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 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)
March 20, 2008
MBA Babies
Maps are now going ahead at full speed. We are in the third week already! It’s amazing how time flies. Last week my team visited our sponsor company and learned more about the project at hand. Most of the rest of the work is going to be primary and secondary research and we will do it from Ann Arbor. Sometimes it’s hard to stay focused at home, since there are always things that seem to show up when you are trying to sit down to do work. I have been managing to work pretty well though. I’m meeting all my deadlines and feel that I have made considerable progress already. Our main challenge right now is in trying to find unity between our projects. The way our MAP was structured, the company assigned a part of the research to each of us, which kind of made it seem like we had four different projects. Since this isn’t really the spirit of MAP, we have been trying to tie our parts together so that we can deliver one cohesive report at the end.
Other BIG news is that I am going to be a daddy! My wife and I are super excited and just had our first ultrasound yesterday. The little one is doing just fine and should be coming along on October 17th. Now that I am going to be a family man, it gives me even more motivation to work hard and make the best out of my MBA experience. When I started my MBA at Ross, many people told me that the true meaning of MBA was “Making Babies in Ann Arbor”. I didn’t believe them at the time, but I guess I just made it truer than ever. I’m not the only one though; it’s amazing how many MBA babies are on their way!
Posted by jtlynch at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2008
MAP
Spring break is over and MAPs have started at full steam. After a full week of sitting on the warm Caribbean sand in nothing but shorts, coming back to the cold and snow was difficult. I had a great time in St. Barth. I went snorkeling, kite surfing, sat on the beach and relaxed a lot. It was a good opportunity to recharge the batteries and soak up some sun rays before my MAP which will certainly be very challenging.
MAPs started early on Monday morning, with a kickoff presentation and meetings with our team coaches, which are second years that help us in managing the team. On Monday afternoon we had a meeting with our faculty advisors who are the faculty contacts with our sponsor company. The project is starting to come together, and after a few conference calls and meetings this week, we will travel to New York and Connecticut next week to meet our client and start doing some serious work. I was really impressed by the amount of energy and preparation put in by our sponsor company, and also by the importance of the project to the company. It is clear to me now that the MAPs are true consulting projects which will add a lot of value to the sponsor companies.
My finance club duties have also started. I have meetings this week with the former Finance Club VPs to pick their brains for any advice and information they might have that will help me next year. I am also waiting for the feedback from my Career Counselor interview which should come out sometime soon. If I do get the Career Counselor position it will make for a very busy semester after summer, but I am sure it will be well worth the effort.
Posted by jtlynch at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2008
Finals Again!
Finals week has been pretty easy this time. I only took three classes this quarter to leave time for recruiting, so my exam schedule isn’t nearly as bad as the previous terms. I had one take home case analysis for my Corporate Financial Policy class, did my Operations exam yesterday, and only need to finish up a semi-take home Managerial Accounting exam before I’m done and off to the Caribbean. If everything goes as planned I should be able to recover from a “not so great” academic performance last term.
I decided to take some time off during spring break to get away from the cold and celebrate a very productive and successful term. My wife and I are going to meet my parents in St. Barth’s and spend a week toasting on the beach and living large. Winter is still in full fledge in Ann Arbor, and it’s starting to get a little long. It will be nice to actually be able to stay outside for more than a few minutes. I’m beginning to get a little cabin fever. The good news is that the chipmunks are starting to come out again, which is a telltale sign that spring is just around the corner (I just made that up, I hope it's true though!).
When I return, MAPs will start at full steam. I am very excited about my project, and think it will be a great learning experience. It will also be the conclusion of my first year as an MBA. It’s amazing how time flies when you’re having fun!
Posted by jtlynch at 10:46 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
One more quarter over...
Finals week is here again! It seems like just yesterday I was scrambling back to school all worried about interviews, and now the quarter is almost over. Everything went very well this quarter, and I really couldn’t have hoped for anything else. I got my dream job with JPMorgan in San Francisco, my classes were all very interesting, and last Sunday I was elected the Vice President of the Finance Club responsible for Investment Banking. After finals I will spend a week in the sun in the Caribbean before coming back for MAP.
The finance club position will be a great leadership opportunity for me, and I look forward to passing on all the knowledge I gathered during the recruiting process and making the next generation of Ross investment bankers successful. All the elected Finance Club officers are great people and I look forward to working with them.
With MAP quarter coming up, the projects are starting to take shape and there is a lot of buzz around campus about who is doing what and where. This week I had a conference call with my MAP company, where they introduced our project and our contacts within the company. It seems like our project will be very challenging and will have a serious impact on the company we are working for. The fact that our project will have a big impact on the company is very motivating, but also brings with it great responsibility. I met with my team last week and they are all very intelligent people, and I’m sure we’ll do a great job and have a great time.
