Full-time MBA Blog

If you’ve been expecting me to write about my spring break, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you. As I have already mentioned, I was in New York over the break, so I don’t have any glamorous or exciting stories like a lot of my friends. I spent most of last week in a state of jealousy, looking at photos my friends have taken over the break, marveling at their adventures (white shark diving, among them!), and admiring their suntans.
Do not take that to mean that I did not enjoy the break though! It was relaxing; and of course, I was not the only Sternie “on the New York trek” as we called it, so I still had the opportunity to hang out with my friends and have fun!

What I really want to talk about though is our trip to the BuzzFeed office last Friday! It was organized by the EMTA, and we had the chance to hear from several people: including the CEO and co-founder Jonah Peretti.

I assume a lot of you are familiar with BuzzFeed, and how unique it is in the sense that the website uses 3 different types of content on the same platform: entertainment/humor (what they started out with), branded content, and reported news. Apparently it gets 40 million unique visitors each month, which is quite impressive.

Jonah Peretti is also a co-founder of The Huffington Post, and he talked to us about how he got involved with these projects. He said he had always been interested in why and how people shared content: evolving from email forwards back in the day, to organized sharing through social portals such as Facebook and twitter.

What prompted him to start BuzzFeed was that he noticed a shift from search engines to social: in the past, most online content was based on what people searched for, but now it’s becoming a much more “human” space, and they’re making content for people, rather than search algorithms. He chatted with us for an hour, and then we also had the chance to hear from Aswini Anburajan (Director of Partnership Development), Jonathan Perelman (VP of Agency Strategy & Industry Development), and David Spiegel (Executive Director of Sales). David is actually a part-time MBA student at Stern, and he was the one who had the idea for the trek; another demonstration of how Sternies like to help each other out. I thought it was an amazing trek—I have always loved BuzzFeed, it was great to see their office, and hear about the work that they do.

Hello Friends!

Now that we are in the homestretch until graduation, all of us MBA2s are trying to pack in as much Stern as possible over these next 6 weeks. The end of this week is jam packed with some pretty cool events that I have definitely been looking forward to for a while now. Especially since they combine two of my favorite things – food and cover bands!

This afternoon is the annual Stern Passport Day one of my favorite events. Celebrating the rich cultural heritage of NYU Stern’s student body, hundreds of current students, prospective students, faculty and staff gather each year for the NYU Stern International Passport Day. The event serves as an opportunity to experience Stern’s diversity firsthand, as students get to share their country’s unique heritage by showcasing traditional cuisine, costumes, music and/or performances.  It is an awesome event, with tons of delicious food and really great dance performances.

Later on tonight is the spring performance of Beauty School Dropouts, Stern’s very own MBA cover band. The band is performing at Sullivan Hall just around the corner and it is sure to be a super fun night!

Bright and early tomorrow morning I’ll be attending the EEX Club’s Entrepreneurship Summit. The club has decided to change up the traditional way of doing conferences and has planned a day full of mini treks to different start-ups all around the city including FourSquare, Warby Parker, Fab.com and so many more. Can’t wait to check out these awesome companies first hand!

Happy weekend!

Kristin

Greetings friends,

Since last we spoke, I have been around the world and back again. I spent 10 days in South Africa with 48 Sternies and had an amazing time! We started our journey in Johannesburg where we toured the city and visited the Apartheid museum, then went to the Mabula Game Lodge for a two-day safari adventure, and ended up in Cape Town where we explored Cape Point and Table Mountain. My favorite part of the visit was when we visited Velokhaya/The Life Cycling Academy in Khayelitsha in Cape Town. Velokhaya is a non-profit that works “to give underprivileged children in South Africa the skills and the opportunities they need to make a success of their lives“ through cycling. We met the children currently in the program, heard from the founder and alums who have gone on to have very successful lives both on and off the bike, and had a chance to ride around the township of Khayelitsha. You can see pictures from our visit on Velokhaya’s Facebook page.

Until next time,
Jennie

Hello friends,

As my classmates and friends returned from their spring break trips in Costa Rica, South Africa and many other amazing places with great stories and even better tans I’ll admit I was definitely a tiny bit jealous. I spent most of spring break in the empty study rooms here at Stern working diligently with my business partner on our start-up [you can read more about that here]. At the end of the week we headed off to exotic Dallas, Texas for Dallas market week to attend some fashion trade shows and to meet with brands and suppliers to begin developing relationships and figuring out how the wholesale buying process works.

Despite the fact that I was not sitting on a beach somewhere, it was pretty awesome to have a week completely free of classes and other school distractions to work on my business and I am so proud of the progress we were able to make! Now that graduation is becoming more of a reality (less than two months, ahhhhh!) I have begun to think about life after NYU as an aspiring entrepreneur and I will admit it is both equally exciting and terrifying. Resources for entrepreneurs here at Stern continue to get better and better right before my very eyes and are definitely helping to make the transition a little less stressful. Aside from the annual Berkley Center$200K Entrepreneurs Challenge which you may have heard of, we have just announced a very exciting new program, the NYU Launch Pad!

