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FROM Piyush Jain Everyday (UCLA): Time to move again! – Post on Financial Times MBA Blog |
The same is reproduced on Financial Times MBA Blog The shortest I have lived in a city is six days and the maximum is five years. I was only six days old before my parents moved from Karnal, a small town in northern India to Bangalore, also known as the Electronic City of India. Since both my parents were working, I would spend my day with three different families, who were speaking three different languages. Before I even knew it, I had moved to three cities in India and three countries in the Middle East by the age of 12. And that’s how discovering new places and experiencing new cultures became a passion. I did my undergraduate degree in London and during those three years I travelled extensively in Europe. I have been working in Bahrain for the last two years. After going through the emotions of deciding to pursue an MBA it was relatively easy for me to answer the “where?”. Having lived in Asia and Europe, North America was my obvious choice. This fall, I am starting my full-time, two-year MBA at UCLA Anderson School of Management in the heart of Los Angeles. I could not have asked for a more diverse and dynamic place to pursue my education. Through my posts on the FT MBA blog, I will document my journey as I make my transition from the Middle East to the west coast and from a life of an oil & gas professional to a UCLA student. As an international candidate, I will share my experiences and challenges, which could be social, academic or professional. I also hope to maintain a dialogue with the readers during these years. Please send any comments, questions, tips for living in LA, MBA jargons and new island discoveries in the comment box below. You can also follow me on twitter @0jain |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Leadership: the Key Ingredient to Success |
Toward the end of my internship, I was asked by a senior executive what I was surprised most about my summer. I paused for a long time. "Leadership, and how it was so front and center to my experience". Like many new MBAs on the job, I thought my goal was to perform functionally. My expectation going in was to learn a thing or two about health care and give a stellar performance on my project, or in other words, to get a "good grade". I wanted to hone and show off my marketing skills and industry knowledge. However, at the end of the internship, I realized that leadership was in fact what was most important. And that success in a corporate environment was enabled by placing leadership at the center. Continue reading » |
FROM The Oxford Comma: Trinity Term: Week Eight |
Week 8 was officially the last week of classes, however we still have a couple left to make up for the time lost due to the MBAT’s. Things are getting a bit hectic as the assignments typically start to come due around this time, but there was still time for one last formal dinner at Exeter college. I had been to the formal hall at Exeter once before, but as this would likely be the last formal dinner that I attend at Oxford, I decided to go. Exeter is one of the most beautiful colleges in Oxford and has a great view of the Radcliffe Camera. I attended the dinner with my Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) group. The competition was held in January and lasted barely a week, but we still get together fairly frequently. After dinner, we were invited to stay for a talk at the college that was to be given by Biz Stone, who is one of the co-founders of Twitter. I was initially hesitant to stay back as Biz was due to give a talk at the business school the following day. I finally decided to stay back and was glad that I did. The talk was sparsely attended (around 20 students), which meant that it was moved to the college garden and the tone was conversational and highly informal. Biz was officially supposed to be promoting his new book “Things a Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind” but spent most of his time answering questions about his new startup Jelly, and sharing anecdotes about Twitter’s initial days and in particular about a memorable meeting that he had with Mark Zuckerberg. He is highly creative and is most certainly not an MBA type and it was a nice change from some of the visitors that we generally get at the school. I did not attend his talk at the business school the next day, but heard that it was quite good. |
FROM The Oxford Comma: Trinity Term: Week Nine |
With the final classes of the Trinity term finishing this week, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the electives that I took this term. Please note that these are my personal opinions and may not reflect those of the class. Remember, I am looking at these electives from the perspective of an engineer who wants to return to the technology sector. Entrepreneurial Finance: The objective of this course is to develop an understanding of how early stage ventures get financed. This course looks at the deal through the eyes of the VC rather than the entrepreneur. Students taking this course are more likely to become entrepreneurs rather than VC’s and its a good way to understand what the other side is thinking. The course is did not go into as much detail as I would have liked, however the professor did a good job of drilling the most important concepts into our heads. The focus here is entirely financial i.e. there is nothing on identifying a good business