Full-time MBA Blog

Another week has gone by, just as crazy as the last, and I’m pretty sure that officially sets the tone for this semester. I’m definitely going to be busy, but it’s all very exciting! A couple of things I’ve been involved in lately:

I’m on the SCorp (Stern Student Corporation) International Committee and we’re in charge of organizing Passport Day. It’s an annual event where international students get to show off their country’s food & culture; and there’s even a competition for the “best country,” voted by the students. It’s going to take place in April, but we had the kickoff this week, so there was a lot of prepping and marketing to get people interested in the event.

I’m also participating in the Exchange Student Buddy Program, which is a volunteer program where each incoming exchange student is partnered with a continuing Sternie to make sure that the exchange students have someone to turn to if they need assistance with anything. There are 26 exchange students this semester, and we had a mixer last week; I thought it was a great opportunity to welcome them, and I hope they agree!

Finally, I want to mention the project that I am most excited about this semester! One of the greatest initiatives at Stern (in my humble opinion) is the Stern Consulting Corps. It’s a program run by the Office of Student Engagement, where selected teams of students get to work with a wide range of organizations to help them tackle their problems. I think it’s an amazing opportunity to gain some hands-on experience, and extend our education beyond the classroom. My team will be working with the National Board of Review for the next 10 weeks, and we had our first client meeting yesterday! I will refrain from talking about the specifics of the project, but I will say that I have a great team, and we’re very excited about the prospects of making a change.

I think it’s fair to say that this semester is off to a good start.

Hello prospective MBA’ers! Happy 2013! This is my first post this year and so far 2013 is off to an amazing start. As many of my fellow students have posted about, I also spent much of January break traveling around South East Asia with Stern friends which was definitely the trip of a lifetime! I hopped around the islands of Thailand, Bangkok and Bali meeting up with different Sternies in each place. I’ve definitely caught the travel bug, since now just two weeks later I am blogging to you straight from a coach bus full of Sternies en route to Napa, CA. Each February the Cellar Club organizes a weekend long trek to Napa, California where we visit many of the amazing wineries the region has to offer. Just like many of the treks over Spring Break, the Cellar Trek is a great opportunity to visit a new place and hang out with your classmates outside from the walls of Stern. I am so excited for a weekend full of wine tasting, delicious food, warm weather and lots of bonding with 50 of my fellow MBA students. February is definitely not my favorite month in NYC and I was pretty pumped to leave the 30 degree snowy weather behind for a weekend of sunshine and high 70’s. Hope your application process is going well and we are excited to meet many of you when you visit us for a tour, class visit or interview!

Until next time,
Kristin

Hello again! The semester has picked up a lot this week, and not just in classes. Admissions is getting pretty busy as the third deadline is approaching (only one month left – get on it), and the current students are working with the administration to plan out Pre-View Weekend for admitted students. Word to the wise – if you are admitted, and you can make it to Pre-View Weekend, I highly recommend you do. It’s a great chance to meet your actual future classmates, instead of just guessing based on how awesome they will be based on how awesome my fellow Graduate Ambassadors are. I’ll be in attendance this year for the third year straight, including when I was a prospective student and an MBA1.

It feels like a really long time ago that I was in your shoes, considering whether Stern was the right choice for me. I was fortunate to work with a number of alumni from Stern, as well as from many other top MBA programs, so I had heard a lot of great things about the school from people who had lived through it. Of course, Stern isn’t the only great school out there, so I had heard similarly awesome things from alumni of other schools I was considering. I figured that the best way to decide where I would rather spend my two years and many many dollars would be to get a first-hand experience at each school I had been admitted to, and see which one I clicked with.

Before Stern’s Pre-View Weekend, I attended the admitted student’s day at another school I was considering. I met a lot of really cool people, sat in on a mock lecture that I found really interesting, and heard from some students and alums who had come up with brilliant entrepreneurial ideas, and had turned them into great businesses. All in all the weekend was a success. I came away thinking that I could make a lot of great friends at that school, get a great education, and really enjoy myself. Awesome.

