West Coast Tech Immersion: A Game-Changer for NYU Stern’s Tech MBA Students

Author: Diana Rossi is a current Tech MBA student at NYU Stern, set to graduate in May 2024. Before her MBA, Diana made significant strides in the marketing field in Europe, particularly as Marketing Manager for Alibaba, Digital Marketing Manager at VF (The North Face Company), Digital Manager at Johnson & Johnson, Marketing Specialist at Amazon.  Post-MBA, Diana aims to delve deeper into the intersection of marketing and technology, exploring opportunities that align with her passion for digital transformation and AI-driven solutions. At Stern, Diana is deeply involved in various organizations, holding positions such as the VP of Marketing for Stern Women in Business and VP of Events for the European Business Society. 

While spending 8 years immersed in the digital sector across Europe, my motto was always to lead with innovation, not just follow it. This mindset propelled me to apply to NYU Stern in August 2022, fueling my ambition to drive change through innovative leadership and leverage advanced technology for societal impact. What better place to pursue this than at New York University? New York City, a city synonymous with innovation. I knew that an MBA here was the key to unlocking my future. Joining the NYU Stern Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA program, I envisioned transcending traditional educational boundaries. This vision materialized during our transformative 10-day West Coast Tech Immersion trip, exceeding my expectations by plunging us into the innovation epicenters of Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco. This trip emphasized the crucial role of continuous innovation for staying relevant in the fast-evolving market and spotlighted AI’s pivotal role in revolutionizing industry standards and enhancing customer experiences.

Fostering Connections and Gaining Insightful Learnings

This journey provided us an opportunity to connect and network with NYU Stern alumni who have made significant impacts in the tech industry. These interactions allowed us to dive deep into the essence of leadership, innovation, and the art of integrating business savvy with technological prowess for success. As we navigated the cutting edge of technological innovation, I identified several key industry trends that became the focus of my observations.

In Los Angeles, we immersed ourselves in the media industry with visits to Hulu, Disney, Amazon, Riot Games, and NFL Media. In San Francisco, our class collectively experienced the formidable power of tech and data at Saildrone, Salesforce, NVIDIA, LinkedIn, and Palantir. We were among the first to experience the innovation of Upside Foods, tasting meat grown directly from animal cells, and explored intriguing venture capital endeavors at 500 Global. Our journey at Airbnb felt like an ‘around-the-world trip’ within their offices. The trip culminated in an inspiring talk by David Ko, a Tech MBA board member, who emphasized that this moment is our “Momentum.”

AI has clearly established itself as the leading driver of technological evolution, reshaping business operations and customer engagement across various sectors. The role of company culture in the tech realm is paramount; organizations that champion continuous learning, openness, and adaptability are spearheading revolutionary achievements. Furthermore, the tech landscape is characterized by shifting technology patterns, battles over standards, and the emergence of dominant designs. These elements are vital for comprehending the progression of technology and the widespread adoption of innovations.

These experiences have not only broadened my understanding of the state of technology today but have also highlighted the essential factors that will influence the direction of future innovations. As I continue my journey at Stern, I am keen to explore these trends further, equipping myself to make meaningful contributions to the next wave of technological advancements.

Reflections and Future Prospects

This immersion trip has been an invaluable segment of my MBA journey, enriching my understanding of the tech industry and honing my vision for the future. It underscored innovation, AI, and a conducive organizational culture’s indispensable roles in molding future technology leaders. I’m immensely grateful for the insights and connections garnered, especially to the Stern faculty and staff, and my peers, for their companionship and shared passion for technology.

Looking ahead, I’m excited to apply these insights and experiences as I transition into the tech industry, ready to face its challenges and contribute to its evolution. Here’s to embracing the boundless opportunities for innovation and success in the dynamic world of technology!

My West Coast Immersion Journey

Author: Syd is a current MBA student at Stern where she specializes in Strategy, Product Management, and Accounting. Before her MBA, Syd launched and grew a business in the food industry, bringing nutritional products with sustainable cricket protein powder to grocery stores nationwide. She later went on to offer consulting services to other growing businesses. Post-MBA she plans to pursue a strategy role in the tech industry. Outside of work, Sydney enjoys going to see live music and outdoor activities – hiking, skiing, scuba diving.

NYU’s Tech MBA offers a West Coast Immersion Course during January before the regular semester begins. It’s an important part of the curriculum providing exposure to a wide range of tech companies. Join me for a personal account of the experience!

Early January, we’d enjoyed three whole weeks off school – one of the perks of being back in school! So far, the Tech MBA program surpassed my expectations in many areas. Never did I think at this point I would have already done projects with companies like IBM, Salesforce, and Warner Brothers Discovery. What did the West Coast trip have in store for us? 

The trip involved visiting tech companies in different fields, learning about their ecosystem and current state, as well as diving into tech innovation and trends. The schedule looked packed, and we had assignments due throughout, culminating in a final presentation. Our group was split into two for the first part, half of us going to Seattle and half of us going to Los Angeles. As someone keenly interested in entertainment technology, I was excited to be in the LA group, where streaming, gaming and sports tech thrive.

LA 

Touching down in LA, I knew I’d made the right call – warm weather, palm trees, sunshine – a drastic change from my trip back home to Canada over the holidays. Any nerves I had about the trip were quickly set at ease when I met up with my classmates and Stern alumni at a welcome event.

Over the next few days, we visited Riot Games, Hulu/Disney, NFL Media, and Amazon. I was blown away by how Stern alumni at each of the companies took us in and provided us with an inside look at their operations and the current tech landscape. Let me share couple of highlights: 

Riot Games 

Riot Games are the makers of one of the most-played online games – League of Legends. To set the tone of our visit, when we arrived there was a photoshoot going on out front of some of their top gamers – really showing how they lift up their community, and giving us a taste of how dedicated their following is. We got a tour of their impressive facilities, filled with art and nods to their gaming community. A panel of Stern alumni gave us a detailed look at their marketing tactics and strategic direction. Many from our group left in a slightly stunned, wide-eyed state, impressed with the world of gaming and the growth opportunity. 

Hulu/Disney

It’s hard not to be impressed seeing posters of your favorite TV shows and movies in the lobby. We heard from a panel of people in departments across Disney Streaming and got a detailed look into some of the technical aspects of the platform. I found the panel quite engaging, as their competitive landscape seems to be shifting, more ad-supported platforms, and possible increased cross-over with sports and gaming (my speculations! not company secrets shared during our visit).

NFL Media

NFL Media is the team behind the league’s presence online and on mobile devices. Part of our trip was more like a studio tour, getting to see behind the scenes of some of their shows and meet hosts. The other part of the visit was hearing from leaders in NFL Media’s content, product, strategy and operations. It will be interesting to see how the delivery of NFL games continues to evolve with more people looking to digital platforms. Outside of the sports fanatics in my life, I don’t know of anyone who still has a cable subscription!

San Francisco

After three intensive days in LA, we flew to San Francisco to meet up with the other half of our cohort. It was great to be reunited as a group and swap stories. The Seattle group visited some big tech companies – Microsoft, Amazon, T-Mobile and DirectTV. We got the weekend to relax and explore the Bay Area. On Sunday, we all got on a bus for a wine-tasting tour in Napa – a well-deserved break!

The following week was set to be busy again – loads more companies on the schedule: Salesforce, Saildrone, Upside Foods, AirBnB, 500 Global, NVIDIA, LinkedIn and Palantir. Here are a couple of the most memorable visits for me: 

NVIDIA 

NVIDIA was one of the companies that I was most excited to visit. As their chips have become a preferred hardware for AI, their stock has skyrocketed over the past year. I was eager to see inside the business of such a driving force of modern technology.

Their campus in the Bay Area is huge, giving you the feeling that you’re walking into an airplane hangar that has been thoughtfully designed to optimize creativity and output. Rama Akkiraju, the VP for AI for IT, went over in depth the practical use cases of AI and how it has driven growth at NVIDIA.

We also heard from a panel of employees about their work and experiences at the company. Their passion for quality and their high standard of work came through in their thoughtful answers, making it clear that a company like NVIDIA doesn’t rise to the top by accident. 

Airbnb

We visited Airbnb on the last day of our trip. We’d had a long week by this point, visiting companies all around the Bar Area.Walking into their building in downtown SF, I was immediately rejuvenated – it’s thoughtfully designed from top to bottom and they have a three-story high plant wall. Now they had my attention.

Judson Coplan, VP Product Marketing, and Iain Robert, VP People and Culture, spoke to us about the values of the company and the approaches that they take to their work. What stood out to me is how they both seem to approach their work in a thoughtful and precise manner – truly reflective of the user-friendly, well-designed Airbnb app.

Industry Analyses and Predictions

Throughout the trip, our professors Melissa Schilling and Vasant Dhar led us through lectures and discussions about the role that technology plays in transforming industries, how technology can be developed and managed, and how companies might optimize their positioning. 

To culminate the trip, we split up in groups and analyzed different partsof the tech industry: chips, gen AI, mobile payments, semiconductors, streaming and wearables. This served as the perfect final note to leave the course on – predictions from classmates on how these industries will evolve, and what companies will come out on top (some of which we visited!). 

Final Words

Stern alumni and CEO of Calm, David Ko, visited us on our final afternoon for an intimate talk. Throughout the trip, many of us had been starting to think about our next steps after graduation. Most of us are planning to build a career in tech, but are graduating during a time of layoffs. David brought some perspective by providing us with insights from his career journey. He reminded us to look at the big picture and to be thoughtful about our next step. With 30+ years of career in front of us, it’s ok to take a step sideways or back to get to where we want to go, especially for a new industry or a learning opportunity.

Navigating the Tech MBA Experience as an International Student

Amanda Hanggoro Amanda is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Product Management & Strategy. Before coming to Stern, she worked as a Product Manager in an education technology company with a focus on personalization and gamification. Post-MBA, she plans to continue working in product management as she explores her entrepreneurial interest. At Stern, she is involved in the Stern Technology Association, Gaming & eSports Management Society, Asian Business Society, Stern Women in Business, and Stern Football Club.

Moving across continents as an international student in the Tech MBA program is both exciting and intimidating. With a small cohort of only 51 individuals, I am one of two from Southeast Asia, and the only one from Indonesia. But no matter how daunting it is, the close-knit community and friendly environment here have made adapting to this new chapter much smoother, helping me soak up the learning opportunities at Stern.

Just as we got to share a bit of our story through the “Pick Six” essay during the application (which was definitely my favorite!), I would like to share my experience so far as an international student in the Tech MBA program and how I navigate the journey through six images:

Focused (Tech and Fashion & Luxury) MBA Gathering after orientation

Focused (Tech and Fashion & Luxury) MBA Gathering after orientation

 

Building a support system within the cohort

The warm and welcoming nature of the Tech MBA cohort shone even from day zero. Before summer classes kicked off, my classmates arranged a get-together for those who just arrived in the city. It was a great opportunity for both out-of-state and international students to connect, especially since most of us couldn’t attend the admitted students events. Despite the differing backgrounds and experiences, it was comforting to meet the people that I am sharing this journey with.

The sense of warmth grew over the summer as the Focused MBA students were the only students on campus. From happy hours to picnics, game nights, and spontaneous trips, every gathering helped us bond more. The Tech MBA cohort turned into a little family I could lean on, even as the courses got tougher and our paths diverged in the Fall semester.

Lunch with Indonesian Stern MBA Class of 2024 and 2025

Lunch with Indonesian Stern MBA Class of 2024 and 2025

 

Building connections beyond the Tech MBA cohort

Fall brought along opportunities to mingle with the broader MBA community at Stern. The program’s structure allows me to participate in student clubs and electives that pave the way for making connections with the Two-Year Full-Time MBAs, Langone Part-Time MBAs, and Executive MBAs.

I chose to actively engage in student clubs as an AVP in the Stern Technology Association and Gaming & eSports Management Society and as a member of the Asian Business Society, Stern Women in Business, and Stern Football Club. The unique range of student clubs allows me to balance my personal and professional interests, getting the best of both worlds.

Beyond the student clubs, I also get to connect with other Indonesian students in the Full-Time MBA program. Although the group is fairly small, they have been a great resource for all things from finding good Indonesian restaurants to curing homesickness and answering specific questions about recruiting as an international student

Eid Al-Adha prayer in Washington Square Park with NYU Islamic Center

Eid Al-Adha prayer in Washington Square Park with NYU Islamic Center

 

Accessing NYU’s diverse communities and support

Being at Stern is like having a key to a vast, diverse community. NYU’s larger ecosystem has many international student events, student clubs, collaboration labs, and other supporting facilities. NYU Entrepreneurial Institute (Leslie eLab), for example, allows you to put up posters to seek potential collaborators for your project or join an existing project. Who knows you may stumble upon future co-founders coming from different schools within NYU!