On a lighter note, last week we had winter formal (MBA prom) it was a lot of fun to see everyone dressed up and having fun together. The event was very well organized and held at a very posh venue a few minutes away from Ann Arbor. My wife and I had a great time dancing the night away with all the other MBA’s and partners.
Posted by jtlynch at 04:14 PM | Comments (0)
January 31, 2008
Harmony
Having the stress of recruiting out of the way gives me a great sense of accomplishment and pride, but at the same time brings a strange feeling of emptiness. It seems like 50% of my time and 80% of my mental strain came from recruiting and now that it’s done I always feel like I am forgetting something that I should be doing. It’s kind of like a recurring dream I used to have right after I graduated from college. I got to the end of the semester and then realized that I had registered for a class and forgot to go for the entire term. It’s weird, but I’ll get over it. Now that I have all this time on my hands I have been dedicating myself a lot more to my classes. I had to depend on a lot of team members when I was in the crux of recruiting, and to some extent, now I am returning the favor to those that are still recruiting. I also joined a gym, and am trying to lose all the weight I gained from the late nights eating pizza and doing mock interviews.
Other exciting news that came out this week was MAP assignments. I will be doing mine at a Business Process Outsourcing company called Genpact. The project involves market analysis and strategic planning. It wasn’t my first choice, but I am sure that it will be a great experience and I am excited to engage in that project next quarter.
More recruiting news is that last week I attended JPMorgan’s placement day in New York and it was very exciting. On Thursday we had a wonderful dinner at the Harmonie club in NY with several Associates, VPs, EDs, and MDs and even got a pep talk from Douglas Braunstein, JPMorgan’s head of Investment Banking. I got to interact with several future colleagues in an informal atmosphere and met some great people. On Firday, we had placement day and met with our 3 top group preferences, as well as attended panels with associates and senior leadership. Yesterday I heard back from the JPMorgan recruiter and found out that I was placed in the Technology, Media and Telecom Group in San Francisco, my top choice!
Everything seems to be falling into place and as I look back on my experience so far, I couldn’t be happier with the decisions I made, of getting an MBA, of Joining Ross and recruiting for investment banking.
Posted by jtlynch at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 21, 2008
Best Week Ever...
After six grueling months of Investment banking recruiting, countless trips all over the country, several sleepless nights spent catching up on school work, and over 15 mock interviews: I HAVE A JOB!!! Yes interview week was very good to me and I will be joining JPMorgan’s summer associate class over the summer. Although the recruiting process itself took several months, after the interviews actually start, the process moves at an impressive speed. I had my first round interview on the 15th at 8 am, got called for second rounds at 6 pm, did my second rounds at 7:30 pm and then got a call and an offer at 12:02 am. The interviews were pretty tough, but the several mock interviews I had with MBA2’s and my classmates really helped in my preparation.
Since JPMorgan was my first choice, I canceled all my other interviews to make room for others. I spent the rest of the week celebrating and pinching myself. On the 24th I will be going to New York to meet different groups and find out what my placement will be for the summer. I want to join the Technology, Media and Telecom coverage group either in New York or San Francisco. I still have to make a few decisions about where I want to be for summer, and hopefully full time after I graduate. Given the current state of the US economy, I feel very fortunate to have a banking job and will work as hard as I can to secure a fulltime offer.
Other exciting news is that MAP assignments come out on the 23rd. There were some great projects this year, and I am sure that wherever I end up I will have a great experience. We have to rank our top ten choices out of the 100 or so projects available. I had a tough time trying to choose just ten, and will be happy with an assignment to any of the projects in my top ten.
The excitement never ends!!!
Posted by jtlynch at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
January 06, 2008
Exciting New Year
The New Year is here and with it a lot of excitement and a busy first few weeks. I went to Brazil over break and spent Christmas and New Years with my family and friends down there. The weather was perfect, sunny and hot. I got back to Ann Arbor on January 3rd to snow and below 0 F temperatures, which was quite a shock!
Interview closed lists came out over the break, and the interviews start on January 14th. The deadline is coming up fast and it is very important to secure that investment banking internship. I did pretty well as far as the closed lists go, getting in all my top choices. The very demanding travel schedule last quarter paid off, and I think I am in a good position to secure a summer job. The downside to that though, is that my grades suffered. I didn’t do as well as I wished in my classes, but all in all think that I got what I needed out of them. In a way I think I brought it upon myself, because I was taking two of the most demanding electives (Valuation and Options & Futures) as well as two core courses (Marketing and MO), and at the same time was travelling to visit banks almost every weekend.
