| Last visit was: 04 May 2024, 20:32 |
It is currently 04 May 2024, 20:32 |
Customized
for You
Track
Your Progress
Practice
Pays
13 Sep 2014, 23:06
13 Sep 2014, 23:36
| FROM UCLA Current FEMBA Students: International Studies - Hong Kong, Day 3 |
|
Hi everyone! Hope you are all doing well. I'm really looking forward to meeting all the new 2017s on campus soon. 2016s are just finishing up our final quarter of our first year (!) and it certainly has flown by. I can't believe finals are coming up in 3 weeks! As Sandeep mentioned, we have Anderprom coming up this Saturday. It's a chance for all Anderson (full time, FEMBAs, & EMBAs) to hang out--and a bit of a farewell to the 2014s what are graduating in less than a month! It should be a good time. Definitely something for the 2017s to look forward to next year. Now we have day 3 of Alex's trip to Hong Kong. ============================== Day 3 We had two more lectures from CUHK professors, these covered international and internal political affairs. Mark Sheldon, was a Chinese politics expert. He covered a wide range of topics and listening to him was like drinking from a fire hose. That said, it was one of the most useful and engaging lectures we had. Sheldon discussed important trends in urbanization, in political reforms over the last 3-4 decades and the political and nationalistic outlook of the Chinese people and government. According to Sheldon, Westerners often think of China as a uniform block of culture and political ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that China is controlled chaos. As long as the government is able to sustain >7% GDP growth people seem pretty contented. However, if that should dip too dramatically, a lot of underlying cultural or regional tensions will emerge. On the foreign relations front, China is trying to assert itself by flexing military muscle in the region and has abutted the US, Japan and other major regional powers. North Korea and Taiwan were interesting issues. China seems to like having N. Korea in place to buffer it from S. Korea. It has tried to develop an economy using a growth model like its own in N. Korea, but does not seem to be succeeding. For Taiwan, China has been in the process of signing trade deals that will give it greater access. While we were in Hong Kong, Taiwanese students were on the streets of Taipei protesting the deal because it is perceived to give too much control to China. Prof Stephen Frost – covered the environment in China. Environmental sustainability is a critical issue for the Chinese. The incredible economic growth in China has come at a great environmental cost. While the central government is trying to change regulations to clean up the Chinese environment, enforcement at the local level is near to non-existent. May local officials are bribed by the businesses they regulate. This means business are given license to dump toxins into local rivers and pollute the air and drinking water. Interestingly, the Chinese government is well aware of the issue. The problem seems to be that permitting for businesses and enforcement of regulation are tied together under the same local authority. If the Central government was really serious about enforcement, it would have to separate those two functions. Prof. Frost showed us a video of a colleague who was documenting polluters through satellite imaging. However, the Chinese legal system doesn’t allow for civil torts against polluters. So, public enforcement of the environmental laws is nearly impossible. In the afternoon, we went to see the 10K Buddha’s. It was a small oasis of calm in the middle of busy Sha Tien. Although, it was a bit odd to see a gift shop in the middle of the shrine. The Buddhas and the monks themselves were beautiful and some were even comical. I did not see any that reminded me of classmates, but I did see one that had the same sweet mustache as Professor Freixes. https://blogs.anderson.ucla.edu/.a/6a0115710a4d7d970c01a511b9dcbd970c-piThe Hong Kong Jockey Club was a blast. I ended up using a hybrid version of the Freixes system (bet on the 2nd and 3rd horse to place and bet on the horse that had won the most races) and eventually started winning more than I was loosing. https://blogs.anderson.ucla.edu/.a/6a0115710a4d7d970c01a73dc52641970d-pi All in all, this was a particularly good day. It was packed with useful information, engaging lectures, the chance to explore Hong Kong and get to know my classmates and of course there was a healthy dose of fun. I even learned about… ahem… statistical probabilities. |
13 Sep 2014, 23:36
| FROM UCLA Current FEMBA Students: Preparing for FEMBA |
|