The next weekend I came to Stern for Pre-View Weekend. Just for some context, Pre-View took place over three days, starting with a reception on Friday night, a full day of activities on Saturday, and some programming on Sunday morning. By Friday night, I felt like not only could I make friends here, but I already had. Saturday and Sunday were awesome, and when I finally left at the end, I genuinely felt bad that I had to wait from April to August to actually start. Fortunately, I had enjoyed the weekend so much that by midday Saturday, between hearing from some of the Deans and taking a mock class with Professor Okun, I went onto my phone and paid my deposit.

The next year, I got to participate in Pre-View in a totally new way. Prior to the opening reception for Pre-View, which took place in Times Square at the Nasdaq building, I was extremely lucky to take part in the closing bell ceremony at the Nasdaq, with Dean Peter Henry, a few Stern professors, and Stern administrators. My mother tells me I was briefly on TV, so that’s something. On Saturday, I got to help out with a few programs that were ran for students, and got to meet a few people who I’ve gotten to know as they become MBA1s.

So for anyone who has gotten some good news about Stern already, congratulations, and for anyone who is admitted and has a chance, I hope to see you at Pre-View Weekend in April.

Since I last posted, a lot has happened. It has been an incredible week. Last Friday was the Stern Women in Business Conference. We heard from some amazing women who were quite open with the audience about balancing a high-powered career and a family. I found their candor refreshing. It was great to hear some of their anecdotes regarding childcare and learning to adapt after having kids. I attended a panel about creative innovation and the ways that women can create leadership opportunities for themselves. It was inspiring to listen to women with a range of backgrounds from finance to marketing to fashion. It was also interesting to hear about the risks these women had taken to advance their careers and how they learned to be more vocal about their career advancements and getting raises. The conference certainly gave me a lot to think about for the future.

From the conference, I made my way to Gilt Groupe where I will be working on a consulting project for the newly launched Gilt City. Again, I found myself inspired by the company’s energy and passion for what they do. I am excited to see how I will leverage my digital background for the first time since starting business school. Moreover, it is the first opportunity I will have to combine my prior work experience with my strong interest in e-commerce. In fact, I will likely pursue a career in luxury and retail, if all goes according to plan.

This brings me to another reason why I’ve had a great week. On Tuesday, I attended my first fashion show as part of Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. It came about when I contacted a former coworker and fellow Sternie regarding any industry connections he may have. He generously offered me his seat at the show to aid my networking. I was amazed with his selflessness, which truly speaks to the Stern spirit and community. Additionally, I have had three other alumni offer their time to discuss their experiences at various fashion and retail firms. For some reason, their willingness to meet in person or talk over the phone never ceases to amaze me. I think this week especially, I am reminded why my decision to attend Stern is one of the best I’ve made.

I can’t believe it’s only been a couple of days since school started. It feels like so much more, and I’m still trying to find my footing.

First thing’s first though! Before I get into what’s in store for me this semester, I want to tell you about my break.

After the finals, I stayed in the city for a few days, getting used to an eerily quiet life, and then finally went to Istanbul. I had to be back in New York in 10 days, and I’d been second-guessing myself: 10-hour flight, both ways, was it really worth it for just 10 days? Turns out it was; catching up with my family & friends after 5 months was exactly what I needed.

What I really want to talk about, though, is the EMTA Bay Area trek that I went on after I came back to the US. In case you haven’t heard of it, EMTA is the Entertainment, Media and Technology Association at Stern. Every year they organize a trek to the Bay Area to visit tech companies, and on the list this year were Zynga, Facebook, eBay/Paypal and Google.

We left for San Francisco on a Sunday, and that was an optional day for mock interviews with Stern alums who were working at our target companies. We spent most of that day trying to explore San Francisco: had lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf, went to Ghirardelli Square for some hot chocolate, and wandered around San Francisco’s many hills. We then had a group dinner at Basil Canteen (amazing Thai food!) before finally calling it a night—we were too full and too tired to go out. Besides, we had an early morning the next day: company visits first to Zynga and then Facebook!