For the one closed list that I wanted to be on but didn’t get, I can still use my bid points to get on. The Ross interview bidding process is very interesting. Everyone starts out with 1,000 points and you get charged 50 points for every closed list invitation you accept. The points you have left, you can use to bid for closed lists you didn’t get invited to. From what I’ve heard, I should have enough to get on another closed list and still have some left over for a rainy day (in case I don’t get an Investment Banking offer and have to try for corporate finance or something else).
Classes start on Monday the 7th, but I came back early to attend the Training the Street seminar organized by the Ross Finance Club. Training the Street is a crash course on valuation, LBO and M&A analysis that was very helpful to prepare for interviews. It was a full day of class, but I am very glad I came back for it. The course was a great interview prep primer, and the rest of this week I will be busy doing mock interviews and preparing for technical and fit questions.
Most interviews are going to be on the week of January 14th. The way the interviews work is that you have first rounds during the day, second rounds usually the same night, and know if you’re getting an offer by the same night. It’s a quick process, which is good because I’m sure the anxiety will be running very high.
In addition to interviews, next week will also be the deadline for MAP submissions. There are a lot of very interesting projects this year and I will have a tough time ranking just 10. This is shaping up to be a very exciting semester. If everything goes as planned, I may have a summer job offer by the next time I write!
Posted by jtlynch at 06:54 PM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2007
Time Flies
Time flies when you’re having fun…
It’s hard to believe that it’s almost December already. It seems like just yesterday I was moving to Ann Arbor, settling in, and starting my MBA. Almost two whole quarters have passed and finals week is fast approaching once again. Scary.
With the semester, the recruiting courting season is also ending and IBankers like myself are desperately awaiting for invites for the more intimate dinners with recruiters. It all reminds me a lot of popularity contests in middle school. Invitations usually come out at night and the next day all you hear in the hallways is: “did you get invited to this event?”, “I can’t believe they didn’t invite me!”, “I thought this bank really liked me!”, “I wonder if they have more invitations to send out?!?!”, “I’ll never get a job!”, “Boohoo!” The prospect of a recession just makes the whole ordeal a lot worse. There’s a lot of speculation about how much and which banks are going to hire, and what the best places to focus your energy are. All of us have also started thinking about Plan B, in case the IBanking thing doesn’t work out this time.
Next week I’ll be taking another trip, this time to the west coast to visit some banks and try to get in some lists for interviews. Thinking back, this coming weekend will be one of only two which I spent in Ann Arbor this quarter, with case competitions, recruiting trips and Thanksgiving. These are busy times, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed and tired sometimes, but overall I’m having a great time and above all learning a ton.
The winter has definitely set in now. We had snow for the last two days, and the lows are approaching the teens. Brrrrrrr. One more reason to stay inside and take care of business!
Posted by jtlynch at 12:42 PM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2007
Busy times!
Wow! The workload of classes, recruiting and other activities finally caught up to me! I’ve been sleeping very little lately, and still feel like I’m struggling to keep up! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, after all, that’s what I’m here for, but wow.
Last week I was very busy preparing for a Corporate Restructuring competition sponsored by the American Bankruptcy Institution and Houlihan Lokey. The competition was amazing, the panels of judges were filled with MD’s and executives from banks, funds and other institutions, and we even got to have lunch with the CEO of Houlihan Lokey, Jeff Werbalowsky. It was a great learning experience and I’m sure the knowledge I gathered at this event will help me a lot in my future career.
This week I’m going to miss a few classes and go to NY for some informational interviews. I have four of them scheduled for Thursday, which will make for a very full day. It is quite expensive to have to travel to visit banks, but the networking process is one of the most important parts of investment banking recruiting. Most banks won’t closed list people they haven’t met. I already have a trip to the west coast scheduled for December to meet other banks and try to increase my chances of getting a position in a Technology coverage group.
In addition to case studies and recruiting, there are classes to deal with! I am taking leadership, marketing, options and futures, and valuation this term, and they are all super interesting. I really wish I had a lot more time to dedicate to them, but the MBA is above all a juggling act, and sometimes you have to choose which balls to drop.
It is also my wife’s birthday this weekend, so we’re going to take advantage of the fact that I have to be in NY to celebrate in the Big Apple. I am very fortunate that she is a good sport about all of this, and that she is supporting me through this process.
Posted by jtlynch at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2007
Fall A over?