Hi Everyone, Here is a fun and useful post from Terry Shea, a FEMBA 2016 student. It is very well written and contains useful tips as you start this new journey of the FEMBA program. I recommend to connect with Terry on LinkedIn too. Here is his LinkedIn profile URL - https://www.linkedin.com/pub/terry-shea/13/27/a85 Preparing for FEMBA By Terry Shea I cannot emphasis enough the value of arranging many meetups with your classmates before Leadership Foundations start. Also, get a big UCLA flag. [*] Back-to-School Shopping. Get a nice point-and-shoot camera and start taking lots of pictures. You need a good laptop that will last you 3 years, but you may want to hold off on buying until UCLA Anderson’s STS (Student Technology Services) start telling you to configure your laptop to the school’s software requirements. That way you can buy the laptop with the latest and greatest features and battery life. iPads have been very useful because there is a very good App for our course reader, Study.net, and you will eventually need to take your reading with you to make the best out of small segments of downtime. Tidy up a small corner in your home for studying. [/*] [/list] [*] Buying UCLA Anderson and UCLA Bruins Gear. www.uclastore.com is the official site for the UCLA Store. UCLA Anderson-specific gear is hard to find elsewhere, so look to buy these items first. If you are on campus, most of the UCLA Anderson gear is sold at Lu Valle Commons (by the Law School in North Campus) and not in the main Ackerman Student Union. During football season, there might be a promotion where the UCLA Store gives you up to a 25% discount on UCLA gear when UCLA football demolishes their opponents on certain games. Coach Jim Mora and QB Brett Hundley are coming back next year, so the one-sided victories and student store discounts will be plentiful and glorious. [/*] [/list] [*] Learn the 8-Clap. This is not easy to learn because there are actually 20 claps, timing the “L” part is tricky, and some groups of Bruins can do this really fast. FEMBA VP of Social Affairs David Duong posted an instructional video for us -- https://youtu.be/h7BOUO4PlAs Make sure you practice because 8-Clapping is way more elaborate than the fobby peace sign done across town. [/*] [/list] [*] Attend FEMBApalooza on July 13, 2014. This is our summertime fête champêtre where current FEMBAs and alumni attend to enjoy an entire day full of activities and networking. Bring your significant others and children. For details and RSVP, goto -- https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/fembapalooza [/*] [/list] Get ready for the biggest positive transformation of your adult life! While I am still less than 1 year into the FEMBA program, I already perform my work more efficiently and thoughtfully and I see the world in a significantly different way. My friends have noticed a big change in my confidence and capabilities. During the first quarter, you may not get to see many of the 3rd year FEMBAs because they are engaged in GAP. Once they return from GAP in second quarter, you will notice an obvious professional polish to them. That is going to be you soon. Welcome to Westwood. |
13 Sep 2014, 23:36
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Making History: The new FEMBA Class of 2017 |
|
Last week we welcomed the UCLA Anderson FEMBA Class of 2017, the 27th entering class and the largest-ever entering class! The highlight of my year is making the opening-day welcome, where I get to give the class profile and share my “diamonds polish diamonds” metaphor. My half-hour speech is only a small part of the whole Leadership Foundations, an intense, five-day immersion taught by some of our freshest-thinking professors, embedding social-connectivity with multiple experiential-learning components.  Below are some of the statistics of our amazing new class of students, as well as some photos of the week. The FEMBA Class of 2017
 What’s it like to give a keynote welcome to 330 people? A bit intimidating, especially since it takes three shots just to photograph them all.  The new FEMBA Class of 2017, August 25, 2017, day one of Leadership Foundations. 1 of 3.  The new FEMBA Class of 2017, August 25, 2017, day one of Leadership Foundations. 2 of 3. (See Associate Dean Freixes down front.)  The new FEMBA Class of 2017, August 25, 2017, day one of Leadership Foundations. 3 of 3. (Directors Melissa de Ramos and Bonnie Kim coming down for their opening welcomes.)  Hail to the Chief! Our FEMBA student body president, Kari Schumaker ’15, welcomes the new students.  Let out your inner thespian. Joining Kari on-stage are FEMBA Council Officers Vibhore Bhaskar, Amber Jackson, David Forbes, Chihiro Kurokawa and Allyson Tom for a skit or two.  Allyson Tom ’15, FEMBAssador Co-Chair, also welcomed the 2017s, and gave an overview of FEMBAssadors.  David Duong plugged all-things-social. In the background he showed two videos, for Section Wars, and here, AnderProm.  If you’re excited to be starting at UCLA, let’s see you raise your hands!  They made six months’ worth of work look effortless; the team who managed the entire week: Kuni Kondo, Itze Ornelas, Amjad Ezzour, Michael Fontanez, Abraham Martinez.  These upperclass FEMBAs gave up a week too, so that they could be the Teaching Assistants for Leadership Foundations: Brad Phillipi, Ryan Rosales, Chihiro Kurokawa, Jack Warren, Asa Sharma, and Alyse Thompson.  The engine that makes the whole enterprise go, our excellent faculty. Here were the five leaders of Leadership Foundations 2014, our professors Keyvan Kashkooli, Noah Goldstein, Craig Fox, Margaret Shih and Jenessa Shapiro. Finally, I want to thank the three team who make my professional life possible, my Admissions Team, Our Alumni Reader Team, and our FEMBAssador team. Thanks everyone! Your efforts created this history-making, largest-ever entering FEMBA Class of 2017!     