opportunity although you should get that from your core courses. The assignment involved valuing an entrepreneurial venture and structuring a funding deal and was probably the most practical assignment in the Trinity term. Recommended. Digital Marketing: This course aims to teach the skills of digital marketing, and to describe the disruptive effects of big data, digital media, and digital distribution channels on the practice of marketing. If you enjoy the marketing core course, you may want to consider this elective. I enjoyed most of the lectures in this course and the “Digital Marketing Ecosystem” module was particularly eye opening. All cases feature companies in the technology sector, we looked at companies such as Twitter, YouTube, Hubspot, Adobe, and AliBaba. The assignment involved setting up a Google AdWords account and spending 250USD on ads to promote a company of your choice and was quite interesting. Recommended. Negotiations: Course objective is self explanatory. In my view this is a must do if you have not previously taken a negotiations class. Through a series of eight mock negotiations with your classmates, you become aware of your negotiating style and learn how to improve. I entered this course as someone who hated negotiating and exited with a very different perspective. You do need to prepare in advance for each class in order to get anything out of it. Highly Recommended. Social Networks: This course seeks to prepare students for a career in leveraging social media platforms to build and sustain competitive advantage for established firms. This was the most fun course in the Trinity term. Cases featured popular and well known social networks such as FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eHarmony, Meetup, and Zynga. An added bonus was that the lecturer had written all the cases himself and thus the case discussion was very insightful. The assignments were not as much fun as the lectures, but overall it was a great class. Sadly, the lecturer was only visiting for the summer and hence it is unlikely to be offered again. Highly Recommended. Corporate Turnaround: This course considers the ways in which corporations and public sector organisations attempt to change when they hit trouble, looking at both successful and unsuccessful cases. The course sounded good in theory but was poorly executed. One of the lectures has a dreary and rambling style of teaching and I ended up skipping most of his four lectures. There were a couple of lectures that were interesting, but if I had to do it again, I would give this one a miss. It may be worth taking this one if you want a light workload as there is only one 3000 word assignment to submit and you don’t need to attend class to gain the knowledge to write this paper. Not Recommended. Reputation and Leadership (Audited): This sounded like an interesting class and I ended up auditing the class. While there were a few interesting concepts, I did not feel like this class was worth taking. This sentiment was shared by most of those who took this class. Not Recommended. All in all, I’m quite happy with the courses that I selected. With a one year MBA, you have to make all your courses count and four out of five is quite good. If you are reading this post and are looking for advice on picking electives, a good rule of thumb is to choose courses that you have an interest in as long as the professor teaching the course is well regarded. In some cases it is well worth picking a course that you have a passing interest in if the professor is excellent. For example, professors such as Ludovic Phalippou (Asset Management and Private Equity) and Owen Darbshire (Negotiations) get rave reviews every year. There is also a sizeable percentage of the class who will pick courses based on timetable (no Friday classes) or on workload (number of assignments and when they are due). If you have been allocated a mentor, definitely ask them for advice via email or through the Facebook group. There is also an excel spreadsheet with the opinions of previous years batches floating around that you should be able to locate. |
FROM SLOAN LIFE - Sharing my journey through Stanford GSB: GSB Grades: The elusive “H” |
Take Our Poll I certainly didn’t know this before starting at Stanford GSB, but we don’t have a “normal” 4-point grading system. I don’t know the genesis of why this odd 6-point system was even necessary, given that GSB has a policy making final transcripts completely confidential. In the MSx program, we never even find out who our “valedictorian” is – and unlike the MBA program, which has an “Arjay Miller” recognition for the top 10% academic performers, the Sloans pretty much just graduate. Of course, it is possible to finish the program with a GPA too low to get the MS Management degree, but I’m pretty sure you still get to walk and get a pat on the back. But in case you wanted to know, here’s how the GSB’s oddball grading system works (official explanation here):
