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April 25, 2008
Half of the MBA is done!
I’m done with half of my MBA! That’s unbelievable. I had my final MAP presentation yesterday morning and now am on vacation. My MAP experience was great. I learned a lot from my project and from working with my group. Our presentation went really well. The sponsor asked some tough questions, but we fielded them well. The project was an important part of the company’s growth strategy, and I think they will implement many of the recommendations we made in the near future. The experience was very rich both from a content point-of-view and from a leadership and teamwork point-of-view. I talked to a lot of high level executives during the project, and also had to deal with internal team conflicts, crises and lots of other fun stuff.
Now I just have a few last minute things to take care of and then I leave for Brazil on Monday morning. I will spend three weeks having fun and hanging out with family and friends before I come back for my internship with JPMorgan which starts on June 2nd. It will be a nice break to rest up and refresh before all the hard work I will be doing over summer.
The weather in Ann Arbor has really improved a lot in the last few weeks, and I would venture to say that it is perfect right now. Not too hot, not too cold, crisp sunny days, every day. The golf courses have all opened up again, and I have been going out to play quite a bit.
Looking back at my first MBA year I have to say that it was all I hoped for and more. I feel really blessed for having met all the wonderful people I met and to have experienced everything I did. This past year was marked by several really big accomplishments. Getting accepted to a premier MBA program like Ross was the first, then I did a lot of really hard recruiting work and got my first choice in jobs, then I made a baby. Just so many great things happened in the past year that sometimes it’s hard to get my head around.
Every day I am happier that I chose to come to Ross, and I am anxious to see what good surprises the next year will bring.
Posted by jtlynch at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)
April 24, 2008
MAP Wrap Up
Right now, I am sitting on a plane traveling from San Francisco to Detroit. My MAP team delivered our final presentation to PG&E on Monday afternoon (two final presentations, actually – our project generated a lot of interest within the company) and emailed our report out to the printer late last night. To say that MAP exceeded my expectations is an understatement; not only did I have an awesome team that consisted of 5 incredibly dedicated classmates, but I also had a great client liaison, company sponsor, and topic (renewable energy). To top that off, our faculty advisors and communications coach provided valued guidance and validation throughout the process. The experience culminated with a presentation to senior PG&E executives – and the preliminary feedback was very positive. We definitely got the sense that we had substantial impact at a very senior level.
We managed to fit in some fun between wrapping up the presentation and moving on to complete the final report. After the presentation on Monday, we had a night out in San Francisco in which we hit a couple of establishments, including what became my team’s favorite spot in SF, a Chinese restaurant called House of Nanking. The following day, our client liaison took us out for a tour of a wind farm about an hour-and-a-half outside of San Francisco. We saw some 1.5 MW turbines, which are the approximate height of a 40-story building. From a distance, the blades look like they spin slowly, but from up close, it is clear that they really whip around. It was an awesome day for the tour because the wind was really blowing.
So now I head back to Ann Arbor where lots of barbeques and other end-of-year parties await. It will be nice to get a chance to hang out with everyone now that we don’t have any academic obligations. People will start to head out of town as early as tomorrow, but many will stick around for at least a week. I for one am hanging out for the weekend and then heading out for the Erb camping trip, which begins early next week.
Posted by leahyt at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2008
MAP Closeout
Well the first year is coming to a close. I can’t even begin to explain how busy it is trying to wrap up MAP. We finished our faculty presentation on Friday and it went very well. Now my group is working on making changes to the presentation for the sponsor and wrapping up the paper. Overall, I think that MAP was a great experience for me. It was great to learn more about a new area – Human Resources and to see the skills that I bring to a skill. I also learned more about how to properly develop recommendations and I will use the same framework for my summer assignment.
GBR was last weekend and it was a great turnout and I believe that we had record attendance. The events were fantastic and really gave the admits a view into what the Ross experience is like. I know that many of you are still making your decisions and hopefully GBR helped in making your decision. Please reach out to the students that you met during GBR to ask as many questions as possible. I can say that hearing from other student was very helpful to make my decision.
Posted by alantria at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
April 17, 2008
The end of the first year!
It is amazing to see how time passes fast and how many things happened in this first year. My group just finished MAP, we did our final presentation to the client today. It went really well and it is very fulfilling to see that a company will use our recommendations. Our group worked well and I am glad I made two new friends. We are hanging out outside school context, which is great. This is one of advantages of MAP, you can make good friends. After interacting for full 7 weeks either you make friends or you kill one another. That is a joke ;-).