|
13 Sep 2014, 23:36
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: 4 great alumni, 1 great week |
What a cool week this was, running into four great FEMBA alumni. It’s a small, connected world, living in FEMBA-land. Monday lunch, Thai food on Pico with Paraag Lal 2004. Those of you in the 2017 class will recognize Paraag as the keynote speaker from Tuesday evening of Leadership Foundations. Paraag Lal ’04 (CEO and Co-Founder at Carmen Road Entertainment) and Ellen (Keeler) Moore ’04 were the leaders with whom SuperSaturday Admission Interviews were launched back in 2004. This year, on November 8, FEMBA’s lifetime total of face-to-face admission interviews will surpass 5,000! That is 5,000 moments-of-truth that we have had with people applying for their MBA degree at UCLA–a big accomplishment. Paraag also changed my life by taking me to an ashram in southern India. We spent 8 days on the ashram after first being on a FEMBA International Study trip in Mumbai and New Dehli with Finance Professor Subra and a very great group of FEMBAs, EMBAs and a few brave significant others.  Back in 2010, Paraag and me, on the top of the dormitory at the ashram, overlooking the back-waters in Kerala. The dress for the ashram was “all white” or at least that’s what Paraag told me. As you see, he was rocking his U2 360 concert shirt.  “Dylan, you gotta try sitting on an elephant,” Paraag told me. It was a trip. SO much larger than riding a horse. Your legs are really wide. You climb up on the “elbow” of the elephant, when it’s knealing. Then, when the elephant stands up, you go up, and up and up, with it. There were these thick black hairs on its back.  Yesterday, Wednesday morning, with Hrag Hamalian ’14, in the A-Building atrium. Hrag and fellow ’14, Josh Schachter are making some entrepreneurial magic this year. More details will be coming in the next month. Hrag and I were working on a prototype together. You’ve read about Hrag and Josh before, in an earlier post. Hrag was inspiring before FEMBA, during FEMBA, and now even more as a brand new alum.  Then yesterday evening, also Wednesday, with Catherine Algra ’08 at Back-to-School-Night. Our respective children happen to be in the very same elementary school class this year! We sat in tiny, little second-grader seats and heard a wonderful teacher tell us how she’ll be caring for the children this year. Below is a chance to hear Catherine Algra ’08 (Senior Financial Services Manager at Betson Enterprises), reflect on her Global Access Program experience during FEMBA. Forward to 0:50, 1:50 or 5:25, to hear her reflections.  
|
14 Sep 2014, 04:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Making History: The new FEMBA Class of 2017 |
|
Last week we welcomed the UCLA Anderson FEMBA Class of 2017, the 27th entering class and the largest-ever entering class! The highlight of my year is making the opening-day welcome, where I get to give the class profile and share my “diamonds polish diamonds” metaphor. My half-hour speech is only a small part of the whole Leadership Foundations, an intense, five-day immersion taught by some of our freshest-thinking professors, embedding social-connectivity with multiple experiential-learning components. Below are some of the statistics of our amazing new class of students, as well as some photos of the week. The FEMBA Class of 2017
What’s it like to give a keynote welcome to 330 people? A bit intimidating, especially since it takes three shots just to photograph them all. The new FEMBA Class of 2017, August 25, 2017, day one of Leadership Foundations. 1 of 3. The new FEMBA Class of 2017, August 25, 2017, day one of Leadership Foundations. 2 of 3. (See Associate Dean Freixes down front.) The new FEMBA Class of 2017, August 25, 2017, day one of Leadership Foundations. 3 of 3. (Directors Melissa de Ramos and Bonnie Kim coming down for their opening welcomes.) Hail to the Chief! Our FEMBA student body president, Kari Schumaker ’15, welcomes the new students. Let out your inner thespian. Joining Kari on-stage are FEMBA Council Officers Vibhore Bhaskar, Amber Jackson, David Forbes, Chihiro Kurokawa and Allyson Tom for a skit or two. Allyson Tom ’15, FEMBAssador Co-Chair, also welcomed the 2017s, and gave an overview of FEMBAssadors. David Duong plugged all-things-social. In the background he showed two videos, for Section Wars, and here, AnderProm. If you’re excited to be starting at UCLA, let’s see you raise your hands! They made six months’ worth of work look effortless; the team who managed the entire week: Kuni Kondo, Itze Ornelas, Amjad Ezzour, Michael Fontanez, Abraham Martinez. These upperclass FEMBAs gave up a week too, so that they could be the Teaching Assistants for Leadership Foundations: Brad Phillipi, Ryan Rosales, Chihiro Kurokawa, Jack Warren, Asa Sharma, and Alyse Thompson. The engine that makes the whole enterprise go, our excellent faculty. Here were the five leaders of Leadership Foundations 2014, our professors Keyvan Kashkooli, Noah Goldstein, Craig Fox, Margaret Shih and Jenessa Shapiro. Finally, I want to thank the three team who make my professional life possible, my Admissions Team, Our Alumni Reader Team, and our FEMBAssador team. Thanks everyone! Your efforts created this history-making, largest-ever entering FEMBA Class of 2017!
