Ever since I accepted my summer internship offer, I have become even less reluctant to study for my classes. I am a strong believer that the best way to learn in an MBA program is to get yourself involved. This is why I've been spending most of my time with extra-curriculum activities in the first half of the spring semester:
Plan a Peru trip for 13 people for the upcoming spring break, Lead consulting projects for the Berkeley Solution Group and market the Asia Business Conference. When I signed up to take these responsibilities, I did not know how much effort I need to put in nor did I know what challenges or frustrations I will encounter. However, I was confident that I will overcome them as they come to me. Plan a Peru trip: This started as just a couple of us who wanted to take advantage of Peru's no Visa requirement for Taiwanese passport holders. But as the words got out, more and more people wanted to join and we actually had to put a limit on the number people for the trip. All I can say is that planning for 4 people was VERY different from planning for 13 people. In the beginning I sent out weekly updates to get people's feedbacks on the itinerary, but the response rate was very low as people were busy with recruiting. It turned out my biggest challenge was to decide what decisions I should make on my own vs. letting people voice their opinion. While it's good to let everyone have a say, a leader has to take a stance and make wise decisions when people have no/different views. (And they almost always will have different, even conflicting, views!) I am glad that in the end we settled something that looks extremely exciting and within our budget
Lead consulting projects for the Berkeley Solution Group (BSG): Having been on the working team side (us) of consulting projects, I joined the BSG to get experiences on the partner side (them) . I took the lead on a market sizing/assessing market opportunity project for a small online distributor even though I had a gut feeling that the client will be demanding. It turned out that not only was he challenging us a lot, he was also quite controlling and condescending. Managing people of this type takes much energy/patience and time--No wonder partners gets compensated so much. Despite the frustration of dealing with him, I learned something valuable from him as well : As a partner ( a.k.a. a sales person), never start sentence with a no when speaking to the client. We can say no to our colleagues, parents, boyfriends, classmates but never to a client. I have a feeling that this project is not going to be an easy ride but it will definitely help me expose to a broader spectrum of business people
VP of the marketing for the Asia Business Conference: The Berkeley Asia Business Conference is an annual, full-day event organized and initiated by Haas MBA students. This event aims to bring together business professionals, entrepreneurs and students to discuss and exchange ideas on current Asia business topics. The theme for this year was " Global ambition, local transformation." In the beginning I was pretty confused about how I should market the event without knowing who our panelists/keynote speakers will be and what they will be talking about (ambiguity hinders me from taking actions) Furthermore, I did not know what was the best way to reach our target audience (which we broadly defined as any who is interested in learning about the latest trends in Asia) and what was the best way to reach them. In the end we did a lot of "grassroots" marketing: posting on facebook, MBAA alert, campus wide career service, newspaper ads on Daily Californian, Alumni calendar, professional networks, personal emails to the evening and weekend MBA, SF Craigslist, and flyers around the campus. Postcards in people's mailbox...you name it. Surprisingly, we were able to get 175 registrations ( a 75% increase from last year!) thanks to everyone's effort in spreading the words.. (Internet and email rocks) Throughout the process I felt there were many improvement areas but the key learning was be organized> be inspiring/excited > be flexible Not the other way around.
Feb 29, 2008
Cold call
Cold call is a very commonly tool used by "enthusiastic" professors who want to make sure that students are paying attention in class. This semester, our macro professor is one of those enthusiastic professors. No matter how good you think you are in macroeconomics, at some point you will be cold called with absolutely no clue what to say. I am always amazed at how creative my classmates can get when this happens to them. Here are some of my very favorites:
Professor Ross "So why can we assume a fixed interest rate in the Mundell-Fleming model?"
Spaced out Student "Because the interest rate is fixed?"
Professor Ross "How does the Fed decrease the money supply?"
Confused student "By taking money out of the money supply."
Professor Ross " Does anyone know why Zimbabwe is experiencing a hyper-inflation?"
Clever student who is trying to buy time " Well..it's my pleasure to be here and thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer this question.."
The lesson I learned is that when you have absolutely no idea what to say under a rather stressful environment, why not try a little humor?
Professor Ross "So why can we assume a fixed interest rate in the Mundell-Fleming model?"
Spaced out Student "Because the interest rate is fixed?"
Professor Ross "How does the Fed decrease the money supply?"
Confused student "By taking money out of the money supply."
Professor Ross " Does anyone know why Zimbabwe is experiencing a hyper-inflation?"
Clever student who is trying to buy time " Well..it's my pleasure to be here and thank you for giving me the opportunity to answer this question.."
The lesson I learned is that when you have absolutely no idea what to say under a rather stressful environment, why not try a little humor?
Feb 7, 2008
Why Haas?
I got asked this questions many times. It's a fair question since 2 years is indeed a lot of commitment both in terms of time and money. Here is my honest answer:
What made the choice easier for me was that McKinsey sponsored my study with the right/obligation to work for them for 2 years after I graduate. As such, I did not to worry too much about financing my MBA. My motivation for obtaining an MBA was driven more by the desire to explore things. I wanted a diverse yet rather laid-back environment as oppose to programs that focus primarily on a particular area such as finance or marketing. In short, I viewed my business school more of an opportunity to find out more about myself rather than making a career switch like many of my classmates.
So far I am very satisfied with my choice as Haas is indeed a very diverse school. More people want to go to management consulting or corporate strategy for the big tech companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon , EBay, Microsoft etc but non-profit, corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship attracts almost as much attention. I really enjoy being surrounded in this environment because I got to explore different things before I decided I want to focus on finance/investment banking. And that's exactly what I did during fall A: I went to company presentations/career treks, joined a variety of clubs, participated different types of case competitions and talked to many 2nd years about their summer experience. In the process of searching what I wanted, I came to understand more about myself. I found myself more result-oriented, structured, practical, risk-adverse, driven and hardworking than some of my classmates. Therefore I decided perhaps I could try investment banking as my summer as it requires the characteristics I mentioned above. After a month of interviewing, I was fortunate to receive a summer offer from a prestigeous invement bank even though Haas is not preceived as a strong finance school as some other programs.