GBR went very well too. It was my third GBR and the second I was a guide. It is a great sensation to help new admits to solve their doubts. Many Brazilians will come to Ross, we will have a great team next year adding first and second years. I also had a chance to guide a Croatian and dealt with some Mexicans as well. It is amazing to see all the richness of culture involved at GBR.
I just started doing my master project for my dual degree program and I am excited about it. My friend and I will work together and we have a great Advisor, Tom Gladwin, one of the greatest professors at Ross and SNRE. We are going to analyze how distributed renewable energy projects can be scaled up from the perspective of financiers. We are going to run a survey at least in Brazil, India and China. It will be a lot of work, however it seems interesting and we aim to publish an extended article. I am looking forward to starting work on it. Summer is about to start, but I will use part of it to initiate my master project, once I am in Brazil. I will also go to the beach to rest and enjoy a vacation time so needed to recharge batteries for the summer job that starts in June.
Posted by rsoares at 07:51 PM | Comments (0)
April 08, 2008
So much going on...
April 8, 2008
The past few weeks have been awesome – I’ve been able to travel extensively and work on a project that is still pretty neat. Prague was fantastic. Considering that the trip was in the pipeline for so many months, I’m really glad the experience was pretty much as I imagined. The project itself is still interesting and challenging. After Prague, members of my team and I returned to Ann Arbor to figure out what our next steps will be.
I ended up staying in Ann Arbor through the end of March, which worked out great because I was able to attend a luncheon with the Vice Chairman of Johnson and Johnsons. Her acceptance speech (she is the recipient of this year’s Women in Leadership Award) definitely made me glad to be going into healthcare. That last weekend in March I also went to a regatta to cheer on my alma mater (University of Rochester) as they battled University of Michigan and a few other schools.
The very next day I flew to Chicago with a MAP project teammate to attend a conference for our project and we were able to speak with some cardiologists who had some good insights. The demographics of conference was strikingly homogenous (take a guess) and that makes me glad to be attending Michigan.
After Chicago, it was on to Brussels, Belgium, where my team met up. The opportunity to visit Brussels (who does this for a class project!?!) was awesome, and then I also traveled to London with another teammate to conduct an interview with a cardiologist there. Another cool travel experience.
Prior to these past few weeks I haven’t traveled much in Europe, so this exposure definitely opened my eyes and makes me appreciate my business school experience even more. I’m currently writing this on the return flight, from Brussels to Chicago. It’s actually nice to be returning to Ann Arbor for a few weeks. Finishing up the MAP project shouldn’t be too bad, and then it’ll be packing up my apartment (moving to another one in the Fall) and then on to the summer.
Highlights:
- Traveling: Spending a week in Czech Republic for MAP; applying what I’ve learned, learning from my team, and meeting classmates, some who I swear I have never seen before. Visiting Belgium, Luxembourg, and London.
- Getting to know my MAP teammates better – some who I now consider to be good friends.
- Elected Healthcare and Life Science Club president; moreover, knowing that I have a great executive board with me
- Marathon training is on track and getting intense
- Getting more information about my internship and seeing where everyone else will be this summer
Lowlights:
- Not bidding enough points for some classes.
- London was pretty expensive
Things I’m looking forward to:
- Delivering a great MAP project.
- GBR – I’m a student host and HLS is hosting a happy hour!
- Studying abroad at Koblenz, Germany in May.
- Seeing my parents and friends from high school and college over the next few weeks.
- Summer internship in southern California
- Being a career counselor next year
Posted by amyhuang at 07:03 PM | Comments (0)
GBR
We are approaching the end of MAP. My client final presentation will be on April 18th, one week in advance of our final schedule. But it is good, so we can have more time to dedicate to the final paper which is due April 24th. The two most important MAP deliverables are the presentation and the written paper.
It has been very enjoyable to work in my group. We did a first mid term presentation to the client and it was very successful. I am glad that our client is seeing the value of our work, so we are being able to add value to a great company.
With the end of MAP, my second year as a dual degree student and my first year as a MBA student also ends. I will have one month of vacation before starting to work for McKinsey during summer. I will work in Sao Paulo Brazil, where I am from. This will be great, so I can be with my family and friends. Moreover, the economic scenario in Brazil is very favorable.