Among the various facilities that NYU has, Global Spiritual Life has accommodated me to practice my faith. The center provides multifaith support through four major religious centers including The Islamic Center, the Catholic Center, the Hindu Center, and the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life. As a Muslim, I usually celebrate two major holidays, Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha, through communal prayer, family gatherings, and feasts. Despite being thousands of miles away from home, I still got to celebrate Eid Al-Adha during the summer with the NYU Islamic Community and feel the warmth of the holiday.

Impromptu public speaking exercise in Communication class

Impromptu public speaking exercise in Communication class

 

Getting support from the faculty

Navigating the professional landscape in a second language is a unique challenge that extends beyond language; it also requires cultural understanding and strategic individual approaches. Even though I could connect well with my peers and have worked in a cross-cultural team, mastering communication in a professional context in an entirely new country can take a while to crack.

Other than the career office providing resources for international students, the courses and faculty at Stern have shown a commitment to supporting students through this journey. In my Communication course, Professor Brian Hanssen incorporated many practical exercises in the class ranging from planned group presentations to impromptu personal ones. The constructive feedback from both him and my peers throughout this exercise made a huge difference in boosting my communication confidence.

Beyond that, he also sets aside time for office hours where we could discuss specific challenges we face in our academic or professional journey. This offer is extended even after the course ends and allows me to regularly check in to formulate an actionable plan for my strategic communication.

IBM Watson office in Astor PlaceIBM Watson office in Astor Place

 

Adapting to a global work setting

What stands out in the Tech MBA program is the hands-on learning experience through the experiential learning courses. New York City Immersion, Tech Solutions, and Endless Frontier Labs not only let us apply what we learned in class but also gave us a unique chance to collaborate with big tech companies and emerging start-ups.

While I had prior experience working with regional teams and international partners, working in a US-based company presented a new set of challenges. Through experiential learning, I gained firsthand experience working within New York City’s diverse community, including my classmates, who brought diverse professional and cultural backgrounds to the table.

Working with IBM in the Tech Solutions course was one of my favorite experiences. Every discussion and checkpoint was a learning curve, not only on the business-technology case we were working with but also on collaborating with diverse stakeholders in technology. 

Whether you plan to work internationally or stay in the United States, these courses provide invaluable insights into real-world applications of business and tech, ensuring your readiness for any professional environment.

Google Trek with Stern Technology Association

Google Trek with Stern Technology Association

 

Navigating professional career prospects

The post-MBA recruitment process can be intimidating for an international student, but Stern provides essential support through the career office and professional clubs. I get to regularly check in with a career coach specializing in the tech industry for international students and participate in knowledge management events organized by student clubs. The collaboration between the two gives me access to resources for recruitment, workshops, study groups, alumni talks, company presentations, and company treks.

One of the most recent company treks I joined was the Google Trek to its New York City office which was organized by the Stern Technology Association. During the event, we got to talk with current part-time students and alumni working at Google and had an office tour to better understand the company. The diverse speakers with various roles and backgrounds, including international ones, and the intimate setting made the conversations more engaging and tailored to our interests.

Being an international student in the Tech MBA program sure has its challenges but the community really gives me endless opportunities to learn, connect, and thrive. Pursuing this degree has helped me grow so fast in the last six months and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for me!

Navigating the Andre Koo Tech MBA with a Non-Tech Background

Elizabeth Davis

Elizabeth is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Business Analytics, Tech Product Management, and Strategy. Prior to Stern, she worked at Methods+Mastery as a Business Intelligence Analyst supporting full-scale social intelligence and analytics work streams for Google and YouTube. Post-MBA, she plans to pursue a business analytics or strategy role in the tech industry. At Stern, she is a part of several clubs, including the Graduate Marketing Association (GMA), Stern Management & Strategy Club (SMS), Stern Women in Business (SWIB), and Stern Technology Association (STA). Additionally, Elizabeth is a part of the 2023-2024 Makhoul Family Leadership Fellows Program. In her free time, Elizabeth enjoys playing volleyball, collecting rare plants, and spending time with her dog Shelby.

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Venturing into the tech world can seem like an arduous journey, especially if you come from a non-tech background like me. When I first enrolled in the NYU Stern Andre Koo Tech MBA program, I was thrilled and apprehensive. My resume spelled out my strengths in customer experience, analytics, and market research. I have worked with tech clients, but diving deep into tech? That was a different ballgame.

Initial Hesitation

My initial concerns revolved around whether I’d be able to grasp the intricacies of the engineering side of the tech industry and its ever-evolving landscape. The jargon, the coding, and the business models all seemed very distant from my past experiences. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my career, it’s that challenges are opportunities in disguise.

Embracing the Learning Curve

The start was, unsurprisingly, a steep learning curve. Terms like distributed cloud, blockchain, and quantum computing were often thrown around. Long hours were dedicated to online tutorials, intensive reading, and numerous consultations with professors and classmates. Every project became an opportunity, a stepping stone to assimilate and learn more.

One key realization for me was that my non-tech background was not a disadvantage but a unique lens through which I could approach problems. My analytical skills, honed from diving deep into consumer insights or strategizing market research for leading brands, allowed me to approach tech challenges with a distinct perspective.

Leveraging My Unique Perspective

In group discussions and projects, I found that my questions – often rooted in the “why” rather than the “how” – brought new dimensions to the table. It was a reminder that tech, at its core, is about solving human-centric problems. And as the classes unfolded, the parallels between my analytical background and the technical intricacies became evident. Coding, much like marketing analytics, became a methodical dance of logic and creativity. Each algorithm, every line of code, mirrored the systematic approach I’d honed over the years, albeit in a different language. 

The real victory, however, wasn’t just about grasping these technical skills but realizing that my background wasn’t a limitation; it was a strength. The skills I had developed over the years were adaptable, relevant, and crucial to my success in this new environment.

Building a Supportive Network

The NYU community was invaluable in my journey. From professors who went the extra mile to explain complex topics to peers who shared their tech expertise, I was surrounded by a supportive network. Study groups became collaborative learning experiences, and late-night discussions often led to eureka moments.

Key Takeaways

Joining the NYU Stern Andre Koo Tech MBA with a non-tech background is not just about acquiring technical knowledge but also about integrating diverse skills to bring fresh perspectives to the tech industry.

For anyone considering a tech MBA with a non-tech background, here’s my advice:

  • Embrace the Learning Curve: Every challenge is an opportunity to grow.
  • Leverage Your Unique Perspective: Your non-tech background can offer invaluable insights.
  • Build a Supportive Network: Surround yourself with those who can complement your skills.

In hindsight, my non-tech background was not a hindrance but a strength. It has equipped me with a holistic understanding of tech, blending the technical with the human, and uniquely positioned me in the tech world.

A Week In The Life Of A Tech MBA Student (Summer Semester)

Scott Dunleavy

 

 

 

Scott is a current Tech MBA student from South Brunswick, NJ.  Prior to Stern, Scott worked in technology risk consulting at KPMG. Outside of school, Scott enjoys basketball, golf, cooking, and technology.

 

The Summer Semester of the Tech MBA program is both a rewarding, and a challenging experience. The semester kicks off with orientation in mid-May, where you have the opportunity to meet your Tech Cohort and familiarize yourself with Stern’s facilities and staff. After a couple days of orientation, you dive right into classes taking 19.5 credits from mid-May to late August. Throughout the Summer you are basically in class Monday-Friday from 9am-5pm – it is truly a full-time job. Here is a week in the life of a Tech MBA student…

Monday –

Like most days in the summer semester, class starts at 9am. My day kicks off with our Leadership class taught by Professor Nate Pettit. This was one of my favorite courses this summer, and from 9am-12pm you explore topics in leadership, communication, authenticity, and experiential learning. Professor Pettit is an incredible lecturer, and a wonderful storyteller. His lectures are top-notch. During lecture class discussion was extremely lively and students often chimed in with stories of leadership (both good and bad) from their career experience. I always find it interesting to hear about my classmate’s pre-Stern careers. After lecture we usually end each class with an ‘experiential’ learning experience. In this class we often learn by doing, simulating various leadership experiences with our classmates. Through improvisation and fun games, we were able to explore leadership topics in real-time and put our lecture material to practice.

After class you have an hour and a half break to take lunch, go to the gym, do homework, hang out with friends at the park  – the time is truly yours. On this day I brought lunch from home and ate it with friends from the Tech-MBA program at Stern. We used the time to catch up on our weekends, eat lunch, and do some studying before afternoon classes. 

After lunch we packed up our things and headed to Economics, taught by Professor Joe Foudy. Professor Foudy is another great professor, who makes class fun with lots of one liners and clever economics related jokes. Economics, like many courses, began as a general intro to economics and overtime became more technical and complex. Real world examples such as the dollar pizza market in NYC illustrate topics such as price elasticity, and supply & demand to life. 

After Econ I stayed at Stern for a couple of hours to wrap up some homework and catch up on readings assigned for the week. Then I headed home, walking through Washington Square Park to the 9th Street PATH Station where I caught the PATH train back home to Hoboken, New Jersey. 

Tuesday – 

I hopped on the train and made my way to the West Village for 9am class. One of the best parts of my day is walking through Washington Square Park on my way to school. 

washington square park arch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The famous Washington Square Park Arch

On this Tuesday, the Tech MBA Students had a full day session (9am-12pm – Lunch – 1:30-4:30pm) of Databases for Business Analytics with Professor Panos Iperiotis. This class is focused on developing the SQL and database skills necessary for a career in technology, specifically geared towards potential use cases in Tech Product Management. As someone with some SQL experience from undergrad and my time at KPMG, this course was a great refresher for me. Starting with basic SELECT queries, by the end of the semester you are writing complex SQL queries to build meaningful data sets. 

After the morning session I went to the NYU Student Gym which is a couple of blocks from Stern and got a workout in before grabbing a quick bite to eat and heading back to class for the afternoon session. After 3 hours of SQL coding and database discussion it was good to head to the gym to clear my head. In the summer it feels like you have the gym all to yourself because the rest of the students are on summer vacation. 

Wednesday – 

On Wednesdays we have our NYC Tech Immersion class which is our Summer Experiential Learning Experience. The course is designed to give Tech MBA students exposure to the unique and vibrant technology ecosystem in NYC.  This course is built around a semester-long project in which you are paired with a group of Tech MBA students to help real world clients identify a business problem, and propose a solution and go-to-market strategy to solve the problem you’ve identified. My group was assigned to Salesforce, and we worked with them to explore potential Generative AI solutions to improve their current product offerings. This was an awesome experience, and one of the highlights of the summer.

When we weren’t working on our class projects Tech Immersion was filled with Guest Speakers, many of whom are alums who now work in Tech in NYC. We also had the chance to visit companies and get facetime with employees at companies such as Google, Uber, and Goldman Sachs. This Wednesday we visited Google’s NYC HQ in Chelsea and had the unique opportunity to meet with members of the Google Product Design Team. The Google Design team had a presentation prepared for us where we learned about the world of Design, and Product Storytelling at Google. Getting exposure to NYC’s vibrant Tech scene is one of the best parts of the Tech MBA experience!

After class on Wednesday night, I saw a concert (Noah Kahan – one of my favorite artists) at Radio City Music Hall! There is so much to do in NYC. 

Visiting Google HQ

Students at the Google offices

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radio city music hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attending Noah Kahan’s concert at radio city music hall

Thursday – 

On Thursday we had another full day of class: Leadership in the morning and Economics in the afternoon. I got to Stern early on Thursday to work on my Econ homework that was due later that afternoon. The summer semester is a rigorous academic experience and I found it best to carve out specific time in my calendar before / after class to work on homework assignments and group projects. After class we had an IGNITE activity led by the Careers Team. In this session we worked in groups and practiced our elevator pitches and behavioral mock interview questions. There are many sessions like this throughout the summer semester, and they are extremely valuable. Tech MBAs and Fashion & Luxury MBAs have the full attention of the Careers Team in the summer, which is such a perk! The Careers Team holds office hours where you can focus on your career path after the MBA, resume review, mock interviews etc. After the session, a couple of my classmates and I headed over to a bar near school to grab a couple of drinks for Happy Hour and hang out before heading home. My favorite spots near Stern to do Happy Hour are Half Pint and Swift Hibernian Lounge, both a couple of blocks from school. 

Friday – 

On Friday my day started out with taking the PATH to 9th Street from Hoboken. From here it is about a 10 minute walk from school and I stopped at a local bagel store for an iced coffee and a bagel for breakfast. We had a half day of class with our Databases for Business Analytics class from 9am-12pm. We spent the morning discussing database design and architecture, and writing SQL queries on a database of all restaurants in NYC to find out which restaurants in NYC had the best ratings per critic reviews. This class is hands-on and technical  – it’s a great experience for students who don’t come from a very technical background. It is challenging, but also very fun when you can build the perfect query. 