I should point out now that working for a tech company does seem to be all it’s cracked up to be. (Zynga, for instance, allows you to bring your dog to work—which perhaps is not all that surprising, considering that the company is named after co-founder Mark Pincus’s dog.) In fact, I’m going to go ahead and generalize a bit here; and of course, I’m not suggesting that this holds for all tech companies, but the ones that we saw typically have gyms, wellness centers, game rooms, free snacks throughout the day, and even dry cleaning! The workplace is fun and stimulating; and they want you to focus on your work, instead of the errands that you have to run, so they take care of it for you. Everything seems to be aimed at making your life easier, and maybe there is a trade-off, but even so, it would definitely be worth it!

Back to our itinerary—that first night, we had a mixer with Stern alumni in the area, and a handful of prospective students. It was a really nice way to wind down after the busy day, and get to know new people. Unfortunately, I had a phone interview the next morning, so once again, I had to call it a night somewhat early.

The next day we went to eBay/PayPal (where, following a fascinating presentation from the retail innovation team, we all received bags with the new logo!) and then had a happy hour with Stern alumni who work at LinkedIn. We had plenty of free time after the happy hour, and our itinerary included burgers at In-N-Out, cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory, drinks at a speakeasy bar on Union Square, and then finally karaoke! This was our last night in San Francisco, so we really had to make the most of it.

The final day kicked off with a visit to Google. We had the chance to travel around the campus (which includes, among other things, a sand volleyball court), and then we had a panel with the Stern alumni who work there. Most of us were taking the flight back to New York that night, though some chose to stay in San Francisco for a couple of more days (cue jealousy).

I want to reiterate, yet again, that working for any of these companies seems like a dream come true. I can only speak for myself, of course, but they all have perks and/or quirks that I find very appealing: Facebook has conference rooms titled Alohamora and Avada Kedavra (self-professed Harry Potter geek here), and a real-life Facebook wall that encourages you to “write something.” Google has the statue of a dinosaur flocked by pink flamingos and google-colored bikes to help employees get around; eBay has a display of pez dispensers in the waiting area; and Zynga has the general feel of a playful gaming environment (you enter the office through a glowing tunnel). I’m sure we all had different takeaways and things that resonated with us, but the bottom line is that it’s very hard not to be impressed.

I’m so glad I was a part of this trek; not only was it amazing to actually visit these offices, it was also a great opportunity to bond with my fellow Sternies. I owe the EMTA team a huge thank you for that.

And….we are back! After a month of traveling in Southeast Asia with classmates, I am back at Stern for my final semester. I can’t believe how fast my MBA has flown by – I never want it to end!

In this first week, we are slowly getting back into the hang of things – going to classes, planning our Spring Graduate Marketing Association (GMA) events, and catching up with classmates and friends I hadn’t see over the break. Our break was absolutely incredible. We started off in Thailand, where we spent days (i.e., island hopped on Longtail boats, snorkeled, got massages every day, etc.) on some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, ate authentic dishes of my favorite cuisine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and enjoyed evenings with a cocktail in hand catching up with many of my favorite Stern classmates. Thailand was a perfect, relaxing way to start our vacation. From Thailand, we flew to Cambodia to see the Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Ta Prohm (the one featured in the film, Tomb Raider!) temples. Then we traveled to northern Vietnam (Hanoi) where we ate lots of Pho (of course!), saw a water puppet show, and visited the Hoa Lo Prison, where Vietnamese prisoners were held and tortured when the country was fighting for its independence from the French. From Hanoi, we set off to Halong Bay on an overnight cruise. In the bay, we walked through the caves and kayaked through the limestone pillars. We even learned how to make Vietnamese spring rolls! Absolutely amazing experience. Then we flew to Hong Kong for two days, met up with 60 or so friends that were doing the DBi program there, and then headed to our final destination, Bali. Bali was incredible. From the Indonesian chicken curries to the beautiful sunsets and beaches, unique boutique shopping, monkey forests, days full of pampering and happening nightlife, it was a great way to end our month long journey in Asia. I can’t believe it’s over, but I’m looking forward to planning the next big trip, which will probably be Spring Break in the Caribbean or Mexico and then June or July in Eastern Europe.

That’s it for now, but later this week I’ll have more updates on my classes and what the semester will be looking like in terms of academics! Until next time…