It is currently 18 Mar 2024, 17:05 |
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
FROM SLOAN LIFE - Sharing my journey through Stanford GSB: STRAMGT 321 – Create A New Venture |
Here’s the class information website for last year (doesn’t look like it has been updated). As I mentioned in a previous post, this class was hands-on with a pre-formed team. I partnered with Erik Wittreich and Randy Sternke to create Hinted (actually it started as uLooped – thankfully we were able to figure out a better brand) – we intend to take the feedback-rich environment out of Stanford and bring it to enterprises and consumers. Prof. Dennis Rohan admitted a number of teams into this class, each having already submitted an idea for a business concept. Our class ranged from coffee honey beverages and artisanal cheeses to investor certification, liquor retailing and, of course, feedback. Some of the teams stayed very true to their original concepts and made minor tweaks to accommodate business or customer realities. Other teams made drastic changes – but this is all expected – the key learning in this class is not to drive your original idea forward to become a business, but rather to start with an idea and see where it leads. Structurally, this class was comprised of whole-class lectures (often with a guest speaker), section seminars (mostly teams presenting and giving feedback to each other), individual group / instructor meetings (a short private meeting with Prof. Rohan for him to asses your progress and give direction, advice and critique) and also mentor meetings (Prof. Rohan arranges for each team to be assigned a mentor with entrepreneurial or venture capital experience). The lectures often brought in guest speakers to cover different topics: from d.school methods to Touchy-Feely concepts, we repeatedly heard the advice to get off-campus and talk to the real world. Go find experts and talk to them – it’s often surprising who will take the time to talk to a Stanford GSB student under the cover of research. For some reason, the idea that they’re talking to a student seems to open up avenues that would otherwise be closed to a cold-call. It also helps to have your own contacts to reach out to – people who know you will generally be your biggest supporters and often look forward to being a mentor. Our assigned mentor was Eric Chen – a former GSB’er who was co-founder of TinyPrints – another GSB Startup. Yes, the team with 2 Erik’s got an Eric as a mentor… Eric generously met with us several times and was a valuable sounding board for our ideas and changes of direction. It was helpful to have more than Prof. Rohan’s POV – sometimes they would give us the same advice, but often their ideas were diametrically opposed, so it fell to us to hear both, think critically ourselves and decide upon a path to follow. Gerard at Beecher’s Cheese (Seattle Study Trip) On top of the scheduled sessions, the groups are expected to do a lot of field-work, individual and group work. What exactly each team did varied greatly – after all, each team had very different needs and customer prospects. For example, Gerard Tuck’s cheese team were actively conducting focus groups – feeding the groups marinated cheese and asking for customer marketing data. How much do you typically spend on cheese and other snacks? Is cheese an impulse buy? Have you ever heard of … These types of customer interactions are only a small fraction of the total effort required. Another team, Elevado (formerly Coffee Honey), experimented with different recipes for their natural sweetener – testing beverages, snacks and other ways to use their product. Hinted conducted experiments on the Sloan/MSx ’14 cohort – our first embodiment involved a mocked up test using Excel spreadsheets and hand-selected test candidates. This process largely validated our original assumptions, so Randy proceeded to build our alpha-test tool – since he was simultaneously taking CS 142: Web Applications, he was able to build the tool for his class project and share his effort across two classes. Once the web tool was working, we continued testing with a larger group within the cohort and eventually collected more than 10,000 data points from self- and peer-ratings. Later, in the Spring Quarter, we would eventually use this same tool in Prof. Gary Dexter’s OB 374: Interpersonal Dynamics class. If you are contemplating taking this class, consider the following:
STRAMGT 321 is a two-quarter class (second Quarter is, unsurprisingly, STRAMGT 322). However, our team found it impossible to make the schedule fit – so we opted not to take the second half of the class. But unlike many of the teams formed in S321, we are still actively working on Hinted. |
FROM The Oxford Comma: Trinity Term: Week Ten |
As a continuation to my last post, I thought it might be useful to share my opinion on the electives that I took in the Hilary term. MBA’s take three core classes and two core electives in the Hilary term. Macroeconomics: The course content is self explanatory. Topics covered include national accounting, growth, taxes, currency, inflation etc. I’m someone who reads a lot of economics blogs and I consider myself well versed on macro and microeconomics. I found a lot of microeconomic lectures to be quite basic and was thus hesitant about taking this course. However, I decided to take it after receiving strong recommendations from several alumni. The course was at just the right level for me and I learned a lot from it. Even areas that I thought I understood well, my understanding deepened after completing this course. Conversely, if you are someone who does not already understand the basics, you will find this course challenging (which may or may not be a good thing). The professor is excellent and the lectures are quite entertaining. You may not