« October 2008 | Main | December 2008 »
November 28, 2008
Mock interview madness
Recruiting is starting to take a life of its own! Researching companies, attending corporate presentations/events and writing thank-you notes always takes longer than I anticipate. I feel like I am taking “Recruiting 503� alongside the two Fall B core courses this term (Marketing 503 and Management & Organizations 503) and two elective courses (Strategic Brand Management and Management Presentations.)
Don’t get me wrong—recruiting has been a top priority since we arrived at Ross in September. However, the past few weeks have been a whirlwind as I’ve switched gears from resume refinement to “acing� interviews. Internship interviews don’t formally begin until January, but companies have been on campus conducting mock interviews for the MBA1s. Mock interviews can be tricky: they’re meant to be educational to help students properly prepare, but at the same time, they’re not 100% mock interviews either. I’ve been busy doing mock mock interviews to prepare for the mock interviews to prepare for the real interviews!
So where are all these interviews coming from? The majority of marketing interviews are held during Super Mock Interview day, which is organized by the Ross Marketing Club. I was impressed--15 companies participated (and some companies had more than one interview schedule) which provided ample opportunity for students to practice their interviewing skills. I met with three companies and received really helpful feedback on my behavioral, case and marketing interview responses. I still have a lot of work to go, but practicing now will make the interviews that much easier in January (I hope!)
And of course, there’s so much other stuff happening besides classes and recruiting. I’m definitely trying to make the most out of my time at Ross by experiencing as much as possible: helping to plan Go Blue Rendezvous (Ross’ admitted student weekend), competing in case competitions, and even testing my dubious creative writing skills by working on a skit for Follies (a student show satirizing life at Ross.) If only there were more hours in a day!
Posted by esl at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)
November 21, 2008
Mid term check-in: Fall B
Fall B kicked in and we are already mid way through it!! Quite a few things happened since I blogged last.
a) First it was the West Coast Forum. About 100 of us took off to sunny San Francisco to explore career opportunities in the Bay Area. We met with a number of Ross alums from almost every big tech company in the Valley. It was fun to meet some of them who graduated more than 15 years ago.
b) I have only three courses this term - Marketing, Management & Organizations (M&O) and Valuations. Marketing is lot of fun. Prof. Nordheim is phenomenal. Every day in class we have two groups discussing the marketing strategies of major firms and brands, and what they could do to position themselves better to customers. We dealt with as varied brands as Victoria Pink and products such as Hershey's chocolates.
In M&O we discussed topics such as: what is it that makes a team amazingly functional or wildly dysfunctional. We also had an insightful discussion last class about "Abiline Paradox" It is about a Texan family that takes a trip out for lunch to a place called Abiline 40 miles away from home without none of them actually wanting to do that. It just happens because no one wanted to voice their opinion of not liking the idea.
c) Our new building is going to be ready by this January and our next term classes are going to be held there. Yay!
d) Recruiting is picking up speed. Company presentations are almost over. I even submitted my application to one of the firms I am interested in. Yes, the economy is doing bad, yes there are fewer jobs but we have a TON of really helpful second years that are helping us in being better prepared for recruiting. It is amazing to see the number of hours these guys spend in mentoring and coaching us. Perhaps this is one other things that makes Ross unique. Every one is keen on helping and make the school an even better place.
e) Finally MAP registration is up. I am pretty stoked up and am anxiously waiting to know of the companies sponsoring MAP this time.
Posted by pavankpm at 09:30 PM | Comments (0)
Brrrr!
It's cold! It just started to get this way, with snow flurries a daily occurrence. It's a nice snow, though -- like a snow globe being shaken up all day long.
Fall B is half over already which is pretty hard to believe. It's busy, but a lot less stressful than last term (at least for me). I'm settled into Ann Arbor, I don't miss New York, I've made some great friends, and math isn't beating me in the head for several hours a day.
Of course, with Fall B comes recruiting. More recruiting than I had expected as I scheduled a presentation here and there in Fall A. In case you're wondering, there are several forms recruiting can take: First, we have corporate presentations, in which reps from the various companies and firms (usually Mich alum) come and give us a general overview (and they usually have a sign-in sheet, which makes this very important); secondly, we have office hours, which last anywhere from 10-20 minutes of one-on-one time (or sometimes two-on-one) with a rep in which you try to convince them that you're smart, good-looking, and a perfect fit for their firm. There are other events -- workshops, lunches, etc, which pop up from time to time, as well.
All this means two things: you're very very busy running from event to event, and you're wearing a suit a lot of the time.
Which brings me to "something I wish I had thought more about before b-school": clothes.
Buy a lot of dress clothes. I have two suits, and about 4 dress shirts that I can wear under them, but it just never seems to be enough (big drawback to having been able to go to work in jeans and t-shirts in my past life). There just isn't enough adequate shopping in Ann Arbor to make last minute decisions when you need something new. And if you're like me, you hate to iron, so you need to have an arsenal of fresh shirts lined up in the closet.
Posted by betdavis at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2008
Finals: done
It was unusual. It was unusual in every detail.
Lectures, where the professor of Statistics can give you information about different rappers on the West and East coast of the United States. Of course, it is Statistics, it is not Modern Music, but basing on this short information, we can determine how many students prefer rappers from West coast, how many students prefer rappers from East coast, how many students hate rap at all:) and then create the probability 95% confidence interval that randomly selected student would prefer rappers from East coast.
Lectures, where Microeconomics Power Point© presentation includes slides that reflect current situation on financial market – the known in microeconomics “Moral Hazard� problem was discussed not using the old examples from the books, but considering controversial $700B stimulus package that appeared only 2 weeks before this lecture.
