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FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: The Cost of Living in Boston: A List of Monthly Expenses |
Having come from Indianapolis, maybe the cheapest of the top 20 cities, moving to Boston has been an adjustment for my wallet. Folks coming from New York or San Francisco are excited by Boston’s slightly less expensive cost of living. Here’s the monthly breakdown:
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FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: My first MBA homework assignment |
Julia McInnis finds she enjoys the tasks set for incoming students Read more |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: HBS Accept Admissions Consulting is Live! |
The wait is finally over! Help us get you into Harvard Business School or the school of your dreams. Check it out on IndieGoGo. The first person to buy a perk will receive a special bonus, so don’t delay. |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: Learning a whole new ballgame |
Kristina Koch marks her move to Canada with two internships Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: MBA Challenge profile – Evolve |
Meet one of the teams shortlisted for the final of the FT MBA Challenge Read more |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: 4 tips to turn a summer internship into a job |
You still have time to increase your chances of getting hired now or down the road. https://college.usatoday.com/2015/08/21/four-tips-to-turn-a-summer-internship-into-a-job/ |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: Preparing for second year |
I returned to Philadelphia in the first week of August to welcome the first-year students and facilitate bonding within their cohorts and learning teams. This has involved meetings with my mentees for one-to-one discussions about their priorities while at Wharton and their leadership development goals. After having started each conversation with an explanation of how I hadn’t optimally prioritised during my own first year, I decided to make the most of my last free weekend to do some prioritising of my own: Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: MBA Challenge profile – VIP |
VIP (Vaccinate International Programme) is one of six teams shortlisted to compete in the final of this year’s FT MBA Challenge. The challenge aims to help caregivers in Uganda gain access to vaccines for their children and is run in collaboration with the FT seasonal appeal partner, the International Rescue Committee (IRC). Key statistics: Read more |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: Is a graduate school assistantship the right choice for you? |
If you have been offered a graduate school assistantship, congratulations! Receiving such an offer is not only considered an honor – one that is often awarded to a small number of graduate students – it also means that a department, professor or researcher believes that you are an asset to the program and that you… https://college.usatoday.com/2015/08/23/is-a-graduate-school-assistantship-the-right-choice-for-you/ |
FROM Ambitiousbusinessguy: Know Yourself, Know Columbia Business School |
It has been only three months since I graduated from Columbia Business School (CBS), but already I am homesick for the beautiful Upper West Side campus, days filled with executive guest lecturers, and nightly club events. For those in the midst of the application process, or those just considering a future MBA, I envy your position only in that you still have two great years ahead of you. Knowing the application process is a stressful time, I urge you to seek out as much advice as possible. Below is guidance I have given to other CBS hopefuls in the past (all of whom were accepted), built on my own experience, tips from classmates, and insight from alumni I consulted when applying to Columbia. Know Your Story If you have ever spoken to an admissions consultant (like HBS Accept), they will stress the importance of having a strong story that clearly ties together your background and career goals, and explains how Columbia can make that connection for you. For some applicants, this may come easily, but I spent hours poring over job descriptions, LinkedIn profiles, and interviews with people who held positions I thought I wanted one day. Doing this helped me to understand what certain career paths looked like, and what it would take to attain that dream job. Though at first it seemed overly prescriptive, having a specific goal in mind for both a five year and ten year plan made it all the easier to explain how I was going to get there. One main benefit from this exercise is the ease at which you will be able to write your essays for Columbia. The first two questions ask about career goals, and they have respective limits of 50 characters and 500 words. To both stand out and paint a clear picture in 50 characters requires a firm understanding of one’s own future. These questions will come up in conversation during school visits and interviews, and the more defined the answer, the better prepared and knowledgeable you will appear. Additionally, though business school is a place to find yourself professionally, those two years fly by quickly; hit the ground running with a clear idea of where you want to go and what you need to get out of school. Know the School While it may seem obvious, it cannot be stressed enough how important it is to understand Columbia to the point that you feel as if you are already a student walking through campus. When I was applying, there were spots in the application to list which admissions events you had attended, names of faculty or staff you had met with, and current students or alumni you knew, not to mention if you were related to a CBS alumni. Business school is about networking, and the admissions team wants to see that you as an applicant have made the effort to learn as much as possible about Columbia and met people who understand the CBS experience well. Doing this will also shed light on which specific clubs, classes, and initiatives you should get involved with to further your career goals, should you be accepted. Many clubs have a Vice President of Prospective Students or Membership, and they are there to help answer questions about what the club provides in professional resources, and the leadership positions offered in the organization. The city of New York is an integral part of the Columbia experience, and should be a reason why you are applying. Having completed my undergraduate in a college town, and then worked for four