directly apply the concepts learned in this course in your career, but I think that every MBA student should be familiar with the material covered in this course. Note that as part of the upcoming MBA revamp, this course is being merged with Microeconomics (into a new course called Firms & Markets) and hence this elective may not be offered in the future. Highly recommended. Strategy & Innovation: Strategy & Innovation (S&I) focuses on nascent markets, organisational capabilities for innovation, and the strategic management of emerging technologies. As a software engineer who is looking to transition into product management, this course was great. There is a lot of reading and advance prep required for this course (case + required readings) and if you show up to class without any preparation, you will not get much out of it. Additionally there are three assignments and one formal coursework and an exam. After completing this course I gained an understanding of how innovation occurs and why technology companies have adopted some of the policies that they have (open layouts, flat management structures, restrictions on working from home). I did not find every lecture interesting, but the ones that were relevant were invaluable and if you want to work for a technology company post MBA, you should take this course. For a taste of what this course covers, watch Steven Johnson’s TED talk on innovation. Highly recommended. Finance 2 (Audited): I was torn between taking this course and S&I and finally settled on auditing Finance 2 because I knew that it would be hard to do the three S&I assignments and formal coursework and readings without the incentive of being graded. Finance 2 on the other hand only has one exam and hence you don’t really miss out by auditing. An alum recommended the course as an excellent intro to the finance electives that would be available in the Trinity term and I tend to agree with him on this. The lectures on IPO’s, and Private Equity were the most interesting while the lectures on trading, options, and bonds were quite dull (I’m referring here to the topics and not the professor who is excellent). Note that as part of the upcoming MBA revamp, this course is being merged with Finance 1 and hence this elective may not be offered in the future. The week ended with the Digital Marketing exam. This was the only exam that I needed to take this term and hence was quite bearable. After completing the final exam, the tradition at Oxford is to get ‘trashed’. This involves being showered with flour, champagne, shaving cream and other materials by other students. As we walked home, we were congratulated by the local people and students who recognised that we had completed all our examinations. We also attracted many stares from the hordes of curious tourists who seem to have overtaken Oxford now that summer has arrived. And with that the third and final term at Oxford is now complete. I plan to stay back in Oxford for the summer to work on my SCP and get down to job hunting. I will keep this blog updated until Capstone week which will take place during the second week of September. |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): 2014 MBA Health Care Conferences |
MBA health care conferences are an amazing opportunity to learn and network in the Health Sector. The latest topics on news articles and text books come alive and attendees are brought to the cutting edge. People who dedicate the time and energy to go to these events are also very passionate about the topic and are great to meet and talk with. I know that many fellow MBA students would like to attend a few of these conferences. But how many are out there, and when and where are they? I've always assumed that all the top MBA programs held a health care conference. I now share with you a comprehensive list of all the Top 20 MBA programs that have at least one annual student-run health care conference. Continue reading » |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Why I chose Duke Fuqua, Top 2 Reasons From a 2nd Year MBA Student |
2 years ago, I was in the shoes of a prospective student trying to figure out which schools to apply to. It's difficult knowing beforehand how well a school fits your personality and career aspirations, because, well, you haven't been a student there yet. Interacting with current students and experiencing the classroom is helpful but oftentimes less objective. Here is a look at my reasons for choosing Duke Fuqua, with a focus on objective evidence. You may find my framework of looking for clues to be helpful for other schools as well Continue reading » |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Duke MBA Healthcare Recruiting |
Because Duke University is located in Durham, NC, many folks are concerned about recruiting across the US. For example, the major hubs for pharma, such as Boston, New Jersey, and the Bay Area are far away. Fortunately the Health Sector Management (HSM) program at Fuqua has a solid relationship with many health care companies. Because of the strong reputation (and size) of the HSM program, the Duke MBA is a key target school for many companies in the health sector. Continue reading » |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Pharma MBA Commercial Roles |
This week, a reader had requested information on MBA roles in a pharma company. I thought it may be a good idea to write a blog post on this while the MBA summer internship is still fresh in my mind. I won't mention any companies in particular, and will keep this information as general as possible. This post will only focus on the commercial function as that is the only area where I have first-hand experience. While I put down pharma in the post title, it also applies to medical device companies for the most part. Alright, let's get started. Continue reading » |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Get Promoted: First Build Trust With Your Boss |
