Author: Cydnee

I have been proud to be a member of the Stern community since I enrolled in August 2013. However, my pride has increased even more this year. Several of my classmates have been forging a conversation about diversity and what it means for the academic and business communities. They are willing to discuss the uncomfortable, and have been holding the administration and their fellow students accountable.

For example, in December, in response to the Michael Brown and Eric Garner controversy, a group of students came together to hold a special session of “Stern Speaks*.” Three students spoke about their experiences growing up as black Americans, and Professor Dolly Chugh facilitated a conversation reflecting on current events and how they related to our experiences at Stern. Over 250 students, faculty, and administrators (including Dean Henry) attended and were engaged in having an honest, thoughtful discussion.

This week, the school’s Affinity Clubs have come together to host Ally Week, a week of programming focused on the various ways one can be an ally. The week has included a discussion on unconscious bias, a series of lunch circles on different topics of allyship, a living exhibit where members of the community could reflect about being an ally or receiving the support of one, and a Stern Speaks featuring students sharing stories of allyship.

It has been incredibly powerful to be on campus this week and to be part of the discussion. Students from different clubs, backgrounds, and career interests have come together to demonstrate how inclusive our community truly is. I am grateful to my classmates spearheading this effort, and I am excited to see how our community continues to build on this conversation.

Check out the promotional videos of Allyweek here, here, and here.

*Stern Speaks is a monthly event where an MBA1 and MBA2 share “who they are, not what they do.” The speakers each talk for 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A. It is one of my favorite programs at Stern.

We are half way through the second semester, which means I am officially 7/8’s of the way done with my MBA. Many of us are headed out of town for spring break this weekend, so I figured it’s a good time to share the second edition of my favorite things at Stern. As mentioned in my previous post, these are a few of the reasons I love being a Stern student:

• My Finance Classes: Upon enrolling at Stern, I thought I would fill my schedule with “softer” classes such as leadership and management. I wasn’t even sure I would take finance. However, after my first semester, I saw how valuable the finance knowledge and skill set would be for my career. Subsequently, I took Foundations of Finance last spring, and became hooked. Since then I have also taken Corporate Finance, Investment Banking, and Financial Modeling. It is clear why Stern has such a strong reputation for finance, when these classes and professors can convert even the most reluctant student into an enthusiastic financial modeler.

• Beer Blast: As mentioned in my previous post, Beer Blast is a weekly social gathering held every Thursday. SGov and student clubs provide the food, beer, and theme decorations,* while full- and part-time students mix and mingle for four hours. Beer Blast is often my favorite part of the week. I know that I’ll be able to catch up with friends that I might not see during the week, and often times get to know some of my classmates better. There are always a few hotly contested beer pong games being played, and an occasional dance party. It doesn’t get much better than a Thursday night in the basement of the Kaufman Management Center hanging out with my classmates.

• Block One: All incoming Stern students are assigned to “blocks” of 65-70 students with whom you take your core classes with. My block, fondly nicknamed Block Won, has been the cornerstone of my community at Stern. Our block had instant rapport, and has been hanging out since the first week of school. We have one or two block-wide parties a semester. I also frequently partner with Block One members for group projects. This is also a community that I’m confident I’ll stay in touch with post-Stern. I look forward to more block parties for those of us who stay in New York, and getting coffee with others as I travel for consulting.

All this being said, I am certainly glad I have another 1/8 of my MBA career to go! The next eight weeks will be filled with group projects, final presentations and exams, a class trip to Puerto Rico, time with friends and plenty of Beer Blast. I could not be happier.

*Beer blast themes range from an Oscar party hosted by the Entertainment, Media & Technology Association to the Halloween party hosted by the Entrepreneurs’ Exchange.

Now that I am in my last semester at Stern, I have started to reflect on what I really love about being the school. The following are a few of the reasons I’m so excited to walk into the Kaufman Management Center every day and am always proud to tell people I go to Stern:

• My friends: I have made fantastic friends at Stern. I have found people to connect with through various facets of my life – friends who also used to live in DC, friends who like to do yoga, friends who are excited to travel, etc. We have brunch together regularly, go to each other’s conferences and shows, and travel together. I’m now even living with one!

• The community: From the moment I walked into Stern as a prospective student in July 2012, I knew I wanted to be part of the Stern community. I have found community in several places – from my first-year block and the Social Enterprise Association to the friends I share a Class Pass calendar with. I love being able to walk into Beer Blast* on Thursday night and know that I could talk to and find a commonality with almost everyone in the room.

• The faculty: My professors at Stern keep getting better and better. They keep classes lively and engaging through their humor and real life anecdotes. A few of my favorite professors include Glenn Okun for entrepreneurship and management, Diane Lennard for communications, and Bill Silber for finance. Moreover, I’m confident that I could contact any of them during my career and they would be willing to help or offer sage advice.

