...

Four years after enrolling at UCLA Anderson, and later UCLA School of Law, I graduated with a JD and an MBA. Immediately after graduation, I spent the summer studying for the CA bar examination. I took a brief break after that to visit Puerto Rico, before starting my new job as a regulatory consultant. Given my background and future goals, this job was a great fit - and my company is great. I've been with the company now for about six months. My projects vary, but generally consist of consulting clients on how to comply with securities laws, rules and regulations. A lot of my work is done onsite, at the client, so I travel very often. I just returned from New York last night and I'm off to San Fransicso on Monday. More updates to follow ....

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! 

Settling into 2012

Winter quarter is well under way, and it is safe to say that we are now entering the "meat" of the quarter.  Most of us have completed what I like to call the "courtship" period of any new quarter - the introductory period when students attend various electives before locking down a schedule.  One thing that this "courtship" period has shown me is the extent to which my classmates seek to customize their classroom learning over this 20 month journey.  UCLA Anderson provides its MBAs with a flexible curriculum (12 electives), which provides us substantial freedom to organize our academic experiences around our specific needs and interests.  It's encouraging to see my peers take that freedom seriously.

Given the amount of time I spent recruiting last quarter, it's tempting for me to think that getting a dream job is the main objective of coming to b-school.  But with the recruiting season behind me, I have realized that I truly enjoy having more time and space to savor the academic component of b-school learning.  If all goes according to plan, I won't have to miss any more class due to job interviews.  That said, I must say that my professors last quarter were incredibly supportive of my recruiting efforts.  I appreciate the fact that the faculty and career services staff are on the same page when it comes to supporting their students' career aspirations.

As for my classes on deck for the winter quarter?  Thinking On Your Feet, Marketing Strategy & Planning, and Motivating Management.  I am also doing a Fall/Winter AMR Field Study with four of my most stellar classmates working on a marketing plan for a client seeking to launch a plus-sized women's clothing line.  More detail to come in my next post.  Should be a fun quarter.

- Jesse Ferlianto '12

Me and 2 of my stellar Applied Management Research (AMR) teammates

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

connie.kim.2013@anderson.ucla.edu

@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

connie.kim.2013@anderson.ucla.edu

@UCLAMBA

Women's Business Connection Brunch Series I: Finance

Three representatives from Citigroup were kind enough to join us for the brunch: Gloria Lin from New York, Tasha Bartuzik from Los Angeles, and Tanya Silvio from Chicago.

I'm the first-year co-director of professional development for Women's Business Connection (WBC) at UCLA Anderson, and as such, was able to participate recently in a brunch hosted by WBC with several key finance firms in the LA area. The brunch was held on Sunday, October 23rd, and we were able to have firms such as Credit Suisse, Citibank, Houlihan Lokey, Goldman Sachs, Oaktree Capital, and Amgen in attendance. The best part of all this is that this isn't the average "mixer" type of event--it's geared specifically toward women who are seeking industry jobs and as such, these events tend to be more intimate and a bit more candid than your garden-variety networking event.

The brunch was graciously hosted by fellow first-year students Miho Goto and Laurel Martin, both of whom I'm sure will secure top-notch jobs in the finance field come summer.  Not having been to a brunch networking event before (but having attended plenty of lunch and light-dinner events), I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  The event was held on Sunday at 10:30 AM at Hotel Angeleno, basically right by the world-renowned Getty Center here in West Los Angeles.  From the moment I walked in, I knew it was going to be a great event as the food spread was quite impressive (always a good sign in my book).

The event was set up in a round-robin format, with each of us going from one table to the next after about 20 minutes of chatting.  This was very efficient as we were able to choose with which companies we'd like to network prior to the event.  Armed with my background in private wealth management and a high-level knowledge of finance, I was able to uphold my end of the conversation and soon everyone found the conversations free-flowing, as was the case with the coffee & orange juice.  

What I found especially noteworthy, as mentioned before, is that the WBC brunch series is specifically set up for women by women.  So there are discussions honed in around work-life balance, family life, glass ceiling issues, and other unique challenges that women may face in the industry.  The fact that we were able to have frank conversations with women who are successful in their fields was like a breath of fresh air.