years in Chicago, I don’t believe I fully understood the benefits of attending business school in New York until I was here. C-suite executives are in class on a weekly basis, as a visit simply requires hopping in a cab outside their downtown office. Most students interested in a career in retail, venture capital, private equity, or at startups, have a part time internship during the school year. The abundance of networking and career-building events in the city is never ending. Simply put, Columbia thinks being in New York is amazing and believes you should share that enthusiasm to both get the most out of your two years, and to be an integral member of the CBS community. Applying for business school can be stressful, but the professional and personal experience is well worth it. When in doubt, ask for help and seek out resources like HBS Accept that can provide opinions from those who have already beat a successful path. Best of luck! Kendall Miller Kendall Miller (CBS MBA 2017) Columbia MBA working at the intersection of strategic, creative, and operational roles and solutions. She is an avid traveler, design world enthusiast, and devoted NYC transplant. As a consultant for Fortune 100 companies, startups, and NGOs, she worked in strategy development, performance improvement, and business model design. Her interests lie in understanding where customer experience design and digital innovations can help companies grow and adapt. Kendall has recently returned to Deloitte Consulting where she is a Senior Strategy Consultant. |
FROM gmat4IMD: Swiss Visa approval!!! |
I got a call on thursday confirming that my swiss residence permit “D” got approved. It just took 4 weeks for the approval to come in. Not bad, the website says it might take up to 8 weeks. Just submitted my passport today for stamping purpose. It seems it might take 4 to 5 working days for the stamping process. |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: Insights from meetings with senior management |
Timo Marquez values his time spent with various company leaders Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: MBA Challenge profile – Onwards & Upwards |
Meet one of the teams shortlisted for the final of the FT MBA Challenge Read more |
FROM j2insead: Fear not; it’s not over. Only believe! |
Ever been at the point in your life when it seemed like all hope was lost and no solution was in sight? Then suddenly comes help, from the least expected place or person. That feeling of relief, joy that gladdens your heart. For a moment I don’t want to blog about just MBA related topics but a bit about my personal life. A life inspired by faith in God. Some believe in hard-work, others believe in determination. I believe in GRACE. Through interactions with people from different walks of life, I came to understand that GRACE is grossly misunderstood even among Christians. Grace is not just a term to describe God (Gracious God, Lord of Grace) but it is an “unction” that can function in your favor as a believer. So labor is rewarding, and determination can bring you success. But GRACE encompasses all: that which labor cannot yield and which determination cannot reach. Simply put, it is called undeserved favor, unmerited, not deserving by works. Become grace-conscious today. No amount of labor or determination can replace that which grace gives. So when faced with challenges as you go through the course of life remember this: “Fear not; it’s not over. Only believe!” My next post would be on MBA Financing in details and how I would be funding my INSEAD MBA. |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: Why study social entrepreneurship? |
Stephen Morse describes what millenials really want Read more |
FROM Financial Times MBA Blog: MBA Challenge profile – iVaccinate My Child |
Meet one of the teams shortlisted for the final of the FT MBA Challenge Read more |
FROM gmat4IMD: Swiss Visa stamped!!! |
My swiss visa stamping is done and my passport was couriered through Blue dart. It took 5 days to get my passport stamped and couriered to my address. In India, the passport has to be submitted at the nearest VFS centre. It’s a pretty simple walk in process which takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Always check for the local Swiss VFS office. No need to travel to Mumbai or Delhi, if you are not from these cities. I have got a visa from the 15th of December till March, though I had mentioned my travel date to be 24th of December. I think 15th of December is a norm. So, the second part of the residence permit will be done by the canton of Vaud when we do the registration at Lausanne. |
FROM gmat4IMD: Preparation for MBA!!! |
Now that I have got all the important preparations to move to Switzerland ticked off, I am thinking of the actual curriculum now. IMD will be posting a few study materials in September to get us all ready for the business terms we’ll be using in the class. Still the thought of whether I need to join any classes to develop the finance and accounting part of my brain keeps popping every other minute… ((+_+)) |
FROM Yudanashi: Why Oxford MBA is the best class of MBA’s Globally |
After I was accepted to Oxford I had an amazing opportunity to visit and meet a few fellow admitted students. We sat through a mock lecture, toured the business school and all of Oxford (including the spot where Catholics were burned at the stake for betraying the King), and had lunch in a Great Hall of Balliol college, one of the oldest colleges in all of Oxford. I’d like to spend today’s post telling you more about my class and the amazing people in it. During my weekend trip I met a handful of my future classmates, but most exciting was that after I accepted my spot at Oxford, I was looped into a facebook group of fellow students. And over the past 5-6 months we have connected, collaborated, and connected with each other that makes me excited about the next year. As I said last week, the diversity of Oxford is one of the main reasons I am excited about my next 12 months. Most people seem confused when I tell them that there is only a small contingent of British MBA students and part of that is because the Master’s programs in the UK are 1. Cheaper, and 2. Usually all UK citizens need to boost their career should an OxBridge degree not be enough. Therefore I want to provide a few stats about my fellow classmates and a handful of amazing stories to excite you about my class. On average, my classmates will be 2 years older than I am (not anything new for me). Our class is 32% female which, while low for US top programs, actually