After class I went to play basketball at the NYU gym with some of my classmates. The NYU Recreation and Athletic facilities (Paulson Center, and Palladium) are accessible to all MBA students. The basketball courts in the athletic facility are really nice, and generally not crowded in the summer. Playing some hoops was a great way to end my week before heading home for the weekend.

Basketball court at the NYU Recreation and Athletic facilities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Basketball court at the NYU Recreation and Athletic facilities

New York City Immersions

Sofia Aliste Paez

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sofia is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Product Management. Prior to Stern, she worked at Samsung Electronics as an E-commerce Product Manager. Post-MBA, she plans to pursue Product Management in tech. At Stern, she is involved in Stern Tech Association, the Latin American Business Association, and the Entrepreneurship and Startup Association, and enjoys traveling and discovering new coffee shops in NYC.

 

Experiences in the NYC Immersion

The NYC Immersion is the only all-summer course in the Tech MBA program. It is built to introduce students to the tech ecosystem in New York City. Throughout the course, we learned from different experts in fields such as fintech, security, ethics, health tech, and real estate, and we even got to learn how to leverage NYU Library Resources for our project research. Overall, it was an experience that gave us a head start on what we will experience as tech advocates in the future.

The Essence of the NYC Immersions

One of our most memorable visits over the summer was our visit to the Uber offices in Manhattan. We learned about different projects involving Stern alumni who are currently working at Uber. Part of the presentation included a challenge related to a potential endeavor or new revenue stream. We worked as a team, using our collaborative skills and creative ideas to devise a solution. The visit encapsulated the essence of the NYC Immersion—bridging the gap between theory and practice, learning and application.

Learning to Use Tech for Good

We had many memorable sessions. One of them was about the future of Finance by Andrew Chang. He was an engaging and thought-provoking speaker who filled in the gaps in our fintech knowledge. By assimilating diverse perspectives on the future, we honed our own viewpoints. Undoubtedly, the prominence of Gen AI dominated many discussions, reflecting the pivotal role it occupies this year and in the years to come. We analyzed the potential uses of this technology and the risks as it becomes mainstream. Addressing the risks of Gen AI was a lecture that was enlightening and reflective, as Mike Posner and Paul Barrett shared the latest research and insights from the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern. We all have the responsibility to make sure that this technology is used for good. 

Experiential Product Consulting

A substantial part of the summer was dedicated to collaborating with companies as Product Consultant. Grouped into teams, we tackled distinct prompts for different companies. Employing design thinking methodologies, our task was to find core issues within the prompts and create impactful solutions. After several check-ins, we were able to deliver a final project and recommendations. One of the most interesting parts was learning about other teams and their work process during the summer. 

As the NYC Tech Immersion journey comes to an end, we are now more familiar with the tech ecosystem and its inner workings. We are also more confident in our ability to navigate the ever-changing landscape. We will be responsible and ethical advocates for technology, using it to solve problems and improve people’s lives.

 

Students at Uber Offices during the NYC Tech Immersion

Students at Uber Offices during the NYC Tech Immersion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ROI of the Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA Program: My Personal Experience

Popin Bose Roy

Popin Bose Roy is a Senior Product Manager at Amazon with expertise in AI, machine learning, and SaaS. An alum of NYU Stern’s Tech MBA program, Popin has led high-impact projects at Amazon that leverage technology to drive business efficiency and growth. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking and staying updated on emerging technologies.

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As someone with a solid foundation in AI, machine learning, and SaaS, I was always captivated by technology’s potential to solve real-world problems. However, I found myself yearning for a deeper understanding of business strategy and leadership to propel my career to new heights. This led me to the Andre Koo Tech MBA program at NYU Stern School of Business, a decision that has paid dividends in numerous ways.

Why I Chose the Tech MBA at NYU Stern

First and foremost, my aim was to blend my technical background with a robust business skill set, equipping myself to drive innovation in an increasingly complex tech landscape. The Andre Koo Tech MBA program offered just that—imparting invaluable business acumen while enabling me to keep my finger on the pulse of evolving tech trends.

Key Takeaways

Business Acumen

I’ve always been a technically minded person. While that has its perks, the Tech MBA showed me the equally compelling universe of business strategy, financial modeling, and corporate leadership. For example, my courses in supply chain management gave me the tools to renegotiate a contract with a supplier at Amazon, saving the company $1 million annually—a direct impact that I could quantify.

Staying Ahead of Tech Trends

Staying relevant in the tech industry is no small feat. The Andre Koo Tech MBA program ensured I was up-to-date with the latest technologies and methodologies, which directly fed into my current role. Case in point: my understanding of machine learning models enabled me to lead a team that improved Amazon’s product recommendation algorithm, resulting in a 10% increase in sales.

Networking and Career Advancements

The opportunity to rub shoulders with leading tech executives and participate in case competitions was priceless. These connections played a pivotal role in landing my current role at Amazon, where I’m spearheading projects with high financial impact. I also owe some of these connections to the program’s strong focus on leadership and communication skills, which have been equally crucial in my professional journey.

Real-World ROI

Since graduating, I’ve assumed a role as a Senior Product Manager at Amazon, where I’ve overseen projects estimated to save the company around $400 million in annual operational costs. These outcomes weren’t just luck or timing—they were the result of applying the rigorous business and tech training I received during my MBA. That’s an ROI that’s easy to measure, and it has been gratifying to witness the direct impact of my education on my job performance.

Conclusion: A Worthwhile Investment

For those contemplating the Andre Koo Tech MBA at NYU Stern, I can unreservedly say that the program has been a transformative force in my career. It has empowered me to think more strategically, act more decisively, and engage more meaningfully with both the tech and business communities. I’m a better professional because of it, and I have no doubt that the dividends will continue to accrue in the years to come.

In today’s fiercely competitive job market, the Tech MBA isn’t just a feather in your cap—it’s an arsenal of knowledge and skills that can propel your career to uncharted territories. I’m incredibly grateful for my time at NYU Stern, and I can’t wait to see where this journey takes me next.

Building Community in the Early Stages of the Tech MBA Program

Derek WuDerek Wu is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Product Management. Prior to Stern, he was working as a Machine Learning Engineer at CapitalOne. Post-MBA, Derek plans to pursue technology strategy at a tech company, and stays involved at Stern through the Stern Technology Association, golfing and traveling.

The days leading up to orientation were full of excitement. I had just moved to New York from Northern Virginia, so I was not only exploring a brand new city, but also looking forward to meeting new people in my cohort. Even before the program started, it was easy to see that my new classmates were eager to make new friends and build a strong community within our cohort. 

From my experience in the program, there are two main things that helped our class come together as a community. First, everyone in the program is eager to learn and bought into the one year experience. That energy helped create a strong bond within our cohort as everyone had a similar goal and was invested in the class and each other everyday. 

Secondly, the Tech MBA summer is an intensive semester. Students take 19.5 credits and cover many fundamental topics such as accounting, finance, economics, strategy and others. This means we cover complex material very quickly and change classes every few weeks. As a diverse set of individuals, we all lean on each other’s expertise and work together to get through all of the classes. Each course spans about three weeks, so you run through material extremely quickly. It’s a truly unique experience that brings everyone together. Also, during the summer a majority of Stern students in other programs are away from campus, so it feels like you and your classmates have the whole campus to yourselves. In these long days, you’ll get the chance to collaborate closely with all your peers on group projects or problem sets. Soon you’ll be hanging out at the Matto coffee shop in between classes and sending each other the best finance or accounting memes. 

Looking back, I was nervous about starting my MBA. As a previous engineer, I was coming in with almost no experience in terms of business curriculum and knew no one in the city. Being together and basically being the only class of students on campus for the whole summer has really helped build community. As a Tech MBA cohort, there’s a strong sense of camaraderie due to our shared experience. During orientation NYU gave us name tags, but we didn’t need them after only a few days.  Now, only two short months later, we have weekly basketball games together, happy hours, Central Park picnics, and many more summer memories that tie us together as a community. I am so excited to see the way this community continues to grow even stronger over the rest of the year!

Derek with friends at a sports event

Derek Wu and friends at a basketball event

The Summer Semester in the Tech MBA

Barak is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management, Leadership, and Change Management. Before Stern, Barak led a team of Product Managers at a FinTech firm in Tel Aviv, Israel where he helped the top financial institutions around the world to provide custom financial insights to their customers. At Stern, he is involved in the FinTech Club as the VP of Alumni Relationships and enjoys organizing pickup basketball games and swimming activities with his classmates.

As a new student in NYU Stern’s Tech MBA program, I recently relocated from Israel to New York in May, accompanied by my wife, our 2-year-old son, and our beloved dog. As I approach the end of my summer semester, I find myself eager to share valuable insights and tips that I’ve gathered throughout this semester. The goal of this post is to help future students and prospects make the most out of their time in the program.

A One-Year Tech-Focused MBA Program

The NYU Tech MBA program is exciting and innovative, lasting from May to May. In just half the time of a traditional two-year program, we achieve a full MBA degree through a unique approach. During the summer semester, we complete the core courses of the first year of the general MBA and seamlessly transition to the second year in the fall. 

Design Sprint Workshop at Google

 

The Summer Semester: A Sprint to Success

The summer semester is divided into three intensive sprints, each lasting four weeks. Picture this: Monday to Friday, from 9 AM to 4:30 PM (with a refreshing lunch break from 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM),  dedicated to immersive learning experiences. With 3-4 courses per sprint, we efficiently cover an expansive range of crucial business concepts, successfully completing the 11 core courses within a single semester.

Tailored courses for Tech leaders

As someone who thrives in high-pressure environments, this program has impressed me thoroughly so far. The opportunity to immerse ourselves in numerous fascinating courses in one semester, while also mastering the foundational principles of each subject, is simply extraordinary. The university’s creation of dedicated courses tailored for tech-enthusiastic business leaders ensures we receive precisely what we need. Additionally, the incorporation of pre-work, in-class practices, and post-class assignments and quizzes enriches our learning experience.

Communication Course Final Presentation

A Cohort of Family

The people in this program are its greatest asset. With an intimate group of approximately 50 students in the Tech MBA and 25 students in Fashion and Luxury, ​​the quiet summer campus provides the ideal setting for us to come together and form strong bonds. Collaborating on group projects and rotating through different groups for each class allows us to truly know our classmates on a personal level. We don’t just feel like classmates; we’ve become one big family.

Google Office Visit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A short pencil is better than a long memory

The summer semester can be intense and overwhelming with multiple deadlines, but it’s manageable with the right tools. Stay on top of your game by utilizing effective tools like calendars, to-do lists, and time-blocking techniques. These organizational aids will keep you on track and ensure you never miss a deadline.

Entrepreneurship Course Final Pitch

Prioritize one task at a time

Concentrate on the present importance and avoid getting overwhelmed with future concerns. Trying to handle everything simultaneously leads to accomplishing nothing. Identify high-priority tasks and tackle them first, maintaining control over essential assignments and preventing last-minute rushes.

Embrace the academic opportunities 

Take full advantage of the academic opportunities that the program offers. With captivating classes, experienced industry-proficient professors, and motivated teaching fellows, make the most of these opportunities to learn from some of the best educators in the world. 

Engage in Active Learning 

Take an active role in class discussions, team projects, and case studies, as this will not only enhance your understanding but also enlighten your classmates. The class comprises a diverse group of individuals from various backgrounds, and the beauty lies in how we enrich one another’s learning journey through shared experiences.

Uber Office Visit

Avoid lagging in the material

As classes build upon previous concepts, make it a priority to keep up, and don’t hesitate to seek assistance if needed. Like a snowball effect, staying ahead ensures a smooth progression without overwhelming yourself

Your friends are your best resource

This is always true, but particularly during learning sessions. Embrace the diversity within your cohort to leverage each other’s prior experiences and enhance your understanding of the material. Never hesitate to seek assistance when needed, as everyone is eager to support one another. It’s also a wonderful chance to deepen your connections and get to know each other better.

Multiple Support Options are available

Bear in mind that you have access to various forms of assistance to aid you along the way. If you require help, don’t hesitate to contact the faculty for support. The university offers a range of resources, such as extra office hours with professors or teaching fellows, additional practice sessions, and personalized accommodations, all designed to ensure your academic success.

Sternies Play Basketball in the John A. Paulson Center

If you only get A’s, it means that you’re doing something wrong

This is the thought-provoking statement that one of our professors began his lecture with. While academic excellence is important, a fulfilling graduate degree encompasses more. Invest time in networking, coffee chats, socializing, sports, and other activities that contribute to your overall growth and enriching experience.

