Calling all Haas (Berkeley) Applicants: 2017 Intake (Class of 2019)!!

In for Round 1!

All the best to everyone


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FROM Haas Admissions Blog: Why Two Kinds of Curiosity Should Fuel Your Career Development

What I love most about my work in the Full-time Berkeley MBA Program is meeting with students who feel fired up about the possibilities for their career. Whether they have only just identified a field of interest or are in the process of evaluating multiple job offers, students bring their intellectual curiosity to our coaching sessions in ways that give us lots of possibilities to explore. Sometimes, “lots” actually means “too many”. Over the years I have been coaching, students have articulated this in a host of ways, but all are variations on the same theme: “I have so many interests and need help narrowing them down, but I don’t want to close the door on any opportunities too soon!” In this “analysis paralysis,” students will review tens (hundreds?) of job descriptions and industry reports, pack their calendars with coffee chats, and use their exceptional financial modeling skills to create the most elegant pros and cons lists you have ever seen. It takes more than intellectual curiosity to move forward with career development. Once exhaustion from this approach sets in, students are open to hearing what I am sharing with you in this post: It takes more than intellectual curiosity to move forward with career development. Why? Because intellectual curiosity is self-centered! Sure, it helps you discover and understand what things do and how those things work. In the end, however, it is only concerned with your own interests. The missing element is the one that frames your search around finding meaning and purpose in your career: empathetic curiosity. Empathetic curiosity focuses on how people feel, and it typically anchors on their sense of success or well-being. Both types of curiosity—intellectual and empathetic—play crucial roles in career development. For example, imagine you are targeting jobs in product management because you love to build things and are fascinated by technology (intellectual curiosity) but you have not given any thought to how you want to support customers’ success or well-being, or even to how customers perceive these things (empathetic curiosity). Suddenly, what sounds like your passion for tech could come off as a lack of compassion for people. After all, if you understand what a product manager does and how the job works, yet you fail to appreciate how that job affects the customer, then you risk wasting customer time and money, along with the resources of your business. Conversely, if you do appreciate the way these customers see their own success and well-being, then you can develop a point of view about how you would support them if you had the product manager job. That insight makes for a winning pitch during a job search! Let’s look at another example: investment banking. As an aspiring banker, you may love keeping up with financial markets, enjoy performing technical analyses, and feel thrilled at the prospect of doing deals that reshape industry. All of these are features of intellectual curiosity. Beyond these features, you could also cultivate empathetic curiosity for your prospective clients: the CFOs and CEOs of major companies. How do they see their success and well-being? This could run the gamut from building a corporate empire, to financing the commercialization of life-saving products, to protecting employees from layoffs during an acquisition. Knowing this, you can connect your intellectual and empathetic curiosities in ways that show a managing director the kind of banker you aspire to be. Intellectual curiosity helps you generate career possibilities; empathetic curiosity helps you narrow them down. On a more macro level, intellectual curiosity helps you generate career possibilities whereas empathetic curiosity helps you narrow them down. Imagine you are a new MBA student declaring that you will target investment banking while keeping product management as a backup option (a not uncommon approach at Haas). While this may sound strategic to you, I would encourage you to reconcile how the success and well-being of your potential clients or customers across both domains support your own sense of success and well-being. In other words, would you feel energized, inspired, satisfied, and paid well enough by supporting these clients or customers? If yes, can you explain why? If you can, then pursue these options. If not, reflect further or narrow down the list by eliminating the job that does not contribute to your success and well-being. Where your sense of success and well-being is positively related to your customers’ sense of success and well-being, will find meaning, purpose and other such states of mind emerging in your work. In the meantime, use those research reports and coffee chats to exercise your empathetic curiosity. See where it takes you!  To see where the search for meaningful work takes our students, see our Full-time MBA employment reports.    Michael G. Katz is the Founding Director of the Interpersonal Development Program at Haas, and the former Director of Career Coaching for the Full-Time MBA Program. He believes that all people deserve meaningful work.

FROM Haas Admissions Blog: Ready for an MBA...or for the next big thing in Your Life? Part I