Learning about leadership is like being a detective. You're given bits and pieces by different leaders - clues, if you will. And then it's up to you to interpret those clues and create a story of what leadership actually is. I had a conversation with a senior executive and he told me one of the trademarks of a rising leader is when your bosses aren't in the room, they still trust that you will take the team further to achieve their vision. Continue reading » |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Leadership Development: Finding the Time to Reflect |
The best thing about leaving your job and doing the MBA is that it gives you two years to pause and reflect. As a bonus, the MBA summer internship is like leadership learning on steroids. During the internship, students have a lot of time to engage with senior leaders through one-on-ones. You work on a team and do projects, thus acquiring learnings. Then you discuss these learnings during engagement with senior leadership, and reflect. This cycle of learning and reflection in such a short amount time is incredibly powerful and hard to find outside of an MBA program. Continue reading » |
FROM The Oxford Comma: Summer Term: Weeks One and Two |
As mentioned earlier, I decided to stay back in Oxford to work on a strategic consulting project (SCP). However my team and I decided to take a week off before starting the project so that we could recover from the end of the Trinity term. There is still quite a bit of activity at the business school as the first of the two elective sessions took place during the first two weeks of the summer term (The second session will take place during the last two weeks). Some interesting electives were being offered and I decided to audit a couple of the courses. The electives are taken along with the executive MBA’s and it is an interesting experience. In keeping with the theme of my last two posts, I am including my impressions of the two electives. Private Equity: Private Equity was also offered as an elective during the Trinity term. The course takes place over the first two weeks and the content is identical to the one in the regular term. The only difference is in the assignments, which are slightly less rigorous. Hence if you are interested in learning about Private Equity but are not a quant, taking the course in summer may be worth considering. T Be warned that the professor is quite a critic of the business practices in the PE industry and if you are looking for cheerleading of the industry, you will be disappointed. On the other hand, there is quite a lot to be critical of and even though I have no interest in doing PE, I found the course to be quite informative. The professor is excellent and the guest speakers were quite good. Highly Recommended. Business in Africa: Business in Africa is a summer only elective. I decided to audit the course as I had heard many excellent reviews of the Business in China elective that ran in the Trinity term. This course was not as well received. Though we had an expert on the subject, the course needs more work. The first few lectures were good, but each subsequent lecture declined in quality. Since it is the first year this course is being run, I am hopeful that it will be improved upon. One interesting point in the course was that there were certain moments at which I felt that the knowledge I had acquired in other courses was coming together nicely during this course. For instance, we had a lecture on the private equity industry in Africa and I found the concepts learned in the PE elective to be quite useful. Another lecture involved looking at Walmart’s expansion in Africa, and we used frameworks from the Strategy core course to analyze the case. |
FROM SLOAN LIFE - Sharing my journey through Stanford GSB: Blogging and analytics tools |
I’m surprised no one has asked this until now – but I’ve had a couple people ask about the mechanics of blogging. 1: It’s a bigger time commitment that you could possibly imagine (ok, it’s really not that much time in aggregate, but forcing yourself to do it is harder than it sounds). 2: Free tools usually suck: If you’re going to blog, expect to pay for things that make your life easier, make your blog prettier, etc. But, you don’t always have to pay a lot! 3: Writing is easier than cat-herding: Even though I just told you how hard it is to commit to your own blog, you have no idea how difficult things can get until you try coordinating multiple creatives… Unless you write their paychecks, your volunteer blog contributors will inevitably have writer’s block, lack of inspiration or competing priorities that prevent them from writing to a set schedule. For those of you out there like me – straight out of grad school, two startups, one Kickstarter campaign and a blog – analytics are crucial to learn where to spend your time. But, if you’re in the same boat as me, you also know that Cash is King (see, I was listening Prof. Ilya)! Occasionally, you run into great tools that are not expensive! Sure, Google Analytics are available too (and free), but have you ever tried to use it? It isn’t very user friendly and I can’t figure out if the functionality is limited or maybe I just don’t know how to use their tools… Hosted WordPress This website, DecadentMinimalist.com and blog.hinted.com are all run on different flavors of hosted WordPress… Why different flavors? WordPress.com takes the open-source wordpress.org blogging platform and turns it into an easy-to-use and nearly bullet-proof hosted platform – that ease of use and security also come with some restrictions. You can’t install most WordPress plugins and many of the nice looking templates are fee-based add-ons. So what