Enjoy!

This year is too short to do anything other than enjoy the opportunity to live in one of the best cities in the world and embrace every aspect and moment of it!

The NYU Stern Orientation Experience

AJ AlbaneseAJ Albanese is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Strategy and Technology. Prior to Stern, AJ held sales and fundraising roles at for-profit and non-profit companies. Post-MBA, he plans to pursue consulting to help businesses achieve technological transformations. At Stern, he is a Tech MBA Cohort leader and enjoys playing ice hockey and cooking when not in class.

This week, MBA Admissions sat down with new Tech MBA student, AJ Albanese, to chat about the NYU Stern Tech MBA Orientation!

Tell us a little about the experience at Orientation. What did it include, and what was the best part?

Orientation was a great way to get introduced to Stern, my classmates and the community at NYU. It included keynote speakers from Estee Lauder and Microsoft, introductions to our program leads, and provided a lot of time to connect with our cohort. It was really focused on getting to know the MBA program and how the year would be structured for us, as well as answering any questions we had. The best part were the two social events we had after the on-campus sessions. It was amazing to get to talk with so many of my classmates and learn more about their backgrounds. Everyone comes from different backgrounds, so it was really cool to connect with everyone!

What did Orientation teach you about the Stern community?

Orientation taught me about how supportive and welcoming the Stern community is. The staff/faculty members and previous students were all so nice and were willing to help in any way. It felt like I got turned around and lost in the building when I would have to move rooms, and I could always find someone to kindly point me in the right direction! Dean Grennan talked a lot about the strength of the community at Stern – this became more apparent than ever as I got to know my new classmates and students in the graduating class. 

What was it like making new friends at Orientation?

Like any first day of school, I was definitely nervous about meeting so many new people and worried about fitting in. Within minutes of getting to Orientation, I had been introduced to people and was immersed in easy conversation – everyone was so open and happy to be there. The social events after the on-campus sessions really helped as well. We went down to One World Trade for an event and were able to get to know my new friends on the train ride down there. Having already lived in the NYC area for 4 years, I found myself giving so many suggestions for things to do, restaurants to try and places to visit around here to the people that had just moved here. I’m excited to take my new friends to some of my favorite spots in the city!

What did Orientation make you most excited for in the coming year?

Orientation made me excited for the experiential learning opportunities at Stern and in our Tech MBA program. I am most looking forward to the experiential course known as “Stern Solutions,” where student teams get to partner with real companies to work on solving real business & technology challenges. I am also really excited to get to know my classmates even more. Everyone is awesome and this year is going to be great! 

Beyond Borders, Beyond Expectations: Reflections of an International MBA Student

Omotoke is a recent Tech MBA graduate with specializations in Strategy & Business Analytics. Prior to Stern, Omotoke worked with KPMG as a Technology Assurance Consultant and is now looking to pursue Technology Risk & Strategy Consulting. At Stern, she was on the Board of the Association of Hispanic & Black Business Students and a member of the Management Consulting Association. Omotoke enjoys listening to good music and attending dance classes.

It’s graduation week as I write this, and nostalgia has begun to creep up on me. I have really enjoyed a great time since I arrived in New York from Nigeria a year ago to start my MBA. As I think back on the year-long experience that now feels like only a few weeks, these are tips I would give a prospective or newly admitted student.

1. Start your visa application immediately 

Backstory– I got my admission offer in January 2022, but as of May 2022, one week from orientation, I was yet to secure a visa interview appointment – let alone a visa. Even though I already resigned from my job for school, it didn’t seem like I was going anywhere 😅.

By divine providence, in that final week, I was called to interview. I finally received the visa, one day behind the official resumption for International Students. I hurriedly packed and made the 20+ hour trip within the next two days. You can imagine the rollercoaster this was, yet the saddest part was having no time to say goodbye to all my loved ones in person.

There are not many things I could have done differently in my case; however, securing my admission in round 1 instead of round 2 probably may have saved me the headache. So, if that is what it will take for you to get your visa ahead of time, by all means apply in round 1.  

Along the same lines, if you want your family or other guests present at graduation, start their visa applications very well ahead if they are from countries with long wait times. I started  making arrangements for my parents’ graduation trip 3 months ahead and by then it was too late.

2. Ensure you’re capturing all the important expenses in your budget planning

No one forgets rent, food, entertainment, utilities etc. but two expenses I find can be easily omitted are: loan interest repayments and co-curricular/leisure travel expenses.

Private loans are often very helpful for international students to cover some of their cost of attendance; however, a common oversight is to not plan interest repayments into estimated monthly budgets. Some forget this expense and some assume that it would be trivial.

Depending on your loan amount and terms, it may not be trivial, and you may need to start making payments early on. Get your estimates and factor it into your monthly budget and estimated cost of living.

Next, travel! You need to have a budget for travel. There will be lots of travel opportunities for coursework and for leisure with your classmates; planning ahead for this will allow you to take on these great experiences without much pressure.

On a road trip to Stamford with class friends

Additional tip: Request and review the school calendar for the year before starting the program to note the school holidays and make your own holiday plans.

3. Pack the right outfits

I wish someone whispered to me in the middle of my frantic packing, “Toke, you’re packing all the wrong clothes.”

I remember being unsure about how formal I would need to dress for classes and eventually settling for business based on my quick Google search. I brought in work clothes and a number of pumps…haha, but it only took a day or two to know the pumps were going back into the box. 

There’s a lot of flexibility around the dress code for classes. You can be as formal as you would like but you’ll find most people dressed in smart casuals. There will be company visits, corporate presentations and interviews, for which you could be required to be more formally dressed. 

Pack accordingly and whatever you do, make sure your shoes are “subway and walking friendly” because you can’t miss those. 

4. Start preparing for recruiting from Day 1

Depending on your target, recruiting activities may kick off really early in the programme, with applications opening in June/July and interviews rolling in by August.

As part of your early preparation, my recommendation is to make a long list of companies (not three or five) within your target industry that do not have a permanent work authorization hiring requirement (if you are an International student within this category) and get the timing of their recruitment. 

While many companies hire on a rolling basis, some have specific times of the year when they do MBA recruitment and missing that window could mean waiting another 6-12 months. 

Making this list upfront helps you identify many prospects and pace your interview preparation. Stern has very helpful databases for this research on the Careers Portal gathered from previous  years. The Careers team will be ready to help you when you arrive, but it’s nice to begin planning ahead anyway.

5. The communities really want to be helpful, ask for all the help you need

You’ve heard how fantastic the NYU clubs are 99 times already so I’ll try not to make it a hundred. The recommendation I have here is to join at least one, very early, before you travel down, if possible. You would be unable to register as an “official” member until the clubs open up for admissions in Fall but you could join the Whatsapp groups of some affinity clubs anytime after you accept your admission offer. Joining before you travel down will allow you leverage the community for the help you need with onboarding, settling in, temporary accommodation, renting, finding housemates, choosing courses and all the initial hard stuff. 

So find a community, join, and ask for whatever help you need. Sternies are always willing.

As a final note, immerse yourself and enjoy the diversity of NYU and New York. You will do great.

 

 

 

 

 

Embracing the MBA Decision Process

 

Mariana Ruiz Allende is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Product Management, FinTech and Strategy. Prior to Stern, Mariana worked in the FinTech industry for more than 4 years in Mexico City. Post-MBA, she plans to continue her professional development as a Product Manager. At Stern, she is involved in the Stern Adventures Club, the Latin American Business Association and the Stern Softball team. She is currently working on a personal project that will use Machine learning Sentiment Analysis to provide help through a mental health approach.

Deciding where to go for your MBA is not an easy decision. In my case, the decision affected not only me, but also my husband. 

Before the pandemic started, I knew I wanted an MBA. However, being all settled in Mexico, with my husband and me each thriving in our professional careers, having my family and friends close, and traveling a lot, it seemed like there was no real need for me to go through the MBA application process, which we all know is a lot of work. Everything seemed so well planned in my life, and I was happy living it that way; why would I consider changing it? Unfortunately – or fortunately- I am very ambitious and really wanted to have the experience of an MBA. 

I talked to my husband about going for it, considering I wanted to have my experience abroad, and he was very supportive from the beginning. Honestly, we both knew it was a long shot to be accepted into a top school, but I knew I had to go for it. However, there were two considerations I needed to make this work. First, he would have to come with me, which was non-negotiable for me, and second, it would have to be in a place where he could continue to work, and as a barred lawyer, New York was the only option. 

So yes, in my decision, there were more variables to consider. Nevertheless, those variables quickly reduced the scope of my options, and fortunately, the narrowed option was the best city in the world. 

After narrowing it to New York, I researched all possible programs in the city, which were many more than I imagined; considering each School has multiple MBA programs, my options by then were between 6 and 10 different programs. To narrow this further, I reduced my scope to only 1 year programs – working in tech, I knew being out of the “being employed game” for a long time wouldn’t have worked for me, so this filter narrowed my options to 3. Although applying to three programs might seem like a good number, I soon fell in love with the tech-focused programs.  I really liked the syllabus each one had, and coming from another business school, adding the technical courses made a lot more sense to my profile. Although there were some other one-year programs in the city, the tech focus for me was the cherry on top, which narrowed my number to two.

I reached out to people from both business schools. I spoke with at least ten people to get a sense of what their experience was, what they would recommend during the process, and to verify I clicked with their culture. I was shocked to see people actually answered my messages on LinkedIn without even knowing me.

When applying to Stern, I immediately stumbled upon the first challenge, which was a “change” in the application style the school has compared to the rest. The application had a twist since it was basically a mini-essay and a photo collage. The saying “less is more” is very applicable in this case. Less was more work since you need to be yourself, show what you bring to the table, show you are different and delightful, and show you can embrace change, all in two or three short deliverables. 

My two cents to anyone in the application process are:

1) Talk to people from the school you are applying to. The insights you get with quick chats not only fuel your motivation but also help you show the qualities you share with the people you talk to. 

2) Review your essays after clearing your head for a few days. After having more than 30 drafts on one of my essays, I can assure you the Mariana that started the process was not the same once I finished it. Yes, my last essay was a killer one compared to the classic cliché one I started with. 

Lastly, embrace learning through this application and school selection process, be humble and not too harsh with yourself, and reach out to people to mentor you or cheer for you throughout this process. And in case you doubt yourself, I can tell you all the effort is worth it. 

Things I’m Happiest I Did in my Year at Stern

Steven is a recent Tech MBA graduate, specializing in Financial Instruments & Markets and Management of Technology & Operations. Prior to Stern, Steven was at Deloitte in tech consulting where he was implementing financial software to complete full-cycle digital transformations. At Stern, he was involved in OutClass and enjoys traveling with classmates.

Bringing My Authentic Self

Coming to the end of what I consider the most fulfilling year of my life, there are countless experiences that I am grateful for, and they all fall under the category of “Things I’m happiest I did in my year at Stern.” To begin, I have to give credit to bringing my authentic self to NYU. The community at NYU is exceptionally lively, and it thrives on intelligence and emotional intelligence (IQ/EQ). This was ultimately the reason I chose Stern. One of the defining characteristics of the Stern community is its embrace of diversity. Sternies recognize the value of different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds, and it is this openness to diverse ideas and opinions that makes the community so special. For me, it was clear that showing others who I truly was would only enhance my experience at Stern, and this proved to be true. By being authentic and true to myself, I was able to connect with others on a deeper level and build meaningful relationships that will last beyond my time at Stern. Moreover, this experience allowed me to learn from my peers and gain a broader understanding of the world, which has been invaluable. I was able to immerse myself fully in everything that Stern has to offer by being open, honest, and having an open-mind to whatever came my way. By doing so, I have grown both professionally and personally and feel more confident in my abilities.

Worldwide Travel & Relationship Building

In addition to bringing my authentic self to NYU, one of the most enjoyable experiences I had during my time at Stern was taking part in numerous trips. Not only did they offer a welcome break from the rigors of academic life, but they also provided me with an opportunity to connect with my classmates on a more personal level. As a result, I have forged strong bonds with these individuals, and they have become my closest friends, whom I can count on without hesitation. Given my desire to build my network and establish relationships with like-minded individuals, I have made a concerted effort to cultivate and nurture these friendships, recognizing that they are a valuable asset both personally and professionally. By surrounding myself with individuals who share my goals, aspirations, and outlook on life, I have gained invaluable insights and perspectives that have helped me grow as a person and a business professional.