|
14 Sep 2014, 04:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: 4 great alumni, 1 great week |
|
What a cool week this was, running into four great FEMBA alumni. It’s a small, connected world, living in FEMBA-land. Monday lunch, Thai food on Pico with Paraag Lal 2004. Those of you in the 2017 class will recognize Paraag as the keynote speaker from Tuesday evening of Leadership Foundations. Paraag Lal ’04 (CEO and Co-Founder at Carmen Road Entertainment) and Ellen (Keeler) Moore ’04 were the leaders with whom SuperSaturday Admission Interviews were launched back in 2004. This year, on November 8, FEMBA’s lifetime total of face-to-face admission interviews will surpass 5,000! That is 5,000 moments-of-truth that we have had with people applying for their MBA degree at UCLA–a big accomplishment. Paraag also changed my life by taking me to an ashram in southern India. We spent 8 days on the ashram after first being on a FEMBA International Study trip in Mumbai and New Dehli with Finance Professor Subra and a very great group of FEMBAs, EMBAs and a few brave significant others. Back in 2010, Paraag and me, on the top of the dormitory at the ashram, overlooking the back-waters in Kerala. The dress for the ashram was “all white” or at least that’s what Paraag told me. As you see, he was rocking his U2 360 concert shirt. “Dylan, you gotta try sitting on an elephant,” Paraag told me. It was a trip. SO much larger than riding a horse. Your legs are really wide. You climb up on the “elbow” of the elephant, when it’s knealing. Then, when the elephant stands up, you go up, and up and up, with it. There were these thick black hairs on its back. Yesterday, Wednesday morning, with Hrag Hamalian ’14, in the A-Building atrium. Hrag and fellow ’14, Josh Schachter are making some entrepreneurial magic this year. More details will be coming in the next month. Hrag and I were working on a prototype together. You’ve read about Hrag and Josh before, in an earlier post. Hrag was inspiring before FEMBA, during FEMBA, and now even more as a brand new alum. Then yesterday evening, also Wednesday, with Catherine Algra ’08 at Back-to-School-Night. Our respective children happen to be in the very same elementary school class this year! We sat in tiny, little second-grader seats and heard a wonderful teacher tell us how she’ll be caring for the children this year. Below is a chance to hear Catherine Algra ’08 (Senior Financial Services Manager at Betson Enterprises), reflect on her Global Access Program experience during FEMBA. Forward to 0:50, 1:50 or 5:25, to hear her reflections.
|
14 Sep 2014, 22:44
17 Sep 2014, 15:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob J. Lew |
|
This doesn’t happen everyday: Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob Lew, is speaking right here, right now, in Korn Convocation Hall. He’s en route to Cairns, Australia, for the Group of Twenty (G20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting, but stopped off at UCLA Anderson to speak to a full house. His speech is also live-streaming on our Anderson website. First topic: tax inversions and patriotism.  Next: US economic relations with Russia. Next: China. Next: Value of the Dollar. Now, questions and answer period. The questions posed by students: Syria and ISIS? Scotland and UK? Student loans? Tax code reform, reactions from other countries? Wealth inequality? Communicating post-2008-financial-crisis efforts? How to communicate contentious topics abroad, at home? Dean Judy Olian, last question, immigration reform: As one-third of our students are international. How do we make sure they can work here, with their UCLA education?  
|
17 Sep 2014, 15:16
17 Sep 2014, 16:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob J. Lew |
|
This doesn’t happen everyday: Secretary of the Treasury, Jacob Lew, is speaking right here, right now, in Korn Convocation Hall. He’s en route to Cairns, Australia, for the Group of Twenty (G20) Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting, but stopped off at UCLA Anderson to speak to a full house. His speech is also live-streaming on our Anderson website. First topic: tax inversions and patriotism. Next: US economic relations with Russia. Next: China. Next: Value of the Dollar. Now, questions and answer period. The questions posed by students: Syria and ISIS? Scotland and UK? Student loans? Tax code reform, reactions from other countries? Wealth inequality? Communicating post-2008-financial-crisis efforts? How to communicate contentious topics abroad, at home? Dean Judy Olian, last question, immigration reform: As one-third of our students are international. How do we make sure they can work here, with their UCLA education?
|
07 Oct 2014, 12:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Wake Forest, Krispy Kremes and Football |
Listening to top peer schools at the annual Part-Time MBA conference hosted by Wake Forest this year. We are in the Bridger Field House, looking out at the football field. They put our names in lights.   Above, that’s me with Megan Krueger, Assistant Dean, Student Life, Kellogg. We had a visit from the Krispy Kreme doughnuts truck, below.    