Catching up on sleep – Getting H’s is hard work! This can also help you prioritize your workload – if you are facing a time crunch and need to choose studying for one final exam or another, your first criteria for decision should be to avoid the LP. It’s not a huge challenge to get a P in every class, as long as your attendance and class participation are reasonable and you don’t shrug off assignments. But one or two LPs here and there won’t kill you either. Next, if you’re doing well in a class and have particularly good rapport with the professor, pushing to get an H will pay off in spades. If this is your aim, make sure your in-class comments are on-point, highly contributory and well-reasoned. I personally dislike students who choose to ass-kiss outside of class – but if you chose to do that, make sure it is meaningful, intelligent and be sure to have a complete understanding of what that professor has published recently. Going into office hours to BS is fine, but don’t look stupid because you didn’t take a few minutes to make yourself aware of what your professor is working on outside of class. Which brings us to an interesting counter-point – unless you’re planning to get a PhD, go to law school / med school / or whatever, this is likely the last time you will be in a structured degree program. Don’t just focus on grades for the sake of grades – if you’re in the MSx program, you only have 1 year to make the most of the Stanford experience. Yes, you need to meet your obligations and in particular, don’t let your study groups down. But at the same time, if you don’t graduate with a 4.0, most likely no one will ever find out… A good friend once told me a GPA joke: Do you know what they call the guy who graduated last in his class, from the worst medical school on the planet? He’s still called “Doctor”… In your case, you’ll still have Stanford GSB on your diploma and a huge network of alumni at your fingertips. -E |
FROM SLOAN LIFE - Sharing my journey through Stanford GSB: Winter Quarter – Another Club-22 |
What’s Club 22? Its members are the masochists in your cohort that subject themselves to 22 credits per quarter. After Autumn Quarter and 22 credits, I figured that 22 credits wasn’t too bad after all. It seemed manageable, albeit taxing – but, more important, when would I have the chance to take these classes again, right? Winter Quarter was also my first opportunity to take across-the-street classes… That’s when I found out that Stanford Engineering classes involve work – credit-for-credit – than do GSB classes… Here’s my Club 22 Winter Quarter schedule: MSx Core: GSB Electives:
In short, during Winter Quarter, it is really important to go out of your way to spend time with your MSx cohort-mates as much as you can. MKTG 249 – MSx: Marketing: While there was certainly much to learn from this class, it wasn’t one of my favorite classes. Prof. Khan made a deliberate effort to speak to several students prior to the start of the quarter to get a really good understanding of what the student profile looked like, what the level of marketing experience might be and what people wanted to learn from this class. I applaud her desire to make the class useful for everyone, but I found that instead, the curriculum was a little disjointed and ambiguous – leaving many of us unclear as to the functional responsibilities of a marketing department within a company. MKTG 249: MSx’ers absorbing Marketing For example, in the first class, Prof. Khan explained all the things that marketing would typically be responsible for – including customer advocacy, competitive analysis, branding, business development (external partnerships), product management and innovation, corporate communications (both internal and external), sales (if it is a combined sales & marketing department), managing cost of sales / ROI of sales & marketing, strategic marketing, marketing communications, promotion management, etc. Then, she proceeded to tell us that because we are all experienced professionals and more likely to need marketing understanding only at an executive level, so we’re not going to deep dive into any of these – but rather, concentrate on how an executive would manage these functions and hire the right marketing team. Ok, not what I personally wanted to learn, but that seemed like a reasonable plan of action. In reality, we spent most of our time looking at a strategic marketing framework and working on a couple projects around Google AdWords. This did not meet my expectations. I think it would have worked out much better to stick to the originally stated plan and cover all the sub-roles within marketing – sure, we don’t need to become expert at any of those tasks, but it certainly would be helpful to know how to identify a good product management or marketing communications candidate when I see one. So, for you newly minted Academic Chairs out there, be sure to keep an eye on this curriculum and help improve this class! GSB Electives: Since Winter Quarter was our first chance to really customize our schedules, soak up electives and finally enjoy super-round selections (maybe), it was probably my favorite quarter. It was much more interesting to take on a schedule that I had created for myself – and I think I put in even more effort because of it. This was also the time to seek out those legendary professors and classes to ensure that I didn’t miss the important GSB-exclusive experiences. ACCT 340: Alphanomics: If you have any interest in managing a public-equity investment portfolio (either professionally or for your own portfolio), you should definitely take this class. For those of you (like me before GSB) who don’t know what public-equities are, it is the class of securities that are publicly traded on one of many stock exchanges around the world (e.g. NASDAQ, NYSE, Euronext, JPX, LSE, etc.). Prof. Lee is one of the early pioneers and widely published academics in quantitative stock analysis – and he’s a fantastic instructor. He’ll teach you how to tear apart financial statements and use that