Summer break in Aruba
Spring break in Colombia

Club Involvement

Another experience that brought me immense joy during my time at Stern was getting involved in professional and affinity clubs. As a VP in OutClass, AVP in Cellar, ally in Stern Women in Business (SWIB), and member of the Management Consulting Association (MCA), Private Equity & Venture Capital Club and Stern Adventures, I had the opportunity to connect with students from all programs, including the Two-year Full-time, Executive, and Part-time programs. This allowed me to broaden my network and make friends with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Among these clubs, my most fulfilling position was as VP of Careers and Conferences for OutClass, where I had the chance to contribute to the queer community and build a network of queer professionals who will be future leaders in the workforce. Through this role, I organized professional events for networking and connected classmates with employers who prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion. This experience not only allowed me to make a positive impact on the community but also sharpened my leadership and organizational skills, making it an integral part of my time at Stern.

OutClass at ROMBA in Washington, D.C.
Stern Adventures at Ski Week in Steamboat, Colorado

Connecting with You!

Last, becoming a Graduate Ambassador was one of the most rewarding experiences during my time at Stern. Sharing my personal experiences with future Stern students has been particularly gratifying, and being a trusted source of advice for prospective students has been incredibly fulfilling. Witnessing students who I have mentored successfully gain admission to the program has been the ultimate reward, and knowing that I played a role in their decision to pursue a similar transformative experience as mine was truly exhilarating.

 

Entrepreneurship in the Tech MBA with J.P. Eggers

J.P. Eggers is a Professor of Management & Organizations, and the Academic Director of the Tech & Entrepreneurship MBA Program at NYU Stern. His research focuses on how organizations often struggle developing new, innovative products, and how they deal with technological change. Prior to academia, he was a strategy and technology consultant working with large and small companies trying to adapt to digitization. He has a PhD from Wharton, an MBA from Emory, and a BA from Amherst College.

How does the Tech MBA prepare students for entrepreneurship?
We’ve built this program with entrepreneurship at its core, on the assumption that everyone here will want to start a business at some point in their career. From hands-on courses designed around the ecosystems in New York (summer) and the west coast (January), to foundational technology and business courses, to a wealth of electives, the program seeks to strike the right balance for future founders to get them the tools they need, and then get them out building.

What resources are available to Tech MBA students interested in pursuing entrepreneurship?
Within the program itself, you will spend time with founders, funders, and advisors to learn about their perspectives and journeys. You will get access to a growing network of deeply committed alums, many of whom have founded and even exited their businesses. More broadly within Stern, you have full access to the resources in the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship, which hosts pitch competitions and advising network opportunities. You can also take the Endless Frontier Labs course, helping many of the top funders (VC and corporate) in the world shape brand new science and technology based companies. Beyond Stern, you have access to NYU’s Entrepreneurial Institute and the Leslie eLab just down the block, which give you access to the entirety of NYU and hosts events, meetups, competitions, and advising opportunities.

Do students interested in entrepreneurship typically have a business idea prior to the program, or do they come up with ideas through their coursework?

Our first cohort in 2018 had two students who were founders before they came to Stern. They already had companies they could build while in the program – one student started their company as a side hustle, while another was one earlier in the process. Both built their Tech MBA experience around trying to help build and launch their companies. Subsequent founders, however, have come in at virtually every stage – one had a blog post and nothing else, two created the idea together to enter the Berkley Center’s pitch competition. We’ve even had students who came to Stern after founding and exiting companies, with the idea of building new skills and a new network, and getting back out there.

How have you seen the intimate cohort size benefit students interested in entrepreneurship?
The power of the cohort is incredibly strong. Everyone comes in with a deep interest and background in technology and/or entrepreneurship, so the shared experience provides a perfect foundation. Your cohort could easily include your co-founder, your target customer and focus group participant, your connection to funding, and the subject matter expert who can help you solve that crazy challenge you’ll face in three years. The small cohort size and the intense shared experience, especially in the summer, builds exceptional bonds. Entire cohorts have gone on vacation together, and attended each others’ weddings.

What classes do you recommend future entrepreneurs take in the Tech MBA?
Aspiring founders have many options for electives, including (but not limited to) the Endless Frontier Labs course I mentioned earlier. Many students choose to pursue at least some more “traditional” MBA courses, helping them hone their finance skills and become better leaders. Some courses that are particularly appropriate for entrepreneurship include Entrepreneurial Finance, Managing a High Tech Company: The CEO Perspective, Managing the Growing Company, Technology Innovation Strategy, and Emerging Technologies & Business Innovation, just to name a few.

Can you share some success stories from past Tech MBA students?
It’s tough to limit the success stories to a few, but hopefully I can paint the picture of different entrepreneurial paths our Tech MBAs have during their next chapter. One thing that I’m especially proud of is how entrepreneurial our Tech MBAs are regardless of their role, function or company – they’ve shown that you don’t (necessarily) need to be a founder to create real change and flip a traditional process. We’ve had the opportunity to connect with alums who see themselves as “intrapreneurs” guiding new visions through a company to create real change, as well. In our eyes, both paths –  intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship – are success stories to demonstrate how our strategic curriculum supports new ideas and new ways of thinking during the program and beyond. Alums like Akanksha and Vera are driving innovation efforts at top global companies, whereas Ethan and David joined companies early on to support the launch of the business. We also have a few success stories that fit the more classic entrepreneurial path like Sam and Jeff who have completely chartered their own courses. Entrepreneurship can take many different forms and paths, and we’re proud of our Tech MBAs that are driving positive change no matter the size or scale.

Reflections on Graduation

Bárbara Argeri is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management and Management of Tech and Operations. Prior to Stern, Bárbara worked as a Product Strategy Manager at Mercado Libre in Brazil. Post-MBA, she plans to work as a Tech Product Manager. At Stern, she is involved in several student associations such as Stern Technology Association, Stern Women in Business, Latin American Business Association and Management Consulting Association. During her free time, she enjoys strolling around New York searching for new places, and spending time with her friends.

Reflecting on Graduation

It’s hard to believe that I’m already reflecting on my year at Stern for this blog post. However, the exercise of looking back on everything I’ve experienced fills me with gratitude. Pursuing an MBA had been a goal of mine for a while, and after years of preparation, the feeling of accomplishment still hasn’t completely set in. That said, I can confidently say that my time at Stern has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life.

A Year in the Best City

One of the biggest draws of attending Stern was the opportunity to live in New York City. It had been a dream of mine for almost 20 years, and despite having high expectations, the city exceeded them. The sheer diversity of experiences is staggering, and after a year of exploring, my list of must-visit restaurants, bars, shows, and other attractions has only continued to grow. Professionally, being in New York has opened up countless doors, allowing me to visit a variety of offices and experience different company cultures firsthand.

New Knowledge

Another reason why I chose the Tech MBA program was because it met my needs as a business school student. I was keen to refresh my undergraduate knowledge with a more mature perspective, learn from my experienced colleagues, and enroll in classes that would allow me to improve on certain areas. Looking back, I’m glad I made that choice. The program’s focus on data-oriented classes and discussions of disruptive innovation, as well as the mix of colleagues with both business and technical backgrounds, provided me with the academic and experiential learning I was hoping for.

Participation in Clubs

Through my involvement in four student associations at Stern, the Stern Technology Association, the Latin American Business Association, Stern Women in Business, and the Management Consulting Association, I had the opportunity to connect with MBA students from other programs. As a leader within the Stern Technology Association, I was able to coordinate visits to the offices of two tech companies in New York, providing students with a unique opportunity to gain insights into the inner workings of these organizations, learn about their operations, and network with their employees.

Everlasting Community

Lastly, one of the most enriching aspects of the MBA has been the friendships I’ve formed. I knew coming in that I would make lifelong friends, but I never expected our cohort to be such an amazing group of people. The experiences we’ve shared together are ones I never could have imagined. We went to upstate New York to enjoy the 4th of July by the lakes, had a blast at a Brazilian bar with a live band, danced at an Indian brunch, celebrated Chinese New Year at a Chinese restaurant, had several potluck dinners with food from all over the world… Those are experiences I would hardly have had had I not come to an MBA, and the ones I’ll never forget.

To those considering pursuing an MBA or starting one soon, my advice is simple but genuine: make the most of the experience, because it truly goes by fast. Engage in student associations, spend time with friends, visit companies, try different foods, and take classes that interest you. At the end of the day, your MBA experience is what you make of it, and it’s up to you to ensure that it’s as remarkable as it can be.

Building Your Tech Network

Aafiya Jamal is currently an MBA Candidate in the Tech MBA Program at the NYU Stern School of Business. She recently moved to New York City from Dallas, Texas. Prior to Stern, Aafiya worked in technology consulting and supported clients in the financial services space, from traditional, global banking institutions to FinTech companies. Outside of the classroom, Aafiya serves as one of the Cohort Leaders for the Tech MBA and is involved in the Stern Technology Association and Stern Women in Business.

As you are exposed to different areas of technology during the Tech MBA, you will likely find yourself wanting to learn more about specific roles, domains, and companies. Networking is a great way for you to understand what a professional’s career journey looks like, what a specific company’s culture looks like from within, and what kinds of skills employers are looking for. These are examples of types of questions I had and can tell you the steps that I took to effectively network during my time in the Tech MBA:

Find a Mentor

  • Firstly, I would highly recommend that you find a mentor to have career-related dialogues with during your time at Stern. I was fortunate enough to have formed a connection with a Tech MBA alum fairly early on and formally asked her to be my mentor for the duration of the one year program. We met in-person on a quarterly basis (while exploring some cute coffee shops in the city), where I would typically share what my career interests were and how they were changing based on what I was getting exposed to in the program. She would almost always connect me to someone in her network as a result of our conversations. These 1:1s also served as an accountability point for me to share what concrete steps I was taking to land my next career opportunity. 

Build Your Connections

  • There are many ways for you to form connections outside of the cohort. First, I would suggest that you maintain and / or re-kindle connections within your existing network. It is a great way to keep your current relationships warm, which can open doors to additional connections and employment opportunities. People move roles and companies all the time and individuals in your existing network may end up pursuing something that you’re interested in. Secondly, I highly recommend that you take advantage of Stern’s robust alumni network. I have found that Sternies are willing to connect, share their experiences with you, and almost always offer you a referral at their company, which can come in handy during recruiting season. You can easily get the conversation going by reaching out to a professional interest via LinkedIn. 

Start Early

  • Finally, I cannot stress the importance of starting to build your network early during your time in business school – especially if you are recruiting for specialized roles in the industry. Fall is when I had the most time at Stern, and I aimed to have at least 1 coffee chat or catch up on the books each week. This may seem like a lot, but definitely becomes easier to incorporate within your schedule over time. As a result, I felt like I had my bearings straight when I began to recruit in the Spring, knowing that I had a strong and supportive network.

Networking can often get a “bad rep,” but is an important habit to develop, particularly during your time at Stern, which can have long-term benefits. You can re-kindle existing relationships, while developing new professional connections, by using the Stern brand. I wish you the best of luck – happy networking!  

 

Exploring the Startup Ecosystem in the United States through EFL

Nilesh Ramnani, CFA is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Strategy, Product Management, and Entrepreneurship. Prior to Stern, Nilesh had his own consulting firm and has also worked in Investment Banking and Private Equity. At Stern, he is a board member of Private Equity and Venture Capital Club; Business Analytics Club; Graduate Marketing Club and Adventure Club and enjoys traveling and exploring different cultures and cuisines.

I was standing in the queue for the most adventurous Velocicoaster ride at Universal Park Orlando during my spring break. I asked my wife – Are you scared? She said, “yes I am, but it will be so much fun! The excitement and a bit of fear makes this adventurous.” Once we were on the Velocicoaster, we were thrown upside down four times and all the moves were unexpected. The start-up world is no different. You just need to find your own balance of facing fear, uncertainty and enjoying the ride. You are pulled in different directions and you need to find your own path. 

Before joining Stern, I had experience working with many startups in India through my own consulting practice. But I wanted to get a deeper dive into the start-up ecosystem in the United States. That’s when I found the Endless Frontier Labs (EFL), taught by Professor Deepak Hegde. The course is a mix of lectures, working with a start-up and also meeting industry experts who mentor the companies in EFL. 

I was paired with OPTT health, a company that is trying to solve some of the biggest challenges in the mental health care space in the US and Canada. We read a lot about telehealth companies trying to make mental health accessible to everyone, but the facts are shocking. 55% of adults (28 million people) in the US with a mental illness do not receive treatment. This is partly because mental health treatment is highly subjective and labor-intensive, and treatment outcomes depend mainly on the skill of the clinician. We need efficiencies in the system to enable doctors to treat more patients and OPTT is trying to do this using a proprietary algorithm to capture and analyze patient data. It plans to transform the treatment of mental health using machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. 