Lectures, where the professor of Finance can tell you this dialog with his brother:
• Professor’s brother: What do you think about XYZ stocks?
• Professor: I do not know…
• Professor’s brother: What kind of finance are teaching to???!!!
and explain why it is normal situation: the better you know finance, the more you understand that you get very small part of the world knowledge (in this dialog – the price of the stocks already includes the possibilities of the future growth).
Nevertheless, the most unusual thing for me is the whole approach to the education. We passed 3 exams during three days. When first time I heard about our exams timetable I exclaimed: “It is impossible to prepare for exam using only 20 hours!�. However, in business school exam is only the measure of the knowledge, which you received during previous 1.5 months. Maybe be it is an usual situation if you get your bachelor degree in western university, but in eastern countries we used to prepare for an exam using 3 or 4 free days just before the exam during which we are trying to recall almost everything. It wasn't easy and examination period lasted painful 2-3 weeks-)
Posted by achomist at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)
November 03, 2008
Fall B has begun.
It's November 3, a day sandwiched between two very important events: Ross's annual Halloween party, which was Saturday, and the presidential election, which is tomorrow.
Pertaining to the former, I have to admit I've never been a Halloween person, mostly due to the fact that by the time I think about a costume (around 3 pm on Halloween), it's entirely too late to acquire or make one. That said, I found myself talked into attending the Halloween party this past weekend, with about 499 of my fellow classmates, (both MBA1s and MBA2s), and just this once I'll admit to having fun. I didn't really have time for a costume, but I found that if I distracted folks by asking about theirs they didn't bother to give me grief about it.
Now, about that second one. Ann Arbor, I am told, is a bright blue spot in what can sometimes be a red or pink state. For that reason, Obama's supporters and volunteers have been hitting us pretty heavy since August, registering voters and leaving tokens of propaganda on our apartment doorknobs. Several bars downtown are hosting election day parties. I, for one, cannot wait!
Posted by betdavis at 11:01 AM | Comments (0)
Our challenges
Fall-B has just started and we’re seeing a new set of challenges in the road ahead. On the grounds of school work we find ourselves facing new courses. Certainly, we find that our overall workload may have increased a bit due to some courses, the need to read more, prepare more assignments, and face the inevitable and dreaded deadlines that come in turn. Of course, just as easy as the stress went away it returns to try to hunt all of us down.
Fortunately by now the majority of us are better prepared to handle it. Fortunately by now we have grown a sense of awareness of teamwork, and know that we can rely on our teammates and that the outcome of our work will be great. It is simply indescribable the sense of pride that one gets after reviewing the final draft of a team assignment you just submitted, the quality of the work turned in simply leaves you in awe. No doubt that coursework might be challenging at some points, but it is also great to overcome all of these challenges through teamwork; we get value from our MBA experience in these challenges as our teamwork capacities continuously develop.
So what about the other major challenges we may find now? What about everything that is happening to the global economy? This is indeed a difficult economic environment and the road ahead seems to have a very steep hill to overcome. These obstacles are indeed something that the world as a whole needs to face. However, I feel that my experience at Ross is in fact providing me an edge to be able to better face the difficult conditions that lie ahead.
Trying to understand what brought us back to this point I find that the underlying issue is that the economic incentives that promoted excessive risk-taking blinded market participants, driving them to forget all linkages that exist between economic variables. My experience at Ross as to now is helping me understand things on a broader scope. I am learning to see the world through the eyes of my classmates, understanding from that point of view the need for a holistic frame of mind, considering the risk-return duality in a more integral way. So the additional I feel we get form our MBA experience comes from the fact that we will be prepared to utilize this frame of mind, to deal with risks better in the future.
Posted by jorgelrh at 12:53 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2008
From Ann Arbor and back again
I am one of the few Ross MBA students that is from Ann Arbor—that’s right, I was actually born and raised here! However, I am one of many students that have decided to return to the University of Michigan for a second time. There are a lot of Michigan undergraduates who are back for their MBA, and I think that serves as a strong testament to the university and city as a whole.
In college, I pursued a liberal arts education and concentrated in Economics and Organizational Studies. While I loved Ann Arbor (it is my hometown, after all!), I had spent the entirety of my life there and thought it was important to live somewhere very different after graduation. I moved to New York City, worked at JPMorgan Chase, and had a blast living in the Big Apple. Needless to say, it was a quite a transition! I relied a lot on the Michigan network to help me with that--both Michigan and Ross have huge alumni clubs in NYC and cites all over the world. I spent quite a few football Saturdays hanging out at one of several “Michigan friendly� bars with hundreds of other Wolverine fans. The Michigan bond stays with you well after graduation.
I really enjoyed working at JPMorgan Chase, but knew that a long-term career in finance wasn’t for me. When I started thinking about returning for my MBA, Ross was immediately at the top of my list for many reasons. In particular, because I was familiar with the Michigan experience, I knew I would have a great time if I came to Ross.
However, there was one question that I needed to resolve: would a graduate experience at Michigan feel repetitive? The answer is a resounding NO! Sure, the surroundings are familiar—walking down South University to grab a burger at Charlie’s, enjoying the warm weather at Dominick’s—but the similarities end there. And with the new business school building scheduled to open in January, that will be completely different as well. Coming to this realization was important to me, though. If there are any Wolverines who are considering doubling-down on Michigan and would like to hear more, please feel free to send me an e-mail.
Well, it’s the day of the Ross Halloween party hosted by the Marketing Club, so I’m off to put the finishing touches on my costume. Until next time!
Posted by esl at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)