This week GBR starts!!! This is a great event for admitted students and I do encourage you to come if possible. I came when I was in the process and it was the best thing I did. GBR is a great event through which admits can get to know Ross, the community and the school. I volunteered to be a guide and I am taking care of one admit, she is also from Brazil. This is very great and we are going to do our own Brazilian event reception for the Brazilian students. This kind of events generally occurs throughout different nationalities. Many students are arriving tomorrow and the events last from Thursday until Saturday, but if you can stay for the whole week you will have more opportunities to hang out with students. I am looking forward to meeting you here, Go Blue!!!
Posted by rsoares at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2008
MAP is almost over
MAPs are entering their final stages and teams are starting to scram to get their projects done on time. There are two weeks left, and soon it will be time to start putting together final drafts and preparing presentations. My team is doing pretty well, and we have made significant progress. We have a good draft of our final paper ready, and are getting together several times this week to brush up on some details and ensure that our final draft is ready by the end of the week. We will then send our draft to our communication coach and advisors for their review and start working on our final presentation. I am very satisfied with the work we’ve done so far. I have learned a lot and made some good contacts as well.
The weather in Ann Arbor is also starting to improve considerably. Today it was 70 degrees, and I walked my dog in just shorts and a t-shirt. I think everyone is a quite tired of the cold and some sunshine and warmth are very welcome. To celebrate the good weather, I played golf with some friends over the weekend. Most courses are opening this week, and all the golfers were anxious to get outside and play. The course was still a little wet from our record snowfall this season, but it was a great time all the same.
Once MAP is over, I will go down to Brazil for a few weeks to spend time with my family and attend the wedding of two of my best friends. It will be a nice break before I come back for my summer internship, and really start working hard.
Posted by jtlynch at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2008
MAP and GBR
MAP is still going pretty good and there is a ton of work to do. We went to NY two weeks ago to visit the client for a mid-point presentation. Our final presentation will be in NY on April 24th so there are only a couple of weeks left. After working on this project I can definitely say that I’ve increased my understanding of how to properly conduct research, conduct surveys, and apply the results to recommendations. I’m also using some of the tools from the core classes such as regression from statistics and performance management from managerial accounting. So overall, MAP has been a great learning experience for me. The one thing that I can confirm after MAP is my desire to not enter consulting as a field.
I’ve also recently found out more about my summer internship. I will be working in the Consumer Operations & Long-Term Planning Group. This group works to define market characteristics and opportunities for growth for Dell. I like this group a lot because it looks at opportunities across the globe, which will give me a chance to work from an international perspective. I don’t know the actual project that I will be working on yet and that will be determined one I get there, however I am extremely excited about the summer! I am looking forward to Dell, but also to warmer weather!
GBR is coming up this week and there is a lot of preparation going on in order to make this event successful. I can remember attending GBR last year and how impressed I was with the event. Even though I had already made my decision to attend Ross before GBR, I was very happy with my decision during the entire event. I hope that many of you are deciding to attend GBR. I look forward to seeing you this weekend. Go Blue!
Posted by alantria at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2008
Tauber dinner
Tonight the Tauber Institute hosted a dinner where they recognized the graduating students and gave a small speech about where everyone is heading of to. There was a lot of diversity as to industries and geographies. In the past couple of days I have gotten several e-mails from prospective students asking me about Tauber and whether the program puts to many restrictions as to the fields one can go into after school. After tonight’s dinner I think that the answer to that question is fairly obvious. Several students are going into various consulting firms, while other are going to Exxon Mobile, Cummins, Cisco, among others. I also noticed that several are going back to the same company they did their summer projects with (Boeing I think hired about half of the students they sponsored over the summer). If you are interested in getting the official stats on employment, you can visit the www.tauber.umich.edu website and get the details there.
I also realized today that the summer internship is not the best selling point for Tauber, rather it is the opportunity that we have through the Institute to interact with the IAB (Tauber Industry Advisory Board) members. After our dinner I had a chance to talk with a VP of operation for Boeing and senior managers from Target and AT Kearney among others. Being able to network with these people I think is an opportunity that not many MBAs have on a regular basis. Some of these people know me by name now and we exchange email on somewhat of a regular basis. After the dinner my summer project teammates and I took our project sponsor out for a quick beer to talk about a few details of our project before we fly out to Arizona in a couple of weeks to do our initial project scoping. Our sponsor talked about a meeting he had this week with Intel’s CEO and senior managers and about a new project he will be working on while we are in Arizona this summer. Overall I am extremely satisfied with my decision to join the Tauber Institute and I am sure that my summer experience will be a great one.
Posted by jolaiz at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)