The three sets of 20 minutes flew by in a blink and soon we found ourselves saying goodbye.  The finance brunch series set up by WBC was a great event and I very recently--just this past Sunday--attended the consulting brunch series.  Look for my blog post regarding this new brunch next week!

-- Connie Kim

connie.kim.2013@anderson.ucla.edu

@UCLAMBA

Parker Career Management Center at UCLA

Orientation officially kicks off in about two weeks, but the communication from faculty and staff keeps rolling out at full speed.  In a series of 12 total logistical emails to be sent out before orientation, we are now finally at number 12.  The clock's ticking fast and the anticipation is thick in the air.  So what better way to calm our nerves than to have us get a head start by visiting the Parker Career Management Center (Parker CMC)?  

From now up through the end of orientation, the Parker CMC career advisors will strive to meet with each of us on an one-on-one basis to better gauge where we are with our career selection process.  This is strictly a preliminary meet-and-greet, but it's heartening to know that Anderson is taking its new career-focused curriculum very seriously.

Inside one of Anderson's buildings.  

With the advent of the new curriculum, we will be meeting much more frequently with our advisors and with our ACT groups.  We will actually choose from several career-based "tracks" and this will give recruiters a clearer understanding of what our academic skillsets will be.  We will also be allowed to get specific "certifications" in many pertinent areas, such as consulting, banking, marketing, entrepreneurship, real estate, and media.  

Click to continue reading!

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

Taking Time Before School to Identify What the Anderson MBA Means To Me

In a few hours, I am handing over the keys to the home I own here in Palm Beach County, Florida to the new tenants who will be renting it for the next year or few. As I prepare, it truly touches a chord—this is my HOME. It is not an investment property, a flip, or something I expected to move in and move out of. This is the place where I duped a crew of unsuspecting friends into what became a three day long painting campaign/operation/crusade (light green for the first floor and purple in my bedroom—obviously not selections made with re-renting in mind!), threw parties and impromptu barbecues, and spent long hours studying for the GMAT and toiling over application essays. This is the view from the balcony off my master bedroom. I will miss it!

Of course, this further brings home what I am doing—leaving my life as I know it behind in pursuit of…. What, exactly? I know what was important to me here in my life in Florida, how do I seek and honor that at school? Someone told me that getting to attend business school at a top program such as UCLA Anderson is like winning a lucky lottery ticket. Okay, so maybe the lottery gives you money and it doesn’t quite work that way with school!, but I like the idea behind this. I have two years to explore my interests, translate what matters to me into ideas or programs that are meaningful to others and the community, and gain a skillset that will allow me to better lead and manage them.

Therefore, I have spent lots of time this summer reflecting in an effort to reach some measure of self-awareness before I am thrown into the 12-hour days of Orientation and a 1st Quarter chock full of 5 classes, networking, new clubs, responsibilities, and job searching, to name just some of the things expected of us once business school begins. Being intentional in reflection has allowed me to realize that I want to be sure to “give back as much as I get.”

For me, I anticipate this will include participation in the Anderson Net Impact Club, whose mission is to improve the world by creating new leaders who are using the power of business to make a positive net social, environmental, and economic impact. There’s the Anderson Challenge for Charity (Anderson C4C), one of many non-profit opportunities that focuses not only on raising money but on spending hours giving back to the community through volunteerism and leadership.

I am also very excited that Anderson provides the opportunity to earn a UCLA Leadership in Sustainability Certificate along with the MBA degree, which allows for a curriculum and leadership experience that focuses on creating a positive influence on the community from a social and environmental perspective. 

I can’t say for sure what I will choose to become involved in once I dive head first into my time at Anderson as these opportunities are only a few of so many that encourage social mindfulness. But I do think it is important to spend some time before getting caught up in the whirlwind of school to identify what we will use our lucky lottery tickets for. And now that it is August the clock is ticking down toward when I get to cash in mine, and I can’t wait!

-Charlotte Baxter