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October 27, 2008
First Term Done..
Hi All~
It seems hard to believe that the Fall A term has come and gone already! Seven full weeks of classes doesn't seem very long, but my professors maanged to go through a lot of material and have it all make sense. While finals week did come along with a lot of stress, I didn't feel it was nearly as daunting as my undergrad days. Most of the material was still fresh in my mind, and the concepts were all pretty cumulative.
Directly after finals, I was able to go back to New York to visit my family and girlfriend, which was a well deserved break. During the beginning of the week, I was able to go to a Ross sponsored event-- Wall Street Forum. There, interested students were able to attend informational meetings with various investment banks and financial services companies. I attended presentations by JPMorgan, Citi, American Express, and General Motors- all of which have a very strong Ross alumni presence.
Additionally, Dean Bob Dolan hosted a reception on the Monday night for the Ross community. The reception allowed a number of current students and alumni to mingle and learn about the new facility to be opened next term. I'm excited to have classes moved into the new building and take advantage of all the resources there.
Anyways- recruiting is stepping up into a higher gear now- Will keep you all updated how that and Fall B is going!
-Joe
Posted by jgenco at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2008
First down!
No, I’m not talking about football! It’s hard to believe, but our first quarter just ended. During the Fall A term, we covered four core courses (Strategy, Economics, Statistics, and Accounting or Finance) at an incredible speed. It’s amazing how much has happened since the end of August. Were we really just in orientation about eight weeks ago? Some highlights:
M-Trek: What a way to kick off the MBA experience! M-Treks are pre-orientation trips led by second-year students to domestic and international destinations. My trek was to Iceland with seven other MBA1s and four MBA2s. There’s nothing like getting to know your classmates while hiking up and down steep mountains, bunking together in small cabins, and commiserating over blistered feet. (Disclaimer: this was my first multi-day backpacking trip, so everything was challenging for me!) Our trip involved more than just hiking, though. The MBA2s did a fantastic job planning the trip, and included a daylong excursion to the famous Blue Lagoon resort, which is a geothermal spa just outside of Reykjavik. Other highlights included exploring different facets of Icelandic culture (a taste of putrefied shark, anyone?) I could go on and on, but I’ll sum it up quickly—while going on a trek is optional, I would strongly encourage everyone to go!
Football games: Okay, don’t get me started on our team’s win-loss record so far. I know, it is a transition year! Nevertheless, football Saturdays are a cornerstone of the Michigan experience. When the Wolverines are playing at home, expect to find the entire city of Ann Arbor wrapped up in the game--with the stadium’s seating capacity of over 100,000 people, you can understand why! Ross has its own set of game-day traditions with student-run tailgates and corporate-sponsored tailgates, turning a four-hour football game into a full day affair. Go Blue!
Classes: I truly enjoyed my classes this term and wished that they weren’t over so quickly. In economics, Professor Lafontaine ran auctions (with real money!) to illustrate auction dynamics; in finance, Professor Kaul taught us that “finance is love”; in statistics, Professor Ahn somehow incorporated a diagram of East Coast and West Coast rappers while discussing t-tests; and in strategy, Professor Ethiraj really challenged students to think differently. In short, the professors are great here. There’s more to it than that, though. While I remember group projects being a bit of a pain as an undergraduate student, they are an essential foundation of the MBA experience. My classmates are incredibly bright and dynamic, and I’ve learned an enormous amount by working with them on team projects. More importantly, we’re having a good time as well—even when working through finance homework sets at the 11th hour!
Fall A was great. I can’t wait for Fall B!
Posted by esl at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)
Introduction from Pavan
I am Pavan and I came to Ross from India. I am an engineer and after I graduated from college with majors in Computer Science and Mathematics, my interest in business led me to join Oracle Corporation in its e-business division. For the past four years, I worked at Oracle in managing e-business projects for the airline industry. Though I thoroughly enjoyed my work at Oracle, I realized that I would love to extend my skill set to provide strategic solutions instead of technological solutions to business problems.
Apart from my work at Oracle, over the past few years, I closely worked with two NPO's that are doing pioneering work in supplementing public school education in Bangalore. I developed a strong passion for education development through this work.
My reasons to pursue business education and my decision for choosing Ross stemmed out from both the above interests. I wanted to go to a socially conscious school that would provide me strong general management education and Ross was therefore a natural choice for me.