It’s hard to believe that Fall A has come and gone. For those of you not familiar with the Ross scheduling system, we work in quarters (Fall A, Fall B and Winter A, Winter B), with some classes continuing over two quarters. The core classes are only 1 quarter long, which means we’re done with 4 of them already! Incredible, it feels like orientation was yesterday…
Finals week was pretty intense, and everyone was studying hard to do well, since they were worth 40-80% of the course grade depending on the class. After long sleepless nights, everyone was ready for some R&R and fall break.
Over Fall Break (one week between Fall A and Fall B), I attended the Wall Street Forum, which is a networking event organized by the Finance Club. We were in New York for three days and visited 9 banks (UBS, Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Citi, Credit Suisse, Bear Stearns and Bank of America). It was a great opportunity to get some face time with bankers and to learn more about the differences between the banks. For me, the highlight of the trip was a speech delivered by Jon Winkelreid, President and Co-COO of Goldman Sachs about the current economic situation in the US and the world. Overall the event was a great success and a testament to the power of the Ross Finance Club, which did a great job of organizing the event and leveraging alumni contacts in some of the most prestigious firms on the Street.
The Wall Street Forum and Finals week were a lot of fun but very intense, and when they were over I was ready to sleep for a couple of days. For the remainder of fall break, I enjoyed Ann Arbor, took long walks with my dog, spent time with my wife, and charged up the batteries to do it all over again in Fall B. Classes started at full blast on Monday with homework and cases already due this week. Add on networking and recruiting events, and it looks like it’s going to be a very busy Fall B….Of course, I expected nothing less…
The Michigan weather is also starting to show its colder side. Although temperatures during the day have been quite pleasant, there’s been ice on the cars and the grass has been crunchy in the early morning…
Posted by jtlynch at 03:42 PM | Comments (0)
October 20, 2007
Introduction from James
My name is James Lynch and this is my first MBA Blog. I was born in São Paulo, Brazil and lived there for most of my life. My father’s family is American and my mother’s is Brazilian, which makes me a dual citizen. All and all, being a dual citizen is pretty cool but it opens up a whole can of worms when people ask me where I’m from. I am married (to Cari) and have three pets, a dog (Pete) and two cats (Tigger and Lily).
I studied at an American school in Brazil and decided to go to college in the US, because I felt it would be good to experience life in my other country. I studied industrial engineering at the University of Southern California and had a great time living in Los Angeles. During my senior year there, I started working with a VC fund and really took a liking to finance. When I graduated, I moved back to Brazil and started working for a boutique investment banking shop, dealing mainly with M&A, restructuring and financial advisory jobs.
Working in a small firm was excellent for my professional development. I had the chance of working closely with directors and partners of the firm and took on a lot more responsibility than would I could have at larger firms. However, the size of the organization also limited my growth opportunities and I decided it was the right time to apply for an MBA.
I decided Ross was the right school for me because having a strong quantitative background and substantial financial knowledge, I felt I could learn the most in a school with strengths in several areas and a general management perspective. Ross was also the place at which I felt the most at home. Everyone I met here is brilliant and has an impressive life story, yet is balanced with a dose of humility which makes them very easy to interact with.
My MBA experience so far has been amazing! I Moved to Ann Arbor with my wife and pets in July, and had about two and a half weeks to get set up, before I started the accounting waiver prep course, which I recommend everyone take (even if you don’t want to waive the class). Dr. Dave, “The World’s Most Dangerous Accountant”, was my professor, and he actually made sitting through six hours a day of accounting seem fun (amazing).
After that I went on an M-trek to Croatia. The trip was unbelievable. We spent ten days travelling around, going canyoning, rafting, playing paintball, boating and drinking. I think I’ve never laughed so much in my life, and experienced things I will remember forever.
Right after Croatia, orientation and RLI (Ross Leadership Initiative) started, and that was a very fast paced and interesting week, which culminated with my team winning the MBA Oscars (yes I’m bragging, see link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaJ8zAXYJr4 ). The football season started right after RLI (not so well), and classes right after that. It was amazing how many recruiting events were going on in the second week of classes, and by October, most major investment banks had already visited campus (some more than once).
With all the classes (all of which I love BTW) and recruiting events, one would think that there is no time for social events, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Ross students take “socializing” and “networking” opportunities very seriously, and for a small city, Ann Arbor really offers a lot in terms of restaurants, bars and night clubs. For those less inclined to nightly activities, the parks and golf courses are also great.
In conclusion, Ross is awesome, Ann Arbor rocks (ask me again during winter), and I’m having a great time! I’ll write again soon…..
Posted by kkellerz at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)