The Launch Pad, NYU’s own version of a start-up incubator, is a 10 week summer program for graduating NYU and NYU-Poly student teams to accelerate their new ventures forward. Through a combination of workshops, speaker series, and mentorship sessions, startup founders will learn lean startup principles to guide the development of their business models and prototypes, have access to a co-working space at NYU-Poly’s Varick Street Incubator, establish connections with members of the NYC startup community, and Showcase their startup to potential collaborators, investors, and partners at a capstone showcase. You can read more details about this new program here. This is definitely a step in the right direction for all of NYU’s aspiring entrepreneurs and I can’t wait to see what fantastic companies emerge!

Until next time,

Kristin

We are back from spring break – and you can guess what that means…less than 2 months until this is all over. I’m so sad about it that I’m just going to go ahead and pretend it’s not happening.

Let’s see – what’s new? We just got back from Spring Break in Tulum & Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We were there for seven days with about 15-20 Sternies. It was absolutely incredible. Luckily, the weather is getting nicer here in NYC – it’s almost Spring time! Spring in NYC is beautiful, and I’m really excited to take advantage of it and see more of the city in my free time.

Tomorrow is Summer Start Interview day. I can’t believe that was me just two years ago. Summer Start is an incredible opportunity, and anyone who is invited to interview for it should definitely strongly consider. Summer Start students start in July instead of August and take six of the overall required 60 credits during the summer. This frees up a bit more time in the Fall for recruiting and other extra-curricular activities. I’m so glad I did it because it allowed me the additional time to focus on recruiting in the Fall, and for my GMA presidential responsibilities the second year. It’s also a great way to ease into the bigger class in the Fall. You come in with 60 friends that are evenly distributed across the blocks, so you meet people much more easily through your summer start friends. I honestly can’t say enough great things about it!

Ok, now off to class but will have more updates next week!

Hello friends,

Just one more day stands between me and a week off for Spring Break! It seems like this semester is literally FLYING by, how is it Spring Break already? I have some classes coming to an end in just two weeks and graduation is looming just around the corner. Two years is just not long enough!

I am pretty excited for my Spring Break plans this year. Unlike some of my other classmates who are jetting off to exotic locations like South Africa and Cost Rica, I am spending my break here in NYC working with my partner on the business we are starting-up. We are working on building an e-commerce retailer dedicated to the modern career girl, complete with styling and career advice. (You can check out the beginning of our site here www.workshopstyle.com). It will be great to have a full week of uninterrupted time for us to really make some progress and get down to business as we have quite a bit of work ahead of us before we are ready to launch! Although I will be taking a 2 day mini break to Miami, FL to get in some sunshine and hang out at Ultra Music Festival for the weekend first. Not too shabby.

One of the awesome parts about Stern is the club treks that take place over Spring Break. All of the clubs organize trips to different destinations around the world from Morocco to Brazil to Israel. Last year I joined the Emerging Markets Association(EMA) on the Peru trek which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. The trip was unbelievable from white water rafting and mountain biking in Cuzco, to hiking the rain forest to the breathtaking sites of Machu Picchu. This year the EMA is heading to Vietnam and Cambodia and I am sure everyone going is in for a fabulous adventure.

Until next time!

Kristin

 

Last week I got involved in a consulting project sponsored by the Entrepreneurs exchange club. It is a ten week long project with a solar industry focused financial advisory firm in the city. This was an opportunity for me to familiarize myself with the start-up culture in New York City. Moreover, I have always been interested in alternative energy and I wanted to understand the complexities involved in financing solar projects.

The experience so far has been inspiring. The incubator my client operates out of has a motley mix of some of the most brilliant minds in the city. During my first few visits I got to meet some of the other start-ups and learn about their ventures.

The project itself is off to a good start. Even though the five of us have never worked together in a team before, I was amazed at how productive we were right from day one. Another example of high ‘EQ’ that Sternies are known for. Our team lead is a part time MBA student. I strongly believe that our part-time network is one of the biggest assets that Stern has. Most of the part-time students work for firms that full time students target for internships or full time jobs. Every week Stern hosts ‘beer blast’, one of the many opportunities for the two communities to network.

A bunch of us went to Vermont this past weekend. I tumbled down the slopes a few times before I found my balance on skis. While I was at it, I built some lifelong friendships. I am hoping to do the same over Spring Break next week. For real time updates from the India Trek look for tweets with #SABAStrek.

Until next time,

Ashrae

Spring break is right around the corner, so this week is a little rough: 3 midterms and 2 papers in 4 days! But at least we have something to look forward to.

A lot of people are going on various club-organized treks in a couple of days: Thailand, Chile, South Africa, Japan, Peru, Cambodia… Unfortunately, I’m not one of them! I had other plans, which actually fell through at the last minute, so it looks like I’ll be in New York over the break. I feel bad about missing out on all of the fun, but I don’t really mind staying in the city, either—there are so many things I’ve been meaning to do, and haven’t had time for. Can you actually believe that I still haven’t walked the Brooklyn Bridge? This will be my opportunity to catch up on the touristy activities!

Now I just have to get through the rest of the week.