• The opportunities: I just found out that one of my good friends is in the United Arab Emirates for the week, facilitated and funded by the school. Through the Stern Signature Projects, she and a group of Stern students are working on a strategy and business plan for the country’s first national park. No big deal. It is these types of opportunities that continuously astound me. Over the past 18 months, my friends have traveled to Singapore to present at a conference on women in business and to Paris to attend a conference on the sharing economy. Opportunities such as these are countless at Stern.

This list well captures how fun and special it has been to be part of Stern for the past year and a half. It certainly makes me glad that I have a few more months left to take advantage of it all.

*Beer Blast is a weekly social event for full- and part- time students. Think of a more mature and elegant college party.

When I entered Stern, I wanted to find a way to balance my business education with my interest in the social sector. After a lot of thought, I decided that I would focus my academic and professional efforts on traditional business while focusing the rest of my energy on socially-focused extracurricular activities. Luckily Stern offers a wide array of options for students interested in shaping their business education for a social mission:

Social Enterprise Association: I am a board member of the Social Enterprise Association (SEA), one of Stern’s largest student clubs. SEA is incredibly active on campus and offers students programming ranging from career development and networking opportunities to spring break treks and social events. SEA’s career development programming covers impact investing, corporate social responsibility, energy/sustainability, international development, social impact consulting, and education. SEA brings professionals in these industries to campus to share their experience and tips for recruiting. On the social side, SEA co-hosts Think Social, Drink Local with the Luxury-Retail Club. TSDL is part-fashion show, part-party, and part-fundraiser and is one of the best social events of the year.

One of my favorite SEA events is the annual NYU Social Innovation Symposium (SIS), a conference co-hosted by Stern, the Wagner School of Public Policy, and the School of Law. I am the chair of the SIS planning committee this year and am working with students from the three schools to plan the event. The conference highlights the potential of business, policy and law to create social change, and is attended by 300 business professionals, social enterprise practitioners, scholars, and students each year.

Board Fellows: I was looking forward to serving as a Board Fellow before I even applied to Stern. Board Fellows places second-year MBAs with a non-profit for the academic year. With the support of an advisor, students conduct a strategic project with the Board of Directors of the non-profit. I am working with one of my classmates to help a small non-profit expand and professionalize their board to support their growth and ambitious goals. Over the course of the year, we will be conducting a skills audit of their current board members, suggesting prototypes for new board members, and developing a recruitment and on-boarding process for new members. We meet each month with our advisor, who has over 15 years of experience in non-profit governance, to discuss our project. I would love to serve on the board of social enterprise after graduation so I’m hoping Board Fellows will be the perfect launching pad to board service.

I have found the social enterprise resources at Stern to be the perfect complement to my business training. As I mentioned in my first blog post, I also participated in the Stern Consulting Corps to help West Elm fulfill their Clinton Global Initiative Commitment. My classmates have also taken advantage of the Social Impact Internship Fund and the Social Innovation & Impact class offerings.

Before enrolling at Stern, I worked for a US Senator and a social enterprise in South Africa. Unlike some of my classmates, there is no mention of profit, sales targets, cost analysis, or other private sector lingo on my resume. Those words were replaced by phrases such as fundraising, proposal writing, and beneficiaries. Given my background, I am often asked how I made the transition into management consulting, and specifically, how I made that transition at Stern.

Stern has a multitude of resources to prepare students for a career in consulting. The most important resources for me were the Office of Career Development (OCD), the Management Consulting Association (MCA), and the Stern Consulting Corps (SCC). These entities all come into play at various points in the consulting preparation process: OCD connects students with prospective companies and facilitates the application and interview process; MCA prepares students for the case-based interview; and SCC readies students to work as consultants.

OCD: I attended all of the corporate presentations OCD facilitated with the main consulting firms. OCD also works with firms to plan events that allow students and the companies to get to know each better. Last fall, I attended events ranging from roundtable discussions and case competitions to smaller dinners and happy hours. I also asked my Career Counselors for help at every step of the application process. I discussed my recruiting strategy with them, asked for feedback on my resume and cover letter, and did mock behavioral interviews.

MCA: I took advantage of every program MCA had to offer! I participated in a six-week boot camp on casing, attended the casing workshops and speakers that MCA brought to campus, and mock cased with MBA 2’s and alums (facilitated by MCA). I found the Consulting Internship Preparation (CIP) program that MCA runs in partnership with Deloitte Consulting to be extremely helpful. I was paired with a Stern alum who currently works at Deloitte. She served as my Mentor and gave me invaluable feedback on my resume and cover letters.

SCC: After I secured my internship in consulting, I was a little panicked. How was I actually going to be a consultant? Luckily, I participated in the Stern Consulting Corps during the spring semester. SCC is a 1.5 credit course that mixes a hands-on consulting projects with classroom instruction. With a team of three other students, I worked with West Elm to conduct a landscape analysis of fair trade certifications. While we were working on the project, we had the support and guidance of our professor and teaching fellow. During our weekly class meeting, they taught us the fundamentals of consulting ranging from hypothesis development to constructing our final presentation. The course helped me get ready for the summer and gave me much more confidence that I could “do” consulting.