|
10 Oct 2014, 17:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Failing is just another word for growing |
|
Ahh…Friday afternoon. The day before Saturday classes if you’re a UCLA FEMBA. The day before Texas A&M faces another Mississippi team if you’re me, and time for a Friday Footnote! I’ve committed myself to no longer have email be an albatross around my neck, but rather to ‘go with it’ and open all of ‘em. In that spirit, as I ‘went with it’ this week and was reading all my unopened emails, I came across an incredible note from a favorite alumna, Amy Cheng-Tran ’13, Director, Strategic Partnerships, enso. Amy wrote me over a month ago to update me on an inspiring campaign they were launching for Khan Academy. Their launch film, see below, has 1,485,465 views in six weeks.  Amy Cheng-Tran ’13, from the enso website https://www.helloenso.com/we-are-enso/ Hi Dylan, Hope you are doing very well. Can’t believe it’s been over a year since graduation. Today is a big day for enso, and I wanted to share it with you. For the past few months we’ve been working with Khan Academy, as its first agency partner of any kind, with the objective of amplifying its current level of success (over 10M students per month, 400M+ lessons delivered and over 2 billion problems solved). Rather than create an ad campaign for Khan Academy, our approach has been to develop a creative campaign that can spark a movement around learning. We’ve based this on Dr. Carol Dweck’s work at Stanford, which shows that our relationship to struggle and challenges determines our success — a ‘growth mindset’ as opposed to a ‘fixed mindset’. In a fixed mindset people believe they are born with an innate, fixed level of intelligence and are ‘just not good at math’, ‘can’t do languages’ etc. — over 50% of people have a fixed mindset. So our campaign is designed to put the core idea into the world: You only have to know one thing. You can learn anything. Today we launched the first creative for You Can Learn Anything, which we hope becomes an idea many people can get behind. We’re starting with a multi-million dollar media donation from Comcast, which means this message will get into millions of homes around back to school. The next phase will be big activations with partners in the new year. Here is the launch film You can learn anything. P.S. To get the reference to today’s title, you have to watch the enso film.  
|
15 Oct 2014, 22:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Sunday Breakfast with the Flexers |
Sunday morning I joined the FLEX breakfast (along with my seven-year-old who happily ate bagels and watched the iPad) to witness the launch-weekend atmosphere of FLEX. I also gathered a few great perspectives from FLEXers to share with you. Karen Shang ’17. Karen is the mother of two (3-and-a-half and 13 months) and a brand new FEMBA. Karen works in accounting/finance and was actually admitted last year, but postponed to be with her second child. Regarding adding UCLA to her already full life, she told me, “While everyday life with work and kids could be exhausting and even draining at times, being a part of such a dynamic learning environment re-energizes me… this is my space where I feel replenished and stimulated intellectually…Believe it or not, I’m working on start a LinkedIn profile. I’ve never really invested in networking, but I definitely plan to take on the opportunity to network extensively here at UCLA.“  Ola Dokun ’17 is an IT Process Delivery Specialist at The Walt Disney Company. UCLA Anderson will be her second master’s degree. We talked about the crazy ramp-up that the first quarter of FEMBA requires. Ola told me, “I would say if you are going to do the Femba program you probably will have a lot of constraints with time and structure around work and personal life. Flex gives you that added Femba bonus to pick and choose what time and pace to learn anywhere you want with deadlines of course that prevents procrastinating and creates discipline. There is an assumption that the Flex section is for people who don’t live in the LA area but a handful of us live only a couple of miles from UCLA so we still get to benefit from attending the extra curricular events weekly. I love the schedule!”  Rebecca Stolz ’16 is Assistant to the President of Occidental College. She was in all-day Saturday for her first year of FEMBA, but has moved into the FLEX section because her five-year-old daughter Grete has begun school and it works better for her family and work to use the FLEX format for classes. Later Rebecca sent me these photos of Grete. Look how many FEMBA events Grete’s attended with Mommy!  Grete, Rebecca’s daughter, with Katie Kroeger-Davis ’16 at FEMBApalooza 2014, with matching butterfly face paintings.  Grete with Mommy’s friend Nancy Yao ’16, in the bounce house at FEMBA Section Wars  Grete, running the the light blue outfit, inspecting Mommy and her FEMBA classmates at Section Wars, 2014  Anthony Patterson ’16 is a Senior Associate at Revel Consulting. Anthony commutes from Seattle commuter, and he explained the value to me, “FEMBA FLEX has been a great experience that I didn’t discover during my initial search for an MBA program. Not being sure if I wanted to stay in Seattle long-term, I wanted an MBA with a more global brand, but wasn’t ready to move my life across the country. FLEX offers the same experience and instruction as other programs, but allows for flexibility to maintain consistency in my life week-to-week. I find myself looking forward to flying to So-Cal once a month to get some sun and learn with my classmates. It’s a great way to immerse yourself in an MBA, but on focused weekends instead of each week. Many of us look forward to our sunny weekends in Westwood!“  Vinay Kondapi ’16 is a Product Manager at Impinj. Vinay, along with Anthony, is also commuting from Seattle down to UCLA and for him FEMBA is working out great. “Dylan, it’s already happened for me!” he said. “I wanted to switch out of engineering and into product management and it’s already happened, half way through FEMBA.” I felt like a proud father, hearing about Vinay’s success. He’s going to send me more details and I’ll follow up in a future post!  Rachel Fang Fang ’16 is Owner and CEO of CN Winners, Inc. Rachel is a successful entrepreneur already and she’s got several “what’s next” ideas percolating. I love talking to serial entrepreneurs. It’s always inspiring and stimulating, the way they’re always focused on the future, and making things happen. She also told me about a classmate who just got married: Congratulations Jordan! My final breakfast conversation was with the one-and-only George Ingersoll ’09, Director of Hybrid Learning Initiatives at UCLA Anderson School of Management. George earned his UCLA Anderson MBA back in 2009, and now is in our PhD program while he simultaneously works as the Director of Hybrid Learning. George has been instrumental in launching FLEX and improving it. FLEX wouldn’t be half as great as it is without George.  George Ingersoll ’09 and Rebecca Stolz ’16, at the FLEX breakfast on Sunday. That’s it for me from Sunday morning with the FLEXers. My son Jackson loved his yummy breakfast at Daddy’s work, plus his iPad time. We scooted out of there and were able to catch up to Mommy at church. Life at the speed of FEMBA!  