Time flies so fast - It feels like yesterday I was surfing through the Ross ambassador blogs and figuring out what it is to be like at Ross. And today I am here already at threshold of Fall B.
Fall A has been amazing! I came to Ann Arbor in late July. I took the accounting prep-course early August and took off to Northern Michigan right after that. We were a bunch of 12 who decided to do an alternate-trek instead of M-trek because of budget constraints. We traveled through Grand Haven, Traverse city and Mackinaw Island and had a blast on our trek. All of us are a pretty tight bunch now!
I came back, took the accounting exam and waived the course off to take finance core in advance. The term started off with the six-day foundation session of Ross Leadership Initiative (RLI). RLI has been a huge learning experience. Our section won the "grill to glory" challenge in which we cooked Greek cuisine for about 70 people!
Classes started right after that. I had Strategy, Micro Economics, Statistics and Finance core for Fall A. All my professors were great, but strategy Prof. Aneel Karnani is my personal favorite. I learnt what makes businesses tick, how companies gain competitive advantage and position themselves as market leaders through this course. The case based teaching approach is highly interactive and informative. The corporate strategy faculty at Ross is one of the strongest in the world. So if you are looking at Corporate strategy, Ross should be on your target school list.
Alongside academics, I am involved in quite a few extracurricular activities such as being an advisory board member for RLI, Associate director for west coast forum (a recruiting forum at west coast where 120 of us MBA1s are heading to, this Wednesday), Ross student ambassador (hence this blog) and member of the community consulting club. Ross provides a plethora of opportunities to have students actively engaged in leadership development and action based learning.
Fall A is done with. I am glad that I made it to Ross and am very happy to be able to learn from my super smart classmates. I am eagerly looking forward to a more hectic and nerve-wracking Fall B, not to mention the recruitment!
Through out my discussion, I underplayed recruiting discussions, as I know I will be covering recruiting through the coming weeks pretty strongly. Lets just say for now that companies have been coming in for quite a while and MBA1s are already involved in recruiting heavily. More to come soon.
Posted by pavankpm at October 20, 2008 11:03 AM
Posted by achomist at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
Section Bonding
We've completed Fall A and we are on break right now. Many first years are in NY on the Marketing, Finance, or Real Estate trek to network with and learn more about the companies they are interested in. Others have headed out to the west coast for the Hi-Tech Conference and to participate in the West Coast forum. Despite all of the current excitement, I just wanted to share a moment from the start of school that was a memorable moment for me and many of my section mates.
The Ross MBA experience begins with a week long Ross Leadership Initiative series. We participated in activities and seminars that introduced us to the type of intense teamwork experience we would be engaged in during our two years at Ross. It is an opportunity for self-reflection on the leadership skills we believed we had, and a chance to reevaluate the areas where we could benefit from further development. Most importantly, it was a time of bonding to get to know our section classmates, who would be integral in helping us learn both in an academic environment and through collaborative interactions.
Below is an email that was sent by a member of my section that was a jolting reminder of what a culturally diverse world we live in and how Ross has brought together a truly international student body. At Ross, there is a genuine attempt to foster an environment of teamwork that will transcend the academic experience we have at school and extend to our career and personal interactions.
"As you may know, I'm one of the international students from our section that are struggling because of the language, new environment, cultural differences, etc... I confess that it has been hard to me, and until today I was kind of shy even to talk to some of you guys, even though I'm not a shy person.
I say until today, because today was a memorable day for me: I played soccer, cheered a lot, and got almost crazy when our team was announced champion. And for that, I didn't need to say anything, what made everything more comfortable to me (since my English is very poor). And this way, feeling this spirit of camaraderie among us, today I talked to more people from our section (even speaking all wrong) than I did from the beginning in RLI until yesterday!
Well, I don't need to say that I am REALLY very proud of us for everything in this MBA Games! I'm truly on the best section of the Class of 2010 [that would be Section 4 of course]!!
Congratulations to everybody!! And have an excellent weekend!"
Posted by monicaea at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2008
Fall Break!
We finished our strategy paper and a bottle of wine at 4:30 am, I was in bed by 5, woke up at 6:30, was on my way to the airport at 7:30, and touched down at JFK by 11:30. Noon found me in a cab, bound for Manhattan, perched on the middle seat between two classmates, wondering to myself how New York managed to make itself so clean and shiny and wonderful since I'd stormed out on it in mid-July.