I worked with founders Mohsen Omrani and Ali Omrani on the go to market strategy in the United States market. In our meetings with mentors, we identified a crucial goal: to develop a quantitative model that OPTT Health can use to effectively communicate its value proposition. I mapped out the patient journey and identified areas where OPTT can create value that could be quantified. Based on these findings, I developed a financial model to calculate the return on investment (ROI) for potential customers. OPTT plans to use this model to determine a suitable pricing strategy for the company, ensuring that the value they offer is commensurate with the price. My work will be used to communicate the value to all the stakeholders including customers, investors and partners.

Through EFL, I also learned a lot about other startups. We had multiple group sessions where we discussed the issues faced by EFL startups and brainstormed ideas to solve these problems. EFL provides a platform for students, mentors, and the EFL team, to discuss the problems startups are facing.

I think the EFL course gave me exactly what I was looking for. I got a flavor of the startup ecosystem in the United States and also learned frameworks to solve problems faced by startups.

Career Resources & Recruiting

Zoish Pithawala is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management. Prior to Stern, Zoish worked as a Solutions Architect focused on startups interested in using cloud technologies. Post-MBA, she plans to move into a technical product management role specifically focused on data analytics. 

 

 

When I quit my job to go back to school, I was left a little nervous wondering what recruiting for a new role would be like. With the Tech MBA kicking off in May, it felt like there was barely any time before I had to start recruiting. Luckily, Stern has a ton of resources that helped me with my career development and recruiting process that made the whole process a lot easier.

Office of Career Development

The Office of Career Development is one of the first resources you’ll hear about when you start the program. They provide tools, events, and 1:1 meetings for any stage of the recruiting process. Here are some of the resources I found especially advantageous to me. 

  • Resume Reviews:  Before the program even began, we had access to a resume editing tool to help us start on our journey, followed up with some individualized feedback. This was a great starting point for me, because it got me into the mindset of what gaps I had in my resume that I wanted to fill throughout the year. Through the rest of the year, I scheduled appointments with the Careers Team team to continue editing my resume as I added more experiences. 
  • Recruiting Events/ Presentations: The Careers Team hosts several company recruiting presentations throughout the year. I signed up for the companies I was interested in applying to and it was a great way to hear more about the roles and find out about the recruiting process. My favorite event was the Tech Alumni Mock Interview where I got practice on how to interview for a technical product management position and got to network with  alumni. 
  • IGNITE: Over the summer, there are a few mandatory IGNITE sessions that help with general career development like working on your pitch, resume writing, and how to create a target list of companies. This really helped me get the ball rolling over the summer and I continue to utilize the provided workbook today.
  • 1:1 Appointments: This was the most valuable resource for me! I frequently scheduled 1:1 appointments with the Careers team to discuss more on my strategy and any questions I had about recruiting. The Careers Team even offers mock interviews that can help you practice interview questions.  I found everyone on the Careers team extremely helpful and I plan to have a few more mock interviews and offer negotiation strategy sessions before the end of the year!

Club Resources 

Outside of the social events, clubs can also help with your career development. As part of the Stern Technology Association (STA), I found their resources extremely helpful. They have consolidated resources including a handbook that has great notes on the types of interview questions, what to expect when interviewing, and tips for different tech companies.

Professional Opportunities

The Tech MBA has built-in professional opportunities as part of the curriculum. Over the summer, the Tech Immersion course gave us hands-on experience working with KPMG and in the fall, I got the opportunity to work with PayPal in Tech Solutions. These professional opportunities gave me a lot to showcase on my resume and helped me tailor my resume towards my career goal in product management. These professional opportunities also give me the chance to network and work with professionals in companies that I have always wanted to work for, like PayPal. 

Networking 

Networking is a big part of your life as an MBA student and for your recruiting process.  All of the resources I shared above involve networking with peers, alumni, and professionals. There are a variety of other ways that Stern helps you network. 

  • Networking events: There are a variety of networking events hosted through OCD, clubs, etc. throughout the year. These events range from alumni events to multi-school events that give you a great opportunity to meet new people.
  • Guest speakers: A majority of my classes at Stern have featured incredible guest speakers. These speakers range from experts in Blockchain, product managers at large tech companies, CEOs, founders, and more. Not only is it incredibly valuable to hear their insights and learn about their backgrounds, but you get the opportunity to connect with them and network. I have loved getting to connect with a lot of these speakers after the session!

As I continue to network and apply for jobs, I utilize these career resources frequently. These are just some of the career resources that I have utilized throughout this year as I recruit for a full-time job, and I know they will be immensely helpful for you if you end up at Stern!

West Coast Immersion 2023

Divya Mehta is a current Tech MBA student at Stern. Within Stern, she is part of the Graduate Marketing Association and Business Analytics Club boards. Before starting her MBA, Divya has held various supply chain roles at Johnson & Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, and Intel Corporation. She studied Industrial Engineering at Penn State University with minors in Product and Entrepreneurship. Post-MBA she is interested in pivoting from a cost-savings role to a revenue-generation role at a B2B company. 

 

Welcome to the Journey! 

One of the standout features of NYU’s Tech MBA is its embedded West Coast Immersion Course during our winter break.  The West Coast immersion is an integral part of our curriculum, as it gives us exposure to a wide range of companies and opportunities beyond the NYC ecosystem. My name is Divya, and I’m here to bring you along on my personal recap of the West Coast Immersion trip! 

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Students had the option to visit either Seattle, WA or Los Angeles, CA before meeting up in San Francisco.

As part of the West Coast Immersion Coast, we were able to lottery for our choice of either Los Angeles or Seattle; I chose Seattle  so that I could  tack on a week in Portland, OR prior! At the end of the trip, 16 of us traveled to Steamboat, CO to join Stern Adventure club on their annual ski trip. This led to a total of 4 weeks of travel for me! 

My luggage for 4 weeks of travel was #Worththeweight

As the official start date of the trip neared, I couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline rush as my classmates began to share their travel to Seattle from all parts of the world. 

 

Shortly after our group touched down in Seattle, we met up at Flatstick Brewing for some beer and bites. There were so many fun memories but in the interest of keeping this short, I’m sharing my top 5 highlights, in chronological order, from each leg of the immersion trip!

Seattle Highlights: 

  1. Microsoft
  2. Amazon 
  3. Class-bonding
  4. T-Mobile 
  5. Starbucks

1. At Microsoft we had the pleasure of hearing from Jeff Teper, President of Microsoft Collaborative Apps, and a thought leader in the product space. I loved hearing his insights and experiences around disruption, culture, and customer empathy at a large enterprise company. I was also particularly fascinated by the Industrial Metaverse portion covered by Lili Cheng, given my background in Supply Chain.

Group shot from our first company visit!

2. At Amazon we learned the importance of Customer Obsession, Collaboration, and what makes an MLP or “Most Lovable Product!” We were treated to a delicious breakfast and lunch with an exclusive tour of the Amazon Spheres in between. 

An Amazonian welcome and tour of the Spheres


3. The small but meaningful class-bonding moments with Professor Vasant Dhar – I loved being in a remote classroom together, having a whole charter bus to ourselves, and taking in the beautiful Mt. Rainier views! 

  

4. T-Mobile was perhaps my biggest surprise. We had a blast learning about their 5G portfolio through interactive demonstrations. Salim Koudri, Senior Vice President of Technology,  gave  an incredible talk on the wireless value chain, the future of 5G, and some fascinating business solutions. We learned about concepts such as “latency” through VR, and then ended our day at the employee lounge for a cocktail reception with pool, shuffleboard, and networking with senior team members. 

Classmates learning the challenges of “latency” through VR games

5. Similar to T-Mobile, another company visit that surprised me was Starbucks. As someone who comes from a background in supply chain, I had always known of Starbucks as a “supply chain” company. As an Industrial Engineer, I really “nerded out” on the fact that they have an entire center dedicated to optimizing the barista experience. It turns out product design plays a huge role in speed and ergonomics. 

After a hectic schedule in Seattle, we packed up our suitcases and made our way to San Francisco to meet up with the other half of our cohort! 

Excited to meet up with the rest of our classmates in the Bay Area

San Francisco Highlights: 

  1. Weekend 1
  2. Palantir
  3. Nvidia
  4. Calm CEO
  5. Google

1. Weekend 1 in the Bay consisted of reuniting with the second half of our cohort (after 4+ weeks of winter break), exploring the city, meeting some admitted students for brunch, and of course, a cohort trip to Napa Valley! This was our first chance to breathe after a hectic first week in Seattle. 

  

2. At Palantir, we got the true Silicon Valley start-up experience as we challenged each other to ping pong and foosball games while our speakers set up.

Classmates enjoying a good post-lunch stretch at Palantir

3. One common theme that has been stressed throughout our program is the importance of coffee chats. Because of the networking and coffee chats I’d arranged, two of my classmates and I were fortunate enough to be invited to a personal tour of Google’s new campus where we rode bikes, grabbed a delicious Mediterranean meal,  made our own ice cream sundaes, and chatted about the variety of opportunities at Google and beyond. 

Posing in front of the new Bay View building in Mountain View

4. Nvidia was incredible. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures inside but their building looked like it was straight out of a futuristic movie. Their demonstration of generative AI showed the power of simulations in driver safety, and digital twins in manufacturing plants. 

5. An amazing way to end our week was to have an intimate conversation with the CEO of Calm, David Ko. One of my favorite quotes from the NYU Alum was “It’s not how you lead going up, it’s how you lead when things are going down.” This was especially important to hear while the Tech industry was facing economic headwinds because it taught us the importance of resilience. 

Our classroom views were absolutely gorgeous on our last day

In conclusion, the West Coast Immersion trip was an incredible opportunity for the NYU Tech MBA cohort to broaden our horizons beyond the NYC ecosystem and gain insights from a diverse range of companies and industry leaders. From Microsoft to Amazon, T-Mobile, and Starbucks in Seattle, to Palantir, Nvidia, Calm, and Google in the bay area (and this isn’t even all of the companies we visited!), we had the chance to learn about disruptive technologies, customer obsession, product design, 5G, and AI. The trip also provided us with invaluable opportunities for class-bonding and networking with senior faculty. Overall, the West Coast Immersion was an unforgettable experience that allowed us to deepen our understanding of the tech industry and prepare us for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Thriving as a Woman in Tech

Alina Vrsaljko is a current Tech MBA student at Stern. Within Stern, she is part of the Stern Women in Business Club‘s board. Before starting her MBA, Alina gained professional experience in Digital Strategy Consulting at McKinsey in Europe and in multiple roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Germany and Singapore. She holds a BSc in Business Informatics and a MSc in Management. 

Introduction

45% minorities, 9% LGBTQ+, 57% international students and 55% women – those are not target scores from exemplary studies on what ideal diverse teams should look like, but those are the actual numbers of the Tech MBA at NYU Stern. When I met my classmates for the first time, I was amazed by the number of strong women in the program. This was not at all what any of us had expected when signing up for a Tech focused MBA, but we LOVED it – both male and female classmates. In the picture below, you can see a small part of our amazing group of women in the Tech MBA.

Being the only one

Coming from a Tech industry background, I’ve gotten used to being the “only one”-the only woman in the room.  And even though my colleagues and clients meant well, there were certain situations where I could feel the impact of what it means to be the only person of a certain group in the room. And this did not just happen to me – a recent Women in the Workplace Study by McKinsey and LeanIn.org shows that “32% of women in technical and engineering roles are often the only woman in the room at work” (2022). This is one of the reasons why I believe the makeup of this year’s Tech MBA is so special and important – the more we normalize women thriving in Tech, the easier it’ll be for young women to imagine themselves in those roles.

Why is this even relevant? 

Throughout my career, one big factor I’ve considered when deciding on a next career move was around female empowerment – will this decision help me advance further and will this have an impact on women in the industry? Maybe that’s also why I specifically picked the Tech industry as an 18-year-old girl to start off my career. I believe it’s time that all of us start making a difference. Especially in Tech but also in leadership in general, women are still heavily underrepresented – in the US, still only 1 in 4 CEOs is female and even only 1 in 20 CEO’s is a black woman (LeanIn, McKinsey, 2022). Thus, I believe us as MBAs, and hopefully all future leaders, need to push further for equality to achieve the equal world we aim to live in. Another reason for focusing on gender equality is that diverse teams make better decisions (Harvard Business Review, 2016) – no matter whether that’s in business or politics. Additionally, especially in Tech, having diverse representation will matter even more than ever. With Artificial Intelligence solutions on the rise and tech firms not having a diverse employee body, those new algorithms are full of unconscious biases that will need to be resolved (Forbes, 2020). Thus, I am proud to be part of an MBA program that is educating so many women in Tech, sets us up with the tools to excel in the industry, and educates allies who are aware of gender equality issues and who will actively create an impact in this field.