starts cheap can get quite pricey… WordPress hosted at external vendors (like GoDaddy or any number of other hosting companies) have the advantage of using unaltered wordpress.org tools – so the full suite of plug-ins and 3rd party tools are at your disposal. But now you are partially responsible for keeping your stuff up-to-date and running smoothly. You need to decide which is more important… S3Stat – tastes great & less filling! But, if you host any static content on Amazon S3, there is a great, easy to use tool that gives you detailed analytics – easy to use, easy to decipher and a pretty dashboard to boot. No software installation required either – just tell S3Stat where to find your S3 logs and it starts digesting that data into useful views. Easy as pie. By hosting pictures, documents, media – any static downloadables – on S3, you can easily get around space limitations that you face on hosted blogging platforms – and at the same time, get much better logging visibility by using S3Stat! Hope this helps! -E |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Leading Effective Meetings for MBAs |
During the MBA summer internship, you'll spend a lot of time in meetings. If you're an MBA student, you may be wondering why you have so many team projects at school. They are there to prepare you for your future function in the internship and after graduation. In my internship, I've had days where I had back-to-back meetings all day. That's a very common situation in Corporate America. While we had a lot of meetings at during the first year of my MBA, I was still not mentally prepared for how frequent and how important meetings were for making decisions until my summer internship. Continue reading » |
FROM uwengdori - Current Student: Yum |
First day of orientation. While I try to watch my diet and food intake, I just can’t say no to chocolate cookies! Started the orientation with a cup of black coffee, healthy chicken lunch, finished with some almonds and chocolate cookies. It also means more jogging this week to burn it off |
FROM uwengdori - Current Student: Your Go-to Social Media Places for Preparing Your Rotman Applications |
Most of prospective applicants should already know that the 2015 Rotman MBA application cycle has started. With about slightly more than two months away until the first round 1 deadline of November 3 approaching, here are the social media places where you will receive a lot of great information and enhance the quality of your application. My suggestion? Bookmark all of them listed below and have them as your default homepage(s) throughout the year. From my personal experience, it is difficult or nigh impossible to find an MBA which utilizes the power of social media to educate and inform prospective applicants with the most accurate and helpful decisions better any other than Rotman. The Rotman admission team actively uses SNS as a communication medium and I strongly encourage you to read all the posts and even connect with them. 1. Rotman Admission Blog Managed by the official Rotman admission team, you will not find any better up-to-date information and feedback to search other than Rotman’s own admission blog. This is where I also started my research, read all the previous blog posts, got myself acquainted with the admission team in advance. 2. Rotman MBA Admissions Facebook Page Always up-to-date with the latest information ranging from knowledge, studies, interviews, and daily MBA lives, Rotman Facebook page is something which you should really like to see what they’re up to. They also post various events for prospective students to see (and current), so please visit 3. Rotman School Twitter It is also always up to date and filled with informational, and entertaining tweets. 4. gmatclub Rotman Class of 2017 Thread If you’re studying GMAT, you most likely know gmatclub as well. How does gmatclub come inside the picture of this post? This is a great place to meet prospective students of similar (and very different) backgrounds in similar situations as you, looking into applying for Rotman. Most importantly, Rotman Admission Team also often drops by and help answering questions. This is what I have so far. Stay tuned for the next update on admission tips and preparing for your application. -Josh |
FROM Defying Gravity - The MBA Journey: Week 1 at HBS |
I just finished my first week as a Harvard Business School MBA candidate!... Wow, that feels pretty cool to say. This week was a mix of every humanly possible emotion. I began the week with extreme excitement and a bit of anxiety, wondering what this adventure would hold. At 7am on Monday morning, we were given our section assignments. Sections are a defining aspect of the HBS experience, and how the program is able to feel close-knit and intimate, in spite of the fact that there are 900+ first year students. Each student is assigned to a section of about 90 people. We will stay in the same section for the entire year, taking all of our courses with the same group of people. We stay in the same room for all of our classes, while our professors rotate. In addition to the sections, we are also all assigned to discussion groups of 6 people. The discussion groups are a cross-sectional mix. We meet every morning at 8am to discuss the cases for the day. The discussion groups are essentially a microcosm of the section experience, as they are composed of a diverse mix of students with varied experiences and backgrounds. By meeting daily with this small group, I've already been able to form bonds, which I'm sure will only deepen as the semester progresses. Overall, I had a great week, but holy cow, I'm beyond tired. I was up until around midnight last night preparing cases for today's classes. The workload is pretty intense. That's why it's Friday night, and while many of my classmates are going out, I'm excited to relax in my on-campus apartment, watch mindless television, and go to bed early. Goodnight. |