information to determine the quality of financial statements (e.g. likelihood that firms are truthfully reporting or manipulating their financial results), how to assess risk and diversify a portfolio, build stock screens and rank firms for inclusion into a portfolio and how to build a trading strategy to take advantage of what he calls “Informational Arbitrage” – and why this works in a supposedly “efficient market.” This is hugely in contrast to the MSx core finance class, where Prof. Strebulaev teaches that it is highly unlikely that you will be able to beat the “market portfolio.” Make sure that you pay attention in ACCT 219: Financial Accounting and FINANCE 229: Finance if you want to perform well in this class – you will need those skills here. A note for Mac people – this is one of those domains where some of the tools are only available for Windows… So prepare to spend time in the RAIL lab and/or make sure you’re loaded up with Parallels or VMWare + MS Excel for Windows (there are a few macros and plug-ins that only work with Excel for Windows). MKTG 344 – Marketing Research: Prof. Sahni’s class was a fun dive into the world of quantitative marketing. His curriculum focused on using quantitative methods (yes, you will need to have paid attention in OIT 249 – MSx: Data & Decisions (Statistics) – so be forewarned!) to help make marketing decisions and evaluate the success of marketing efforts. Although our project data collection methods were a little cheesy (we used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsource platform to run surveys), we certainly learned a lot about survey construction and sampling methods. We also learned about tools like conjoint analysis (we use some elements of conjoint analysis in our Hinted product) and cluster analysis – these are tools that you can use to quickly capture a large amount of reliable data from customers or prospects (or anyone else, outside the context of this class). Prof. Sahni and our conjoint analysis Trail Mix ingredients Like most GSB electives, this class was mostly filled with MBAs – Erik Wittreich and I partnered with Veerle Daenen and Charmaine Kenny (MBA2s) for a fun group. We even worked on a trail-mix product, which should have won the class competition, but alas, the scoring criteria said we came in dead last. I think that was largely my fault too! OB 522 – Social Networks: Ok, I know what you’re thinking, but no – this is not a class that teaches you how to use Facebook and LinkedIn… Too bad LinkedIn is killing inMaps… We didn’t use inMaps for this class, but rather used a tool that Prof. Hasan built for his consulting practice. But, the idea was similar – to understand an organization’s bottlenecks, information brokers and key influencers, it’s really important to know the social network within the organization – this could help uncover why some departments (or managers) work well and others fail miserably. This class was certainly a quant class, but wasn’t too heavy on actual number crunching. Much like in our core Statistics class, Prof. Hasan was fantastic in class – very engaging, always very well prepared and entertaining to boot. This was also my first GSB “short class” – this class ran for a half-quarter. Since the amount of material was quite manageable, it was a nice way to get a dose without beating a horse to death. It was also a great way to fill a couple credit hole in my Club-22 membership! STRAMGT 321/322 – Create A New Venture: The title of class is exactly what you will do. Because it was so significant in the creation of Hinted, I will devote a separate post just to the subject of this class. But here are a few key points for those of you considering taking it (or any of the other team-based entrepreneurship classes like STRAMGT 356/366: Startup Garage, ENGR 245: Lean LaunchPad and others too):
ME 103D – Engineering Drawing & Design (CAD): ME 103D starts as the most basic of basic CAD classes imaginable, then quickly accelerates into a class that is hard to keep up – then it is over. According to Explore Courses, this is a full quarter class – but our section was over in approximately 4-5 weeks. It is a quick 1-credit class that meets once per week and whizzes through the material. You will learn SolidWorks (at the most elementary level) and become reasonably proficient with 2D and 2.5D drawing (that’s taking 2D shapes and extruding them along linear or curved paths and combining with other 2D/2.5D features). It is also a co-requisite for either ME 203 or ME 318. This class could be useful for anyone who wants to build basic proficiency with a very powerful CAD tool. The workload for this class is very manageable, but builds on itself every week – so don’t fall behind! ME 110 – Design Sketching: If you always wanted to learn how to draw, but you are right-brain handicapped (like me), this class is a great way to gain a new skill. Most people think that you need to be an inherently good artist to be able to draw – but this class teaches engineers to use their analytical skills, mathematic reasoning (don’t worry, not as quant heavy as it sounds) and a little simple geometry to turn ideas into art. Sure, you probably won’t come out of this as the next Picasso, but you’ll be able to sketch quick product ideas in both 2D and 3D quite easily. Learn perspective, elevations and shading/rendering. Sample product perspective drawing 30 Second Tie Fighter – using only simple geometric shapes This class is NOT DIFFICULT – but it can be very time consuming if you take it seriously. It is offered pass/fail (and it is a non-GSB elective), so there is very little risk in adding this class to your schedule. I can almost guarantee that this class will improve your whiteboard skills too – so if you can’t get into the d.school’s Whiteboard Warrior class, this class might be a good alternative. ME 318 – Computer-Aided Product Creation (CAM): Based on the amount of time I spent on this class, you would have to think it was my favorite class at Stanford. It’s not a typical class for a GSB’er to take – getting in is very competitive and there are some requisite skills (not too rigorous though). Because of the degree of specialization in this class and how much I enjoyed it, I’ll devote a separate post for this. But quick important points:
-E |
FROM SLOAN LIFE - Sharing my journey through Stanford GSB: Download your InMap! |
For those of you using LinkedIn (and all of you should be using LinkedIn!), be sure to run your InMap and download the image before LinkedIn kills the service at the end of the month. They claim to be developing newer and better ways to visualize your network, but I find this tool fascinating (even if somewhat useless). It’s a great way to quickly get a grasp of your social networking effectiveness – note, I didn’t say a great way to view your social network… This is because you may have a much larger social network, but you’re not effectively using the tools (like LinkedIn) to capture, communicate and leverage those social networks. Don’t underestimate your network! After all, those are your friends, colleagues, mentors and personal contacts. If you’re not leveraging social network tools, you are standing away from the crowd in a quite corner with your arms crossed – the social network equivalent of “Don’t Bother Me.” You have great skills and experiences – make them shine… Ok – getting off my soapbox now! |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Gaining Exposure to Senior Leaders: Night Jobs |
If your goal is to move up in an organization, it's important to gain exposure to senior leadership. And when I say exposure, I don't mean through a one-on-one or a couple of social events. I mean by working on an actual project together. These are projects that typically take extra time beyond your day job. They are called - quite simply - night jobs. Continue reading » |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): Gaining Exposure to Senior Leaders: Night Jobs |
If your goal is to move up in an organization, it's important to gain exposure to senior leadership. And when I say exposure, I don't mean through a one-on-one or a couple of social events. I mean by working on an actual project together. These are projects that typically take extra time beyond your day job. They are called - quite simply - night jobs. Continue reading » |
FROM SLOAN LIFE - Sharing my journey through Stanford GSB: Spring Quarter – Wow this year went fast! |
Much like Winter quarter, there was only one core class to deal with in the Spring, leaving a lot of room for electives. I fully intended to remain a Club-22 member for my final quarter, but a few weeks in, I realized I was killing myself… I dropped a couple classes and achieved a much better work-life balance, but I probably dropped one class too many. It would have been really helpful to stay in CS 142, but I lost momentum in that class and decided to quit. Once again, it was proven that the workload – credit-for-credit – is much more intensive for Stanford Engineering classes than for GSB classes. Here’s my Spring Quarter schedule: MSx Core: GSB Electives:
OIT 269 – MSx: Operations: Whether you like Operations or not, Hau Lee is a very engaging and entertaining lecturer. He always has practical real-life examples to sprinkle liberally through his lectures. His extensive experience as a business process and operations / logistics consultant was evident and made his material highly credible, if a little dated. The problems he solves in class include: offshore manufacturing, managing table utilization in a restaurant, inventory -vs- just-in-time manufacturing, FIFO -vs- LIFO, postponement, localization and rationalization of SKUs. For folks who are destined to pure finance roles, investment banking, fund management, etc., this class is probably the most painful thing imaginable. But for me, this class was pretty core to what I wanted to learn. I would have preferred a little more depth and exposure to practical tools, but this class is clearly taught at a strategy level for the executive, not for a logistics or manufacturing practitioner. I suspect those kinds of Operations classes might be taught at the MS&E department or schools with a strong manufacturing / engineering management pedigree. This is your last core class – so hang in there with your study groups. It’s really easy to group up with your close friends and people you know you will work well together – so there’s no excuses for having a bad experience. Be sure you form groups with at least one person that has practical Operations or manufacturing experience if you want a dose of reality. GSB Electives: By now, you will have had the chance to meet many MBAs (mostly MBA2s unless you had the opportunity to meet some MBA1s on a global study trip) – please make sure to include them in as many of your study groups and social events as possible. The best possible thing that can happen to the MSx program is to break down the remaining walls between the cohorts and encourage more cross-pollination. The