When thinking about how to thrive as a woman in Tech throughout your MBA experience, there’s three main areas to leverage:

1. Role models: I can’t stress enough the importance of strong role models for your career development – I am still thankful to all the amazing role models in my previous positions who I am still in touch with. NYU Stern will also help by connecting you with strong, successful women – I was lucky enough to have met a few of them at multiple events hosted by NYU Stern, from Elizabeth Elting (see picture below) who was listed on FORBES’ list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women, to Rama Akkiraju, who is leading NVIDIA’s AI/ML efforts after being responsible for IBM Watson for the past few years.

Those women are living proof that it is possible to break glass ceilings in all kinds of industries, and an MBA at NYU Stern allows you to connect with and learn from them. Additional events to connect with women are now also happening all over New York – and for every industry. Especially for Women’s History Month, companies like Google and Amazon have held great events around women in tech that were free to join for students.

2. Network within Student Community: Besides external speakers, who often can act as inspiration, the Student Community at NYU Stern is full of strong and ambitious women to network with. Starting from the Fall, Tech MBA students will get to interact with all full-time students and there are multiple opportunities to engage with fellow students. For example, I’m part of the Stern Women in Business Club’s Board for Alumni Relations. This involved connecting with a lot of female MBA alumni, and allowed me to network within the SWIB community to further build out my network. Of course, the small class size of the Tech MBA and the close connection to the smaller sized Fashion and Luxury MBA also allowed to create a close-knit network already in the summer. I’m sure I’ll carry my network of strong NYU women throughout my career and can’t wait to see what all of them will accomplish.

3. Allies: Finally, a concept that is gaining much more popularity is involving allies that do not identify as women. The great part about women’s engagement within NYU is that non-women identifying students are also asked to participate in a range of events. There are specific events like “Bring your Ally to Work” where all students discuss issues that women in the workplace have experienced to raise the awareness of discrimination, or “Real Meals” where an ally hosts a dinner at their place and invites women to listen and learn more about what discrimination currently still looks like. Additionally, our SWIB conference this year is also centered around the topic of Active Allyship. NYU Stern promotes a policy of equality that can only be achieved by working together and aiming as one for a more equal world and I’m proud to be a part of this effort.

The Role of Clubs in the Tech MBA

Steven is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Financial Instruments & Markets and Management of Technology & Operations. Prior to Stern, Steven was at Deloitte in tech consulting where he was implementing financial software to complete full cycle digital transformations. At Stern, he is involved in OutClass and enjoys connecting with classmates.

Club involvement has been a significant part of my experience at Stern. I am currently a Vice President for Careers and Conferences in OutClass, an Assistant Vice President for Resources in Cellar, an ally in Stern Women in Business, and a member of the Management Consulting Association, Private Equity and Venture Capital Club and Stern Adventures. The first thing to note is that a lot of these clubs have lifetime membership. The professional clubs offer an abundant amount of important information including job opportunities, networking and trainings that can be leveraged in the future. I highly suggest joining any clubs that you have an interest in so that you can utilize these invaluable resources.

Affinity Clubs

The club that I am most involved with is OutClass, our LGBTQIA+ affinity group. In my leadership position, I have been heavily involved with connecting employers that are recruiting for diversity and inclusion initiatives to queer MBA candidates, and have organized multiple firm-sponsored queer networking events including cross club collaborations. OutClass has been one of the most important clubs that I have been involved with and has significantly enhanced my experience at Stern. This club has allowed me to meet classmates from all the different MBA programs (EMBA, Part-Time Langone MBA and Full 2-Year MBA) outside of the focused MBAs. I have also built a community in OutClass that has been instrumental in some of my deepest connections at Stern. I have seen firsthand how within this community, everyone really strives to help each other out to achieve the utmost success. With this group we have attended professional conferences such as ROMBA in Washington, D.C. (Stern had the highest representation of queer students out of any graduate school!), happy hours, group workout sessions, dinners, mixers with other schools and alumni, marched in New York Pride and have so much more to come, including a trip to Miami.

Professional Clubs

As for professional clubs, these clubs help students with securing summer internships and full time offers. They offer bootcamps, casing prep and competitions and a wealth of learning opportunities. The goal of professional clubs is to help students  prosper in whatever field they are recruiting for. In most of these clubs, MBA2s will lead sessions and help the other cohorts by sharing their experiences going through the same processes in the previous year, and giving advice on how to prepare for or learn about an industry. Overall, the interview preparation, job opportunities and connections that these clubs provide is outstanding.

A particularly special event that I went to recently was the kickoff for ‘Allyship in Stern Women In Business’ (SWIB). Coming from the tech sector, where women are disproportionately represented, it was incredible to see that my Tech MBA cohort was the largest representation. Everyone went around to state their various reasons of why they showed up as an ally, and it was impressive to see why everyone supported more women in leadership positions and how they would support these initiatives when they returned to the workforce.

Overall, I would recommend joining any and every club that you have any interest in. Both professional and social clubs offer a magnitude of knowledge, fun, connections and networks. These affiliations will last a lifetime and you never know when you will want to leverage any aspect from the membership. You will always be able to decide what events you will want to attend or how much you obtain from the relationship, but you will not have the opportunities unless you get involved.

Demystifying Tech in the Tech MBA

Shriram HS is a current Tech MBA student specializing in strategy, marketing, and product management. He moved to New York City from Bengaluru, India. At Stern, he is the VP of Tech MBA at the Stern Technology Association. Prior to Stern, he worked at Cisco, leading product development for 5G and cloud networks. He holds a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and a master’s in computer engineering.

Know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change. But pretty soon, everything’s different.

-Bill Watterson, through the fabled comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.

That quote elegantly encapsulates the predominant theme of present-day reality, especially in business and technology: Disruption. It conveys a rather simple but sweeping idea that swift disruption is the new norm. What’s in vogue today is unlikely to be so in a few months. And it does not spare anything: technology, business models, or even entire firms. So how do you thrive in this new age?

Until a few years ago, the traditional MBA would set you up nicely for any target industry. But today, when you specifically want to pursue tech/tech-adjacent leadership roles:

  1. It has at most a peripheral focus on tech, which is now a primary driver of this disruption 
  2. It has a high time cost of two years

When I began exploring business schools, I had strict considerations:

  • Its program had to build on or complement my tech background
  • It mustn’t be longer than a year
  • It had to be welcoming of international students

Any tradeoff here would severely affect its value to me. As you’d expect, only a micro list of options fulfilled all these criteria. Yet, I insisted on assessing the details under the hood of each option, and that showed why the Stern Tech MBA experience stands out in this new age.

I’ll start with oft-asked sets of questions I’ve come across:

What exactly is the Tech MBA? Is it an executive program? Is it a joint degree? Is it a specialization?

It is none of those. I’d dub it an accelerated MBA focusing on technology.

Is it for someone with a tech background? Is it only for someone who wants to move to the tech industry?

It could be for anyone, with no binding restrictions on either prior background or outcome. In fact, its chief tenet is flexibility, which I’ll expand on in further detail below. I found ample preparatory content within the course for folks who didn’t work with tech before. As for outcomes, its structure allows you to specialize in any of Stern’s 27 specializations. The latest program reports would help you note this diversity, both in roles as well as industries. Given that any product or service in any industry could have a substantial digital component, the Tech MBA’s literally designed with that flexibility. Here’s precisely how.

My good friend and classmate John Bennion shared his specifics to facilitate this collation to give you a clear view of this program’s flexibility. For quick context, he worked at the US Air Force, leading product management before coming to Stern.

Core Classes

The business core comprises all foundational MBA classes at 2x the pace. Among that, a subset (strategy, entrepreneurship) is specifically tech-focused. On the other hand, the tech core comprises grad-level classes on data, modern tech stacks, and DevOps. Through these, you’d have everything you need to manage tech operations, understand systems architecture, or even build your own application. While I waived those classes in which I had proficiency, John added more electives in this space, taking advantage of both Courant (NYU’s Institute for Mathematical Science) and Steinhardt (NYU’s School of Culture, Education, and Human Development).

Electives (Selected Sample)

One highlight of tech management coursework I must list here is innovation strategy taught by Prof. Melissa Schilling. Many business school classes embody some combination of traditional/layered concepts, case studies, and professional practice. However, this class is a fine example of how primary research and years of teaching have resulted in a distinctively compelling study. Her single coherent strategic framework for innovation management seamlessly decoded any and every example brought up in class.

Experiential Learning

A fun aspect here is the near-weekly sessions hosted by alumni and visiting business leaders as a built-in part of this course. What makes it fun is their remarkably candid spirit while sharing their incredible experiences. For our cohort, these ranged from cutting-edge tech, such as pre-release 5G solutions from Verizon, to high-impact initiatives involving predictive AI at Lyft.

Another memorable class I took this fall was the Consulting Lab, engaging with J&J’s self-care division for branding and innovation. Starting out, I had no expertise in the function or the industry. But over the semester, the 10x learning in this class prodded me to advanced levels. On its concluding day, our client’s leaders commended my team, asking us to present our recommendations further to J&J’s senior global leadership. In no small part, it is a reflection of Prof. Fran Gormley, whose mere preparation for every meeting astonished me. As a result of this experience, not only did I add new skills, such as go-to-market strategy, to my repertoire, but I also feel inspirited to take on new challenges. Such felicitous experiences help you develop a refined perspective that immensely boosts your range, which is key to this new age. And no other place is primed for better exposure to this ecosystem, embracing Silicon Alley, Wall Street, and a multitude of marvels in this city that never sleeps.

 

 

 

 

The Tech MBA Curriculum

Divya Mehta is a current Tech MBA student at Stern. Within Stern, she is part of the Graduate Marketing Association and Business Analytics Club boards. Before starting her MBA, Divya has held various supply chain roles at Johnson & Johnson, Colgate-Palmolive, and Intel Corporation. She studied Industrial Engineering at Penn State University with minors in Product and Entrepreneurship. Post-MBA she is interested in pivoting from a cost-savings role to a revenue-generation role at a B2B company. 

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably wondering how we effectively squeeze a traditional MBA curriculum in just one year. How is it structured? How does it feel? 

My classmates studying for our accounting final together at one of our apartments

One of the most unique aspects of the Tech MBA is that core classes start in the summer rather than the fall. This gave all 47 of us the unique opportunity to receive focused attention from renowned professors, early access to all of Stern’s resources, an accelerated bonding experience through 30-40 hours a week in class together, and elective flexibility for the subsequent semesters. 

In order to help frame the first semester, I’ve broken it down into takeaways and  two parts: The first 60 days and the last 30 days. 

Takeaways 

  • The first semester is difficult. By clearing your schedule for the first 60 days, you may save yourself from stress.
  • Knowledge is power. Students have opportunities to think about how each core class relates to one another and apply learnings to their experiential engagements. 
  • Everyone has unique strengths. The professors are amazing, but classmates are also a great resource for learning and support! 
  • Having fun is important! Electives are a chance to learn something you wouldn’t have learned otherwise. Don’t worry too much about specializations. Everyone’s journey is unique.

The first 60 days: 

Our first 60 days consisted of seven core courses which were already scheduled for us and required as part of the Tech MBA curriculum: 

Economics Accounting
Leadership Communications
Tech Immersion Marketing
Dealing with Data (Python, SQL)

Our days were long and fully packed with class from 9:00am to 4:20pm. Although the injection of mental and social stimulation was difficult to prepare for, this was also the portion of the summer that I had the least number of extracurricular distractions and the most amount of adrenaline to learn fast. I also was continuously re-energized by some of my favorite professors Professor Brian Hanssen (Communications) and Professor Nate Petit (Leadership) who consistently brought their passion to the classroom. 

I was also impressed by the structure of the program, which strategically weaved complementary themes through multiple courses in our carefully crafted curriculum. For example, after learning about empathy in Leadership on a Monday, we immediately practiced delivering feedback in Communications the following Tuesday. In Marketing class, we learned about Customer Journey Maps and User Personas, which we incorporated into our Tech Immersion check-ins with our respective clients. The ability to apply fresh material to concurrent courses led to faster absorption, richer discussions, and a more holistic understanding of where different aspects of a business intersect. 

The last 30 days: 

Our last 30 days ended with four courses that gradually transitioned us from learning fundamentals to implementing strategy.  

Finance Strategy
Entrepreneurship Tech Immersion (continued)

Just like the first 60 days, principles we learned in our morning Finance class (CAGR and ROIC) were being applied in our Strategy and Entrepreneurship classes. The classes had a balanced mix of hands-on experience, practical applications, and case studies. As an engineer, I initially found Finance challenging but luckily, I had a few classmates with lots of practical finance experience to help me study and succeed. After balancing seven classes in the first 60 days, and having the support of my classmates, this portion of the semester felt much lighter. We finally had a good groove and Friday classes were eventually replaced with free time for picnics, beach trips, and sightseeing!