FROM uwengdori - Current Student: |
https://joshatrotman.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/rotman-logo.jpg |
FROM uwengdori - Current Student: Win a trip to Rotman open house weekend! |
Such a great opportunity especially for international students who want to learn and visit Rotman in person! Click for more details here. Deadline: Sept. 14, 2014, 11:59PM EST (Eastern) |
FROM Defying Gravity - The MBA Journey: Factors of my admissions experience |
I originally posted the below post on GMAT Club, under the title "Trying to Defy Gravity." As Round 1 deadlines for the Class of 2017 loom closer, I've been receiving emails and comments from several applicants asking for my thoughts on what led to my admissions success.I think this post summarizes the main points: Trying to Defy Gravity In 2012, I made the decision to apply to business school in 2013 to hopefully matriculate in 2014. I am the type of person that likes to plan things in advance. I've spoken with several other applicants who decided to apply just 6-8 weeks before deadlines. That would be my worst nightmare. The GMAT My journey, of course, began with the GMAT. I've always been naturally strong in verbal and I am a native English speaker, so I focused 100% of my prep on quant. The GMAT was not easy for me. I performed well on practice tests, but bombed my first official test. Ultimately I took the test three times to land a 730. I would have loved to join the 99th percentile club, but I was content with my score and decided to move on to other aspects of my application. Additional Coursework I come from a less-traditional background and didn't have any business-related courses in undergrad, although I took a couple of calc and stats classes for my major. Still, I wanted to make sure that b-schools knew that I could handle traditional business classes, so I took a financial accounting and a microecon class to boost my background. School Choice I spent a significant amount of time defining my career goals and determining the types of things that I do and don't like. From there, I looked at the top 20 schools and quickly noted which ones I was not interested in. That was easier for me than deciding which programs I was interested in. For example, NYC is too hectic for me and also freakishly expensive, so Columbia and Stern were crossed out. I also prefer the east coast, and decided that there were only 2 schools that would be personally worth it for me to leave the east coast -- Stanford and Kellogg. I also focused a lot on the community of the schools and the program offerings. My Recommendations for Current Applicants: I spent an insane amount of time researching everything I could about applying to schools, but of course, there is always an element of luck involved in admissions. I have met some incredible people during this process, and there are way more qualified people than spots available. A couple of things that I found most helpful: - Starting early - Chatting with anyone and everyone -- current students, alumni, admissions officers, fellow applicants, etc... I tried to find any hidden insight I could for each program to which I applied. - Knowing my story: Coming from a less traditional background, I really had to prove that my story made sense and that an MBA was critical to my next steps. I practiced my pitch repeatedly and even did mock interviews with some friends. - Writing articulate essays that answered the question, while simultaneously highlighting my differentiating factors, my personality, and my passion. A few things that I may have changed: - Applying to school is ridiculously expensive. I only thought about the cost of applications and failed to factor in flights and hotel rooms for visits and interviews, $750 for the 3 times I took the GMAT, plus GMAT study resources and the 2 additional classes. I wish I would have saved more. Especially now that I am seeing the cost of attendance for top MBA programs. - There are probably some other things that would have made the journey easier, but since it's all worked out, I guess I wouldn't change them. I don't know if the additional coursework helped and it was really time consuming, but whatever, I'm sure it didn't hurt my app. |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Non-traditional MBA Skills, a Hidden Asset |
During my internship I had the opportunity to attend an all-employee meeting. The CEO spoke for about half an hour, then something unexpected happened. The Chief Scientific Officer stood up to explain something research related and I heard a familiar yet almost foreign language. Barely anything scientific entered my ears in my one year of business school and during my time as a commercial MBA intern. This is the first time after business school that I truly felt my science background was actually an asset that I could leverage in the future. Continue reading » |
FROM Defying Gravity - The MBA Journey: #LifeAtHBS |
The admissions team is running a social media campaign called "Life at HBS." Based on feedback from prior years, it seems that applicants are really interested in what life is really like at HBS. They've asked us current students to use the hashtag #LifeAtHBS on many of our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc posts. So, if you haven't already checked it out, it'll give you something to do after you submit your application and are looking for a distraction for the next 3 weeks until interview invites are released (I wish they had this when I applied!). In the spirit of that campaign, I'm writing more about my life at HBS. Here are a couple of basics: All first year students (known as RCs), take 6 classes the first semester:
|
|
||