MBAs are incredibly smart and motivated – the MSx’ers have fantastic experience and wisdom – combining the two should be a strong synergy. Because it’s your final Quarter, choose courses that you will enjoy – nothing worse than senioritis combined with dreading your least favorite class. Also choose courses that might help you find your next job, get that VC term sheet or help you find co-founders for your next entrepreneurial adventure. If you will be interviewing, be sure to leave a little time for yourself to network, search for opportunities and prepare for your interviews. GSBGEN 520 – Frinky Science of the Mind: I had the opportunity to meet Baba Shiv on the New Zealand Global Study Trip – he was our faculty chaperone advisor. Spending 10 days in an idyllic environment is a much better way to get acquainted with a faculty member than in the classroom – but after that trip, I knew I wanted to take his class. Baba’s (he doesn’t like to be called Prof. Shiv) class is basically Neuroscience – the study of the physiology and bio-chemistry of the brain, and how it relates to learning, motivation and performance (this is my definition, maybe not anyone else’s). His class is taught in the 2-week intensive short class format (meets daily for 2 weeks) – but his material could easily have been taught in a 1 day seminar. The rest of the time is filled with small group exercises to try some of these methods and an entrepreneurial adventure at the end. It’s a fun class, light on the workload and lighthearted in the classroom – but more importantly, with an all-around great guy for a professor. STRAMGT 351 – Building & Managing Sales Organizations: I’ve worked in sales organizations before – and even have been a high-performing sales rep – but I don’t think anyone ever taught me how to sell. In fact, prior to this class, I don’t know if I really knew how to sell at all – or if it was pure accident that I could sell. I also don’t think I ever had a sales manager who I thought did his job particularly well… Well, this class starts to teach how to sell, but focuses more on how to manage salespeople (as a sales manager) and how to manage an entire sales department (as VP of sales). It is taught in a combination of engaging methods – of course, there are texts and articles to read, but there are also case studies with guest speakers – and perhaps most interesting, a series of sales simulations. As is typical for GSB case study classes, the guest speakers are probably the best part of this class. But, the simulation comes in a close second! I won’t go into too much detail – don’t want to give away any secrets. Suffice it to say, it gets very competitive and, at times, a little frustrating (and occasionally quite absurd), but it’s a lot of fun while you’re learning. This class is of particular value to people who have never sold before – but it is also a good test of seasoned salespeople / sales managers to see if you have good habits or bad. STRAMGT 355 – Managing Growing Enterprises: Please please please click on the link to this course description in Explore Courses – then totally ignore what is written there… This is a fan-****-tastic class, but it has nothing to do with the course description. I totally registered for this class based on the hype around it and the fact that it always fills early in the super-round process. You WILL need to super round this class to be ensured of getting in. But let me say it again – this class is NOT about the course description… This class is about having difficult conversations that come up because a company is growing. It could be that you hired your best friend to be your VP of Sales – but now he isn’t performing up to standard – How do you talk to him about this? Do you need to fire him? Will you still be friends after you fire him? Or, maybe you just purchased a family-owned business and your product kills a customer, your female employees are complaining about sexual harassment and your CFO is embezzling money – Now what?!?!?! See what I mean? This class covers some great examples THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO SOMEONE – AND THAT SOMEONE IS USUALLY A GUEST SPEAKER THAT SHOWS UP IN CLASS!!! How often do you get to read stories like this, let alone directly question the judgement of the protagonist to his face? It is simply a great class – and the Ellis / Taweel teaching team (who taught the section that I took) is phenomenal. They are incredibly successful entrepreneurs – and they will invite you to a class party held at one of their homes. These guys are a class act and teach a great class. That’s it for now! I’ll save airplanes and dropped electives for my next post! -E |
FROM Reaching the Thirties: Duke’s Fuqua 2014-2015 Application Process |
It’s amazing how fast time flies by. Fuqua’s 2014-2015 application process has been available for a while now, and the deadline for its Early Action round is fast approaching. The deadlines for the 4 rounds are the following: Early Action – September 17, 2014. Round1 – October 20, 2014. Round 2 – January 5, 2015. Round 3 – March 19, 2015. Overall, prospective students … Continue reading → |
FROM From Bench to Board (Fuqua): 2014 MBA Health Care Conferences (Updated August 2014) |
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 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 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): 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 » |
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