If you read our previous blog on how Berkeley-Haas students knew they were ready for an MBA, you may have found others who share similar circumstances or considerations to your own. And perhaps you have more in common beyond the pursuit of an MBA. In addition to their MBA programs, Haas students balance eventful personal lives outside the classroom. In this two-part series, learn these same students knew they were ready to start another exciting chapter, be it an upcoming marriage, a baby on the way, a growing family, or a changing career. George James, of our full-time MBA program, on being ready to get married: My wife, Zula, who is Mongolian, and I had a whirlwind courtship.  I met her in May during a church camping trip in Southern Utah. We are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We started dating in July 2010 and got married the following year on January 8th at the Salt Lake City Temple.  I think the biggest thing for us was the feeling that we found someone we wanted to spend the rest of eternity with. We are also very complimentary. Opposites really do attract—I am a planner, my wife is not. I am not especially sensitive or courteous, but my wife has these characteristics in abundance. I think I'm funny and my wife does not. On a more serious note, we also shared very similar life goals. Getting married meant we were combining our friends an family to create a future together, and that gave me a profound sense of purpose and joy. Anca Popovici (EWMBA) on being ready to train and fundraise for triathlons: I remember being in Ecuador in 2010, snorkeling in this incredibly beautiful place and being completely terrified of the water. I didn’t know how to swim, and the life vest did little to calm my fears. I couldn’t understand how my fear could take away from that beautiful moment, so my new year’s resolution was to learn to swim. I do best when I have a goal, so I signed up for a triathlon. In 2011, I did my first triathlon, survived the swim and got hooked. In 2013, one of my dreams came true. A year of intense training and tremendous support from loved ones and even strangers across the globe helped me finish 10th in my age group in my first Ironman race: 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles biking and 26.2  miles running. The idea for fundraising actually came from a simple class assignment. In our “Leadership Communication” we were asked to present something we are passionate about. I realized that my personal passion was to help people like my mom, who faces bipolar disorder and the stigma surrounding mental illness. I started questioning why this has been such a big secret in our family for so long. After talking to my family, I realized that they were trying to protect us, the children, from being associated with the stigma. What my parents had to endure outweighs any endurance challenge, and they did it quietly behind closed doors. I wanted my mom, along with 60 million people facing bipolar disorder, and their loved ones, to be celebrated for their courage. Is your Next Big Thing an MBA? Find out if you're ready with our free ebook: Five Signs You're Ready for an MBA.

FROM Haas Admissions Blog: MBA Entrepreneurship: Recent Evening & Weekend MBA Ventures

MBA entrepreneurship thrives in the Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA Program, where students find numerous resources to support their interest, from electives and startup competitions to their well-connected and talented peers. The result? Startups that offer solutions to everyting from healthy workplace eating to procuring senior housing for loved ones, making virtual reality affordable, and getting even better photos with your phone. Here is a look at a few recent ventures launched by evening and weekend MBA students, with links to fuller stories on each: Byte Co-Founder: Megan Mokri Workplace food has gotten a whole lot healthier and tastier thanks to office vending machines. Yes, you read that right. Byte, a company founded by 2016 grad Megan Mokri (pictured above), offers fresh salads instead of cheez n' crackers, breakfast burritos instead of breakfast pastries, and Blue Bottle Coffee instead of Coca-Cola. Megan founded Byte to offer a fresh food solution for the 99 percent of offices that have no fresh food on-site. “It’s like having a little Whole Foods in your office,” she says.  At one year old, Byte already counted among its customers Chevron, Bain & Company, Autodesk, Virgin America, and Sephora. Megan, who co-founded the business with her husband, Lee, says, “Having the resources of Haas when you inevitably hit hard times, not just professors but also fellow students who are starting their own businesses, was incredible. It’s an amazing program.” Fishball Co-founders: Yuriy Pryadko, Tony Sgroi While pictures and video taken on smartphones are getting better, Yuriy Pryadko thinks they could be better still.   With his 2017 classmate Tony Sgroi, Yuriy co-founded Fishball, a startup developing a dual fish-eye lens you can clip onto a cell phone to take immersive 360-degree photos and video. The attachment works with an app that stitches the image so that it can be viewed using a virtual reality headset, and it also allows users to easily upload their content to social media. The pair met in the Evening & Weekend MBA Program and developed their idea as a project in their Entrepreneurship class. “We did the market research, finished our user interviews, and decided that this truly is a viable product,” says Yuriy. “Our vision is to help people capture their memories in a way that they were never able to do before.” Seniorly Co-founders: Arthur Bretschneider, Sushanth Ramakrishna Commuting together from San Francisco turned out to be quite productive for 2016 classmates Arthur Bretschneider and Sushanth Ramakrishna. The two evening and weekend MBA students used that time to put their heads together on the challenge of finding and evaluating senior facilities for aging loved ones.   Arthur, whose family had worked in the senior housing business, had seen just how hard this can be. Their solution? Seniorly, a website that streamlines the search for senior communities. “Senior housing is a highly fragmented industry with a lot of small- and medium-sized businesses that are not yet online,” says Arthur, adding that 70 percent of the businesses lack websites. “Families spend hours and hours searching for the right community—it’s a painful process.” The co-founders cite their peers as perhaps their most valuable resource. “Berkeley-Haas is filled with smart people who are generous with their time and thoughts,” says Sushanth. "Our peers in the program have helped us many times.” RealiteerCo-founders: Shuo Zhang, Fangwei Lee Shuo Zhang, EWMBA 2016, and Fangwei Lee, a Carnegie Mellon graduate who formerly led a visual effects team at DreamWorks, wanted to  bring virtual reality to the masses by building an inexpensive system—and they’ve managed to do it with two humble materials: cardboard and recycled plastic. The friends teamed up to develop and launch Realiteer, which lets users mount a mobile device into the company's cardboard viewer and use an inexpensive handtracking device made from renewable plastic or cardboard to play downloadable VR games—also offered by Realiteer. Although the games are designed for kids, they are fun for adults too, says Shuo. “When I see smiles from everyone who tries it, I know that we have something truly special." Interested in venturing out on your own? Learn more about the part-time MBA program that helped these entrepreneurs launch.