|
15 Oct 2014, 23:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Failing is just another word for growing |
|
Ahh…Friday afternoon. The day before Saturday classes if you’re a UCLA FEMBA. The day before Texas A&M faces another Mississippi team if you’re me, and time for a Friday Footnote! I’ve committed myself to no longer have email be an albatross around my neck, but rather to ‘go with it’ and open all of ‘em. In that spirit, as I ‘went with it’ this week and was reading all my unopened emails, I came across an incredible note from a favorite alumna, Amy Cheng-Tran ’13, Director, Strategic Partnerships, enso. Amy wrote me over a month ago to update me on an inspiring campaign they were launching for Khan Academy. Their launch film, see below, has 1,485,465 views in six weeks. Amy Cheng-Tran ’13, from the enso website https://www.helloenso.com/we-are-enso/ Hi Dylan, Hope you are doing very well. Can’t believe it’s been over a year since graduation. Today is a big day for enso, and I wanted to share it with you. For the past few months we’ve been working with Khan Academy, as its first agency partner of any kind, with the objective of amplifying its current level of success (over 10M students per month, 400M+ lessons delivered and over 2 billion problems solved). Rather than create an ad campaign for Khan Academy, our approach has been to develop a creative campaign that can spark a movement around learning. We’ve based this on Dr. Carol Dweck’s work at Stanford, which shows that our relationship to struggle and challenges determines our success — a ‘growth mindset’ as opposed to a ‘fixed mindset’. In a fixed mindset people believe they are born with an innate, fixed level of intelligence and are ‘just not good at math’, ‘can’t do languages’ etc. — over 50% of people have a fixed mindset. So our campaign is designed to put the core idea into the world: You only have to know one thing. You can learn anything. Today we launched the first creative for You Can Learn Anything, which we hope becomes an idea many people can get. Here is the launch film You can learn anything. P.S. To get the reference to today’s title, you have to watch the enso film.
|
15 Oct 2014, 23:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Sunday Breakfast with the Flexers |
|
Sunday morning I joined the FLEX breakfast (along with my seven-year-old who happily ate bagels and watched the iPad) to witness the launch-weekend atmosphere of FLEX. I also gathered a few great perspectives from FLEXers to share with you. Karen Shang ’17. Karen is the mother of two (3-and-a-half and 13 months) and a brand new FEMBA. Karen works in accounting/finance and was actually admitted last year, but postponed to be with her second child. Regarding adding UCLA to her already full life, she told me, “While everyday life with work and kids could be exhausting and even draining at times, being a part of such a dynamic learning environment re-energizes me… this is my space where I feel replenished and stimulated intellectually…Believe it or not, I’m working on starting a LinkedIn profile. I’ve always been so wrapped up in my jobs that I never really invested any time in networking, but I definitely plan to take on the opportunity to network extensively here at UCLA, especially with the intent of transitioning into the education consulting sector within the area of finance/accounting.“ Ola Dokun ’17 is an IT Process Delivery Specialist at The Walt Disney Company. UCLA Anderson will be her second master’s degree. We talked about the crazy ramp-up that the first quarter of FEMBA requires. Ola told me, “I would say if you are going to do the Femba program you probably will have a lot of constraints with time and structure around work and personal life. Flex gives you that added Femba bonus to pick and choose what time and pace to learn anywhere you want with deadlines of course that prevents procrastinating and creates discipline. There is an assumption that the Flex section is for people who don’t live in the LA area but a handful of us live only a couple of miles from UCLA so we still get to benefit from attending the extra curricular events weekly. I love the schedule!” Rebecca Stolz ’16 is Assistant to the President of Occidental College. She was in all-day Saturday for her first year of FEMBA, but has moved into