After the first semester…

After the first semester, everything else felt very manageable. We entered the fall semester with grace. At this point I already had a rhythm, a strong group of friends, and a foundational understanding to take some stimulating electives with the rest of the 2-year MBA students. My favorite elective in the second semester was Blockchains & Cryptocurrency. The class started off with industry experts discussing current event topics (such as the fall of FTX). I was thankful that the structure of the Tech MBA curriculum equipped me with the perfect blend of technical and commercial acumen to conceptualize cryptocurrency strengths, weaknesses, challenges, and opportunities. In my last semester, I am most excited to take a course in Strategic Foresight and Predicting the Future of Technology with Amy Webb, a leading expert in future strategy and innovation, who has been featured in numerous media outlets such as CNN, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal!

Aside from electives, we also had more free time to join boards of clubs and participate in extracurriculars with the rest of the Stern community. With my newfound free-time, I led a committee in planning the first in-person conference for the Graduate Marketing Association in years. I also had an opportunity to attend an intimate Leadership Storytelling summit which expanded on some of the principles I learned in Leadership class. I was able to branch out and meet so many Sternies from all walks of life, with a lighter course load.

My amazing class of Tech MBAs and Fashion & Luxury MBAs after our final presentations in Strategy

Overall, if you are looking for a fast, collaborative, hands-on approach to accelerating your career, the Tech MBA is the right choice for you! 

 

Build More Than Your Resume: Build Connections through Club Involvement!

Christy Kim is a MBA candidate at NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program, specializing in Business Analytics and Product Management. Prior to Stern, she worked at Deloitte Consulting, driving large-scale data and analytics transformations for clients across various industries. She additionally brings a background in product marketing, alliances, and tech sales and graduated from Duke University. At Stern, she serves as the VP Tech MBA – Business Analytics Club (BAC), VP Conferences & Flagship Events – Gaming & Esports Management Society (GEMS), AVP Events of Asian Business Society (ABS), and member – Stern Technology Association (STA).

You often hear that the greatest ROI of an MBA is the connections. There is no doubt that our fellow Tech MBA classmates are connections for life, but how do we assimilate into and build relationships with the greater Stern MBA community – especially when 2-year MBAs return in the fall? 

The short answer? Get involved in student clubs!

The long answer? Join a club, participate in opportunities to lead your peers, and grow your network while dialing into a business topic you’re passionate about.

Here is a quick ‘Stern MBA Clubs for Dummies’ on how to maximize your club experiences as a Tech MBA student:

PICK A CLUB. ANY CLUB.

As early as orientation, you will have the opportunity (i.e. virtual Club Expo) to explore the 40+ clubs at Stern and express initial interest for follow up/kickoff in the fall:

  1. Professional clubs (e.g. Stern Technology Association, Business Analytics Club) help you navigate industries and prepare for recruiting 
  2. Affinity, sports, & special interest clubs (e.g. Adventures Club, Asian Business Society) give you an opportunity to meet people with similar interests or explore new areas of interests
  3. Student Government (SGov) offers leadership opportunities to plan and execute school-wide events; for Tech MBAs, we have a dedicated role (SGov Tech MBA President – shoutout to Reggie Greathouse, our leader!) to serve as the liaison between 2-year MBA and Tech MBA students

With so many amazing club options, it was difficult to not join all! Maximizing involvement over quantity, I decided to join the following 4 clubs (if you have any questions regarding the clubs below, feel free to reach out):

  1. Business Analytics Club (BAC)
  2. Gaming & Esports Management Society (GEMS)
  3. Asian Business Society (ABS)
  4. Stern Technology Association (STA)

GET INVOLVED: BECOME A MEMBER, ALLY, OR EVEN A LEADER.

In the beginning of the fall semester, clubs will conduct kickoffs where students can learn about the club as well as the membership options (e.g. member, ally) and leadership opportunities across the clubs’ verticals (e.g. Marketing, Finance, Events, Academic). For each vertical, Tech MBAs can run for 2 types of leadership positions:

  1. VP Position: Intended for 2nd year MBAs – including us, the Focused MBAs! A number of clubs have reserved leadership roles just for Tech MBA students (e.g. I am currently VP Tech MBA for Business Analytics Club).
  2. AVP Position: Intended to prepare 1st-year MBA students for leadership roles as a VP or President; it is recommended that Tech MBAs serve in this role with another 1st-year MBA student to ensure club continuity and transition into a VP role for the subsequent year.

I found that being a board member has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my MBA journey. It provides the opportunity to intimately collaborate with the 2-year and part-time MBA students as well as the alumni network. Whether it’s spontaneously grabbing dinner together after a board meeting or a scheduled karaoke night, it is an excellent way to develop deeper relationships with those outside of our Tech MBA cohort! 

From brunches to dinners to board game night to comic cons… infinite fun with Stern BAC, ABS, and GEMS board members.

 

GONE CLUBBING: ATTEND (OR RUN) THE CLUB EVENTS!

In the fall and spring, club events will be in full swing. All events are made available on NYU Stern CampusGroups, which serves as a fantastic platform to learn about the different types of events (e.g. social, academic, alumni) that a club will be hosting or has previously hosted. As a board member, you also get the opportunity to drive the club events! Over this past fall semester, I’ve had a chance to:

  • Co-lead the ‘Paramount Games Case Competition’ with fellow Tech MBA classmate, Nick Imbriglia, for Gaming & Esports Management Society (GEMS)
  • Plan the ‘Board Dinner & Korean Pocha Night’ as well as ‘End of Semester Rooftop Happy Hour’ for Asian Business Society (ABS)
  • Participate as a panelist for ‘Analytics 101’ session (led by fellow Tech MBA classmate, Cody Ipapo) and attend the ‘H&M Office Trek’ for Business Analytics Club (BAC)
Case competitions, knowledge management sessions, company treks, and even NYC Koreatown outings… club events cover all!

CHANCE OF A LIFETIME

In our accelerated 1-year Tech MBA program, the greater ROI potential comes at the expense of time. As I reflect on all the incredible student-driven events from this past fall semester, there is only one thing that I wish I could have done better: having further optimized my time to participate in everything I wanted to do! I am grateful for Stern’s seamless process for Tech MBAs to integrate into the 2-year and part-time MBA community through clubs and organizations. The onus is up to us to take full advantage of the available opportunities in the provided time frame.

The Tech MBA vs. the Two-Year MBA

Zoish Pithawala is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management. Prior to Stern, Zoish worked as a Solutions Architect focused on startups interested in using cloud technologies. Post-MBA, she plans to move into a technical product management role specifically focused on data analytics. 

 

 

 

 

When you say MBA, most people typically think of a traditional two year program, however there is a rising popularity in more specialized, accelerated programs like the Tech MBA. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to what program makes more sense for you, but there are some key differences to keep in mind as you evaluate these options. 

Curriculum 

NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program is a one year (May – May), 52 credit program. The Two Year Full-time MBA program runs over the span of two years (September – May) and students earn 60 credits to graduate. Both programs have the same selection of courses for electives, but with the Two Year MBA, you have the opportunity to take more elective classes and experiential courses since you have more credits to earn and more time. The core curriculum in the Tech MBA includes classes like Foundations of Networks and Mobile Systems and DevOps and Software Engineering, which are not typically offered in the Full Time MBA program. Both programs give students the opportunity to select up to 3 specializations from a list of over 25 options. The Tech MBA curriculum is catered towards specializations like Entrepreneurship and Innovation or Technical Product Management, however students can specialize in any of the available options.

For me personally, I felt like the curriculum in the Tech MBA fit my needs perfectly. There’s a great balance between the technical classes with the business core classes to give a good overview of everything. There are also more than enough elective credits where I felt like I could branch out and try electives that were really interesting to me. Some of the classes I found to be really interesting as part of the curriculum were Leadership, Tech Solutions, and Tech Product Management.

Class Profile

NYU Stern has a diverse student population throughout all their programs, but there are some differences in the class profile between the Tech MBA and Two Year MBA. The biggest difference is the size of the class. The Tech MBA has a smaller cohort of around 50 students, whereas the Two Year Full-time MBA has a class size of around 330 students. Amongst these students, the Tech MBA tends to have a higher average for years of work experience, with a majority of students coming from a STEM background. In contrast, the majority of students in the Two Year MBA have a background in business and prior work experience in various industries.

I love having a smaller cohort because it gives me the opportunity to really connect with everyone in the program and get to know each other really well. I find it’s also really valuable to have classmates with similar interests and backgrounds so we can work on projects together and discuss recruiting strategies for similar roles.

Internships 

The Two Year MBA gives students the opportunity for a summer internship in between their first and second year. This can be very beneficial for students pivoting to a new industry or students looking to gain work experience. Many prospective students choose to do an MBA program to gain new skills, and summer internships provide them with the opportunity to apply what they have learned. For most students, a full-time job offer is the ultimate goal of the MBA program and a good summer internship can often lead to a return offer with the company. Since the Tech MBA is an accelerated program, there is no time for a summer internship, but the valuable experiential course offerings throughout the year can help students build work experience through company project partnerships.

Personally, I enjoyed the Tech Solutions experiential course that is part of the Tech MBA curriculum. This gave me an opportunity to work with a large tech company on a semester-long project. This project helped me develop skills that would be incredibly useful for my future career and acted as an internship for my resume. 

Return on Investment 

MBA programs can be quite expensive, so everyone wants to maximize their investment. When looking at the numbers, the Tech MBA program has a lower cost of tuition compared to the Two Year MBA . Another large part of the equation is the amount of time you spend in the MBA program in lieu of working and earning a salary. While you will have a summer internship to make up some of the cost, you will be out of the workforce for two years with the Two Year MBA, whereas you are only out of the workforce for one year with the Tech MBA. 

With the tech industry changing so rapidly, it was really important to me to only be out of the workforce for one year. I wanted to be able to jump back into the workforce without feeling like I missed out. This way I would be getting the value of an MBA program without having to pause my career for too long.

There are a variety of different factors that play into the decision to apply to a specific MBA program and, for me, these were some of the most important factors when deciding on the Tech MBA. The ROI of a one year accelerated program aligned perfectly with my career goals and I valued having a smaller cohort with a background that aligned with the Tech industry. In the end, both the Tech MBA and the Two Year MBA are amazing programs, so it really comes down to what makes the most sense for you!

A Day in the Life of a Tech MBA

Bárbara Argeri is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management. Prior to Stern, Bárbara worked as a Product Strategy Manager at Mercado Libre in Brazil. Post-MBA, she plans to work as a Tech Product Manager. At Stern, she is involved in several student associations such as Stern Technology Association, Stern Women in Business, and Latin American Business Association. During her free time, she enjoys strolling around New York searching for new places, and spending time with her friends.

When I was learning more about different MBA programs, the content I liked the most was about the day in the life of an MBA student, since they provided me with a real sense of what life would be like. Because of this, I didn’t think twice when I was given the opportunity to write this blog!

7:30am: I wake up early for my classes. Since I live on the Upper East Side, I take a while longer to get to campus. I prepare some coffee, get something to eat, and head to the Q subway station on 72nd street. It is a 20-minute ride and I try to keep up with some of my favorite podcasts along the way.

8:45am: I arrive at Union Square. Although I could transfer to the R or W to arrive near Stern, I prefer to leave at Union Square and walk for 10 minutes to campus since the weather is nice. I pass by Washington Square Park and have one of those funny moments when I realize “Oh my God! I live in New York now.” I arrive just in time for my “Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies” class.

11:50am: Cryptocurrencies class was great. We talked about the regulations of crypto markets and possible impacts for the future. We had a speaker from one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrencies exchange platforms. It’s incredible to hear the perspective of someone who’s so actively inserted in the business.

12:00pm: Recruiting time! We have a corporate presentation of one of the companies I am most interested in working with. Time to better understand their culture, ask questions, and network with their employees. It’s so helpful to get to meet the recruiters in person and build relationships with them. And that’s much easier when they’re a few subway stops away. This allows me to meet so many different companies – and also visit their offices some times.

01:00pm: Time to grab a snack before meeting with one of my project groups. For this project, we are working as consultants for a color- analytics startup, which is very disrupting. We are helping them develop the wireframes of an app they are planning to launch. The pages are almost ready to be submitted to user testing. We’re excited to be working closely with the client on something that they are actually launching soon! This course is also a great opportunity to strengthen my Product Management skills since that’s the career I want to pursue after graduation.

03:00pm: Time to work on some homework and readings. As we approach the end of the semester, we have quite a few papers due. I like to go to the “Grad Lounge” for that, since my classmates usually hang out there, and you also get to meet different people. This time, one of the students associations left candy to support students during finals week. That has definitely given us a mood boost!

05:00pm: Done with the duties. Time to grab a coffee