This evening, I caught up with old friends at the Parlour on 86th. The Michigan v. Penn State game was on the television; there was a Ross alum wearing an Erb Institute t-shirt (her son was also wearing a "my first wolverine tee" shirt). We chatted briefly about the school and fall break, and about how our football team was having a bad season.
Today began my first visit back to New York since I left in July and moved to Ann Arbor on August 1. I was just shy of my 10th year anniversary in the city, and I was more than ready to leave. I had been struggling financially through 5 years in the publishing industry, paying market rents in one of the world’s most expensive cities. I didn’t love my job, wasn’t sure I loved publishing, and had an interest in international development. I had the short-term goal of consulting with a long term goal of moving into this development sector.
Fast forward to October 20th, when Fall A, our first 6-week term, is over. I studied Microeconomics, Corporate Strategy, Business Statistics, and Financial Accounting. I have to admit, it was a little brutal. Not only was I an English major in college and hadn’t taken a quantitative class since 1997, all of my jobs in publishing were pretty regularly 8 hours a day, and I had plenty of free time to do what I wanted in the evenings and weekends. Getting back into the routine of a full-time student (which I loved as an undergrad) was not easy, and either was the coursework (some folks here have studied these things before, but I, for one, had not). But it’s over now, and I just had a massage, and I’m almost ready to tackle Fall B. Or rather, I should be ready by the end of the break! And I think I’m setting my sights on an internship and post-Ross job back in New York.
Tomorrow I head to DC to meet up with a bunch of folks from the Emerging Markets Club for the 2008 career Trek. We have 2 full days of meetings with various companies and organizations that work with emerging markets around the world. On Tuesday we even have a cocktail reception with local DC alumni. Should be fun! (Incidentally, the Emerging Markets Club is awesome – more to come on them in future blog entries).
Posted by betdavis at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)
Introduction from Shweta
Hello Prospective MBA students!
I'm Shweta Malik and I come from India. I was a physician in India and obtained my residency in Nuclear Medicine following which I worked with Philips Healthcare as a Product Manager for its medical device business. Post-MBA, I want to pursue a career in consulting and have plans to start my own venture in the long term. I chose Ross for its generalist approach to MBA education and for its breadth of resources for entrepreneurships.
We are just done with first 7 weeks at Ross. The exams are over, assignments submitted and we are into the first break as Fall A semester comes to an end! These 7 weeks have been hectic but fun. Getting up at 7am and rushing for accounting class, reading strategy cases late night before next day's class, working on numerous microeconomics assignments, doing case competitions, attending corporate presentations and then shaking a leg in salsa classes took a whole lot of time. The fun came from learning new concepts, meeting new people from across the world and professions and working on real life cases in all 4 subjects.
We had the following subjects:(in order of my liking) Applied Microeconomics, Corporate Strategy, Applied Statistics and Financial Accounting, in this term. "Creating value for the shareholder is the primary purpose of business" might sound cliched, but this profound statement is the basis of business management. Economics tells you 'What' is a value (for producers and consumers) and Strategy helps you identify 'How' to create that value. Statistics has been a revelation! Regression analysis works like 'Magic' and is a powerful tool for making sense of huge and abstruse data. In Accounting, I found Accrual accounting a very clever and simplified way to record and represent 'economic reality' of a firm.
Few other significant highlights of first 7 weeks have been:
1. My selection into Frankel Commercialization Fund's Healthcare Team. Frankel Fund is a student managed venture capital fund that seeks to invest into ideas developing in University of Michigan and around. Frankel Fund provides a unique opportunity to learn about early-stage investment and we would actually work with entrepreneurs and investment advisors. More information about the fund is available at www.frankelfund.com
2. RLI (Ross Leadership Initiative)-A series of 6 action-packed days to welcome our batch (Class of 2010) and to give us time and opportunity to bond with each other. We not only listened to some interesting speakers talk about leadership, teamwork and change but also played short games in small groups, worked on mini-projects, and spent a full day in Detroit at 'Greening of Detroit' school farm project while getting to know each other better.
3. My appointment as a student ambassador to help people curious to know about Ross School of Business from a current student's perspective.
Many first year MBAs are attending West Coast Forum on 23rd-24th Oct. Its a wonderful opportunity to have first hand experience of the companies on West coast through attending company tours and meeting alumni working on West coast. Will talk more about this in my next post.
Signing off for now!
-Shweta
Posted by mshweta at 01:23 AM | Comments (1)