the FLEX section because her five-year-old daughter Grete has begun school and it works better for her family and work to use the FLEX format for classes. Later Rebecca sent me these photos of Grete. Look how many FEMBA events Grete’s attended with Mommy! Grete, Rebecca’s daughter, with Katie Kroeger-Davis ’16 at FEMBApalooza 2014, with matching butterfly face paintings. Grete with Mommy’s friend Nancy Yao ’16, in the bounce house at FEMBA Section Wars Grete, running the the light blue outfit, inspecting Mommy and her FEMBA classmates at Section Wars, 2014 Anthony Patterson ’16 is a Senior Associate at Revel Consulting. Anthony commutes from Seattle commuter, and he explained the value to me, “FEMBA FLEX has been a great experience that I didn’t discover during my initial search for an MBA program. Not being sure if I wanted to stay in Seattle long-term, I wanted an MBA with a more global brand, but wasn’t ready to move my life across the country. FLEX offers the same experience and instruction as other programs, but allows for flexibility to maintain consistency in my life week-to-week. I find myself looking forward to flying to So-Cal once a month to get some sun and learn with my classmates. It’s a great way to immerse yourself in an MBA, but on focused weekends instead of each week. Many of us look forward to our sunny weekends in Westwood!“ Vinay Kondapi ’16 is a Product Manager at Impinj. Vinay, along with Anthony, is also commuting from Seattle down to UCLA and for him FEMBA is working out great. “Dylan, it’s already happened for me!” he said. “I wanted to switch out of engineering and into product management and it’s already happened, half way through FEMBA.” I felt like a proud father, hearing about Vinay’s success. He’s going to send me more details and I’ll follow up in a future post! Rachel Fang Fang ’16 is Owner and CEO of CN Winners, Inc. Rachel is a successful entrepreneur already and she’s got several “what’s next” ideas percolating. I love talking to serial entrepreneurs. It’s always inspiring and stimulating, the way they’re always focused on the future, and making things happen. She also told me about a classmate who just got married: Congratulations Jordan! My final breakfast conversation was with the one-and-only George Ingersoll ’09, Director of Hybrid Learning Initiatives at UCLA Anderson School of Management. George earned his UCLA Anderson MBA back in 2009, and now is in our PhD program while he simultaneously works as the Director of Hybrid Learning. George has been instrumental in launching FLEX and improving it. FLEX wouldn’t be half as great as it is without George. George Ingersoll ’09 and Rebecca Stolz ’16, at the FLEX breakfast on Sunday. That’s it for me from Sunday morning with the FLEXers. My son Jackson loved his yummy breakfast at Daddy’s work, plus his iPad time. We scooted out of there and were able to catch up to Mommy at church. Life at the speed of FEMBA!
|
17 Oct 2014, 13:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Admissions 101 |
|
Want the inside view on how we make our admission decisions? Want some practice with your pitch and polishing your resume? Several times a year, we host “Admissions 101″ where I attempt to distill some useful perspectives based on my 12 years being accountable for FEMBA admissions. Monday, October 13, 2014, we had our first Admissions 101 session for 2014-2015.If you like what you see, please sign up for one of our future Admissions 101 events. Or Watch the October 13, 2014 “Admissions 101″   
|
18 Oct 2014, 19:00
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Femba Council: 10/18/14 |
Congrats to Kari Schumacher 15, David Duong 15, Amber Jackson 15 and all the Executive Board for today’s great first full Femba Council meeting for 2014-2015. Going to be a great year!    
|
20 Oct 2014, 17:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Me, a life-long learner too |
|
I’m in my third straight day of class: Saturday, Sunday and Monday. This weekend, the Wisdom Unlimited Course, and today, day one of the Executive MBA Council Conference. Both conferences are talking about the power of education, the power of language. Here are some random quotes I’ve heard the last 72 hours that are inspiring to me. They all live in the context of education, purpose and living a life with passion.
 
|
24 Oct 2014, 12:01
| FROM UCLA FEMBA Admission Director: Starting up and Standing up: Brian Sterz launches Accessible Capital Partners |
How big do you want your life to be? How much risk are you willing to take? How many partnerships and alliances can you build? Will you be true to yourself along the way? Brian Sterz ’14, CEO and Founder of Accessible Capital Partners I’ve been working on this profile of Brian Sterz ’14, CEO and Founder of Accessible Capital Partners for a month now–with great anticipation–because Brian is leveraging his FEMBA degree to build a bold new chapter of his career and life. Brian just graduated FEMBA and he’s launched his own company, Accessible Capital Partners. He was an extremely involved student leader during FEMBA, serving on the Executive Board of FEMBA Council and actively participating in ASAM (Anderson Student Asset Management).  The 2013-2014 FEMBA Council Executive Board, Brian is second from left. Dylan: Brian, let’s start with your professional journey, then we’ll hear about the personal transformation you’re undergoing. Brian: For sure Dylan. I entered Anderson armed with my professional experience and my Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation ready to learn how to start and run an effective asset management company. During FEMBA, I further honed my financial skill set, augmented with a summer internship in investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Los Angeles. I challenged myself, I really got out of my wheelhouse, with marketing, operations, and negotiations courses, and others, such as Data Analytics with R with Professor Rossi and Strategy with Professor Rummelt, that rounded out my capabilities. These courses, along with daily interactions with my entrepreneurial FEMBA classmates, are what emboldened me to venture out to launch on my own firm. Investing has always been my passion and I needed the education and experience that I gained at UCLA Anderson to make this entrepreneurial leap. I learned to better manage an organization with my two years on FEMBA Council.  FEMBApalooza, hanging out. Brian Sterz ’14, Gonzalo Freixes (Faculty), and Mike Walden ’14. Dylan: Love it! Now tells them what happened after FEMBA. Brian: After completing my UCLA Anderson FEMBA education, and having effectively completed a career transition, I decided to take the entrepreneurial leap in starting Accessible Capital Partners, a bridge lending fund based in Los Angeles. Having seen the investment management industry from several perspectives during my career prior to Anderson, including experience on the derivatives trading floor in San Francisco, at Callan Associates where I was part of a team that advised public pension funds on their fixed income investments, and later as a member of the investment committee at a local Registered Investment Advisor called EP Wealth Advisors, I knew that I wanted to open my own fund after business school.  Stephen Shar 14, Brian Sterz, Brandon Flora 14, Jennifer Chiang 14, and Freddy Wolfe 14, Brian’s Global Access Program teammates, Team ‘Drink Cup,” December 2013. Dylan: What components of FEMBA supported you to take the leap? Brian: My experience with the Ziman Center for Real Estate, and particularly the passionate instruction of Eric Sussman and Paul Habibi, led me to combine my prior experience in fixed income with real estate to create Accessible Capital Partners. My interest in real estate began during the heart of the global financial crisis in 2008, when real estate prices experienced their nearly unprecedented decline. During that year, I began the process of getting my real estate broker’s license in an attempt to take advantage of these prices that would undoubtedly prove to be bargains in future years. As Southern California has recovered from the crisis, though lessons-learned remain squarely in mind, conservatively-underwritten bridge financing appears to be an attractive route to pursue.  Looks pretty calm after taking the leap to create his own company. Brian Sterz ’14. Dylan: Great Brian. Now, let’s shift a little bit to the personal. One of the things that’s impressed me about you is the friendships you’ve cultivated here, and your student involvement. (For my readers, it was Brian who collected all the testimonials that comprised the Doug Longo ’14 tribute blog post back in March.) Brian: For sure. I was friends with Doug Longo through classes, ASAM and FEMBA Council. Also in ASAM with us was Ryan Hughes, who has also created his own company since FEMBA. Ryan and I, during school and before we each created our own companies, we actually sent a lot of business each others’ way. Another example of FEMBA helping your career immediately, during school.  Brian on-stage at the Hollywood Improv on September 21, 2014. “I wanted to put myself out there,” says Brian Sterz. His third show will be November 5, 2014. Dylan: And what’s this about Improv? Tell them about that. Brian: Well this is a big deal for me, taking the leap and starting my own company. I knew that it was going to take a lot of persistence and boldness on my part. I wanted to put myself out there. I love public speaking, but wanted to get better at it. I signed up for an improv class because I knew it would force me to grow. We met four times and at the end we each got a 5 minute slot in front of a real audience at the Hollywood Improv. I did that set at the Improv. There’s this whole comedy community in LA, and a guy in the crowd came up to me afterwards and he then got me booked The Comedy Store. I’ve already done the second show, and my next performance is November 5th! I’m doing it again! I post invitations on my Facebook page. Dylan: Which was scarier, Improv or your GAP Final Presentation? Brian: Ha! No comment! Tell you what. Really what’s scariest is starting my own company. I’ve gone from having safe, comfortable, high-paying jobs to starting from scratch. While I’m getting started, I’m doing things like driving for LYFT and renting my apartment on airbnb to bride the gap. This isn’t all roses. I’m pretty sure it’s a very small percentage of b-school grads who are driving for LYFT. But I’m OK with that. The point is I’m doing what it takes to get my business profitable and successful. Dylan: I love it. Thanks for the reality check. Anything else? Brian: Well I’m a start-up, so I just have to put in one more pitch for my firm. Accessible Capital Partners seeks to provide debt capital to real estate entrepreneurs and developers who require timely and flexible capital which traditional banks simply cannot provide in today’s environment. The fund seeks to conservatively underwrite loans and partner with borrowers to create mutually beneficial long-term relationships. In this way, the fund can provide sustainable, risk-adjusted returns for its investors. As technology changes the face of real estate investing, the fund will seek to leverage crowd sourcing platforms to both raise and deploy capital efficiently and effectively. Currently, we’re seeking investment partners. The Anderson Alumni community has already been so supportive of this effort and I look forward to partnering with our esteemed colleagues for many years to come! Interested persons, please reach out to me via LinkedIn.  
|
|
|
||
Hi Generic [Bot],
Here are updates for you:
ANNOUNCEMENTS
AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
Tuck at Dartmouth
|
close