Did anyone else get an email saying their transcript was "not in the required format" ? Mine was a pdf (unofficial) but all other schools have been fine with it. The email said I now needed to send a hard copy to Haas.

Wondering if I'm alone in this, or if this has anything to do with the application status...I know Haas requires a hard copy once you get an interview invite, but I haven't received that yet.

Haven't received such an email. Did you upload a secured PDF?

Anyone have their status updated to "ready for review" yet?

The night of the submission deadline I remember reading their requirements, and they explicitly state that all transcripts must be copies of "official" documents. Like you, I had uploaded an unofficial copy (as is standard for all other apps), and didn't have an official copy handy. I ordered rush copies to be send to them asap.

I actually specifically asked b/c i was confused by their transcript request. Our emails went like this:
MY EMAIL TO THEM - Included an attachment of what I was going to upload (I purchased an official PDF version from my school)
To whom it may concern,
My undergrad university provides official transcripts for a fee that are downloadable PDFs. Can this be uploaded as my transcript portion of my Haas Full Time MBA application? I'm concerned because the instructions specifically say not to "upload online grade reports and self-reported versions of your records. These will not be accepted."
I have attached the transcript I am planning on uploading.
Thanks for your guidance.

THEIR RESPONSE
Thank you for contacting Berkeley Haas. We ask applicants to upload official copies of their transcripts onto their application. From what you have mentioned, it seems like you have an obtained an official copy of your transcript.
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us.
Best,
Sandra Cruz-Lezama
****
No change in my status (still just "received") but also no additional emails saying i submitted the wrong type of transcript....

I haven't received that email. I only see that as a good sign (silver lining)? They find you interesting enough to want to see the official?

Interview invites should be starting soon, right? Nerve-wracking

Id expect another week? 4 weeks from deadline would give it until the 26th.

One of the emails had said "You may be invited to interview starting a couple of weeks after the application deadline and continuing until the notification date for that round." Realistically you're probably right and it will most likely be another week or so

Agree! They do operate on Berkeley time after all!

A few people have reported interview invitations on ClearAdmit Livewire.

Man. The anxiety is real. Waiting is hard!

Does anyone know how interviews are spread out? Is it like other schools with a big chunk coming early in the process? I know you can receive them technically any point until the December deadline, but curious about how they are all spaced out.

FROM Haas Admissions Blog: Part-time MBA ROI: Career Advancement in Business Development

Back in 2012, Matt Sandberg was working in enterprise software sales, making a decent salary. Overall, he was happy in the position and the overall compensation was good, but there was always a nagging concern about how heavily his total compensation was weighted toward a variable commission – it was hard to make life decisions without real financial security. He was also worried that his work experience had pigeon-holed him into a career in sales or sales management, and he began thinking about broadening his skill-set to qualify for career advancement in other areas of the business. Now, as a recent 2016 Haas graduate of the Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA Program, Sandberg currently works as the senior director of business development at a large enterprise software company. He sat down for a Q & A to reflect on how quickly he saw a return on his investment (ROI) in part-time MBA studies: What kinds of skills were you looking to build at Haas? I knew I wanted to improve my quantitative skills. Working in sales, you do deal a little bit with numbers, but I didn’t know how to read a balance sheet or income statement. More than that, I looked at the part-time MBA program as an opportunity to get a really broad base of business knowledge. When did the MBA start paying off for you? During my three years at Haas, I received three promotions across two companies and changed companies once. I was able to hold roles in sales management and product marketing, and now I work in business development. From the time I applied to Haas in 2012 to the time I graduated in 2016, my salary increased by 143 percent and my total compensation increased by 79 percent. And, as a direct result of my experience at Haas, I was able to achieve both of my primary career goals: to move into a more cross-functional role within my organization, and to increase the fixed portion of my earnings so I wasn’t so reliant on commissions. What do you particularly love about your current role? I’m responsible for the global-partnering strategy for one of our business units. I love the global nature of the work – the challenges of going to market in North America are very different from those we face in international locations, so trying to define a singular strategy that we can leverage globally, or that’s adaptable to regional differences, is super interesting to me. What specific skills are you using that you learned in your coursework at Haas? I apply Haas coursework all the time at work. A lot of my finance classes have been helpful because I’m often responsible for building financial models to launch a new product or program, and I build profitability assessments, which I couldn’t have done before. Also, learning how to work with slides to make strategic presentations has been extremely useful. All of this was augmented by a fantastic learning experience, amazing professors, and impressive and congenial students. There’s no question that my Berkeley MBA has already resulted in an excellent return. Wondering how a part-time Berkeley MBA can launch your career advancement and provide MBA ROI? Check out our Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA Program.