is on par for international programs. We have 56 nationalities and an average of 5.5 years work experience. Additionally, we have only 2.5% LGBT representation (which I hope overtime will increase for Oxford). What makes us truly unique from US programs is our international diversity. In the US there is ~40% non-US population, and that includes US citizens who happen to be working overseas. My class is only 20% from the US. That means 80% of my class comes from another country. The impact this is going to have on my global mindset is amazing! Here is a graph of our geographic diversity: What’s more important than our geographic & gender diversity is the quality of students we have attending this year. We have an Indian male with 10 yrs experience working in energy development, a Filipino-American female who managed global marketing campaigns for Warner Brothers, robotics engineers from Sydney, an Indian female who built her family fashion business coming to school to grow it globally, and a Mormon Angel investment banker from Utah. Beyond the traditional Finance/Consulting careers that typically drive MBA students, we have international journalists, former military vets from all over the globe, lawyers from South America who have never worn a winter coat, nonprofit managers from Idaho, a Canadian researching the impact of social entrepreneurship, World Economic Forum leaders who are working on solving global water shortages, and a fellow DC student working with Madeleine Albright on international development. I am 100% confident that our class will out-perform any and all US schools on the global market because at our core is an international, global focus on providing lasting, social and environmental impact on the world in which we live. I also know that starting next month, anytime I want to visit another country I’ll have someone who can host me for a weekend. After All, this is my classmate’s global map. I am extremely excited about the diverse perspectives my classmates will bring and look forward to the discussions, and arguments we get in due to our cultural and geographic biases that other US students may be missing out on. |
FROM Yudanashi: Why Choosing Oxford Was The Hardest Choice I’ve Made |
I have spent a lot of time on this blog talking in generalities about Oxford, this week’s post is more personal as I just took off from my home in DC for the last time for at least a year. My decision to pull the trigger and go to Oxford was extremely difficult. More than the standard loss of home, community, friends and job (which have been immense and at times painful), my choice to go to Oxford is one of the hardest choices I have yet made because it represents a personal choice to close a door on a truly unique opportunity that may never come around again. For those who don’t know my background, I have spent the past 6 years of my career in politics and technology, and in April, just after attending admitted students weekend at Oxford, I received a message from a great friend of mine, Matt. Matt’s message asked if I’d be interested in talking about tech to a guy looking at running for US Senate in Maryland. Always on the lookout for clients I said absolutely and began my research. As I read about Chrys Kefalas and his background I became enthralled. A Millennial like myself who started his own internet-sports company that rivaled ESPN when he was just in High School, he sold it to pay for law school in Baltimore while working at his family’s restaurant. Following school he worked for the Republican Governor of Maryland (Bob Ehrlich) working to reform the broken criminal justice system. After his time with the Governor he worked at the Department of Justice for 7 years eventually becoming speech-writer to the Attorney General on Criminal Justice & Civil Rights issues. While at DOJ he took personal time to come out as gay and call for marriage equality in Maryland just after Prop 8 had passed, limiting marriage in California. He was the highest Republican in the state to do so and he continued to fight for equality until Question 6 passed in 2012. As a Gay Republican myself I was inspired and set time aside to work for Chrys to help get his digital campaign set-up. I spent time with Chrys and his partner and late one night after a charity event I asked Chrys the candid question “Why?” He knew what I meant and proceeded to tell me that he was running to give kids on the street of Baltimore a chance at a life better than dealing drugs for $8,000 a year until they are either locked up or killed by 26. He told me he was running because previous leaders had failed his home, and that this could only be fixed at the federal level. I had been waiting for a candidate like Chrys, someone who is consistently conservative and who has the presence to demand change for the citizens of his state who are living without hope and without opportunity. I sat there listening to his candid answer to my personal question and knew in my heart that I wanted to work for him. To those who have watched the West Wing, I was Josh Lyman having discovered Jeb Bartlett up in Nassau; and with my deposit for Oxford due in a week, I had to find Sam Seaborn and make a decision. The next morning I went to two campaign events with Chrys and then booked the next flight to Seattle where I spent 30 hours confiding in two of my best friends and confidants. Over the course of the next 3 days I weighed my dream candidate with the magic of Oxford and when time came for a decision I made one of the most difficult choices I have ever made, and picked Oxford. In doing so I gave up a chance to manage a Senate campaign that has the potential to change the Republican party. I gave up my dream candidate knowing that I might never get this chance again. As I take-off from DC having spent the last 4 months helping with Chrys’ race I can’t help but hear a creeping voice in the back of my head telling me I made the wrong decision. This is one of the moments that later in life I may come to regret. I plan on doing all that I can for Chrys during school breaks and in the few weeks between graduation and the election, but only time will tell if I made the right decision or not. If you have a moment, are a US Citizen, and have a minute to research and donate to Chrys’ campaign I urge you to do so. He truly does represent the future of the republican party and a candidate who can inspire those around him. Join me next week as I share my goals and plans for the next 12 months of my life getting an Oxford MBA. |
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