My conclusion? Haas is an ideal place for people who are not sure what they wanted to do after business school as it provides a tremendous amount of options and opportunities. (Esp. if you want to stay in the Silicon Valley after MBA) However, it's up to you to explore where you will find fit and then do the very best you can to get it. A very wise ex-colleague of mine told me that no one else's definition of success matters. Haas is the ideal place for you to define your own success.
What made the choice easier for me was that McKinsey sponsored my study with the right/obligation to work for them for 2 years after I graduate. As such, I did not to worry too much about financing my MBA. My motivation for obtaining an MBA was driven more by the desire to explore things. I wanted a diverse yet rather laid-back environment as oppose to programs that focus primarily on a particular area such as finance or marketing. In short, I viewed my business school more of an opportunity to find out more about myself rather than making a career switch like many of my classmates.
So far I am very satisfied with my choice as Haas is indeed a very diverse school. More people want to go to management consulting or corporate strategy for the big tech companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon , EBay, Microsoft etc but non-profit, corporate social responsibility and entrepreneurship attracts almost as much attention. I really enjoy being surrounded in this environment because I got to explore different things before I decided I want to focus on finance/investment banking. And that's exactly what I did during fall A: I went to company presentations/career treks, joined a variety of clubs, participated different types of case competitions and talked to many 2nd years about their summer experience. In the process of searching what I wanted, I came to understand more about myself. I found myself more result-oriented, structured, practical, risk-adverse, driven and hardworking than some of my classmates. Therefore I decided perhaps I could try investment banking as my summer as it requires the characteristics I mentioned above. After a month of interviewing, I was fortunate to receive a summer offer from a prestigeous invement bank even though Haas is not preceived as a strong finance school as some other programs.
My conclusion? Haas is an ideal place for people who are not sure what they wanted to do after business school as it provides a tremendous amount of options and opportunities. (Esp. if you want to stay in the Silicon Valley after MBA) However, it's up to you to explore where you will find fit and then do the very best you can to get it. A very wise ex-colleague of mine told me that no one else's definition of success matters. Haas is the ideal place for you to define your own success.
Summer internship
For the past month, I've been pretty occupied in securing a summer internship. I apologize for my late responses in the inquires that my blog readers has sent me through my emails. If I have not gotten back to you, please email me again
So what's new in the spring semester? Not much actually. First of all, the social activities have significantly reduced as most of us are busy dropping resumes, practicing consulting cases and going for interviews. Everyday there are people dressed in suit and tie. There is a mix of frustration, hope and relieved among the small community. The “Any good news so far?" can became a pretty sensitive topic... Second of all, pretty much everyone is "settled in" with their group of friends, not to mentioned some have found a steady partner at Haas (or outside of Haas..)
Out of all the summer internships, investment banking recruits the earliest. By now most of us have either secured an offer or need to quickly move to plan B. Next are the consulting firms. Since most people have interview invitations with more than 3 firms, each firm has 2-3 rounds; the process can be pretty painful and long. The feedback I've heard from some people is that McKinsey interview tends to be tougher than BCG or Bain's since the McK consultants take more control of the case and constantly challenge your answers/questions. Nevertheless, so far we have 4 McKinsey summer offers, 4 BCG offers. The last type, which is on-going, is the industry corporate recruits. I heard from my classmates that these interviews require a significant time of preparation since these companies tend to ask company-specific questions to gauge your interest in working for them (eg. Which company product does you like the best? If you could change one thing about our product xxx, what would it be? )
Having gone through so many investment banking interviews and speaking to my classmates, here is my perspective on three most important success key factors in landing a summer internship:
So what's new in the spring semester? Not much actually. First of all, the social activities have significantly reduced as most of us are busy dropping resumes, practicing consulting cases and going for interviews. Everyday there are people dressed in suit and tie. There is a mix of frustration, hope and relieved among the small community. The “Any good news so far?" can became a pretty sensitive topic... Second of all, pretty much everyone is "settled in" with their group of friends, not to mentioned some have found a steady partner at Haas (or outside of Haas..)
Out of all the summer internships, investment banking recruits the earliest. By now most of us have either secured an offer or need to quickly move to plan B. Next are the consulting firms. Since most people have interview invitations with more than 3 firms, each firm has 2-3 rounds; the process can be pretty painful and long. The feedback I've heard from some people is that McKinsey interview tends to be tougher than BCG or Bain's since the McK consultants take more control of the case and constantly challenge your answers/questions. Nevertheless, so far we have 4 McKinsey summer offers, 4 BCG offers. The last type, which is on-going, is the industry corporate recruits. I heard from my classmates that these interviews require a significant time of preparation since these companies tend to ask company-specific questions to gauge your interest in working for them (eg. Which company product does you like the best? If you could change one thing about our product xxx, what would it be? )
Having gone through so many investment banking interviews and speaking to my classmates, here is my perspective on three most important success key factors in landing a summer internship:
- Know and be able to convey clearly why you want to do the job your are interviewing for. The interviewer wants to know your motivation
- Show your enthusiasm for the job. How? 1. Know the job well. 2. Know what ability is required to perform the job well and 3. be able to convince your interviewer that you can bring value to the job from day one
- Focus on the interview process, not the actual result. I believe one reaches his/her maximum potential when they are driven by excitement ( of the process) , rather than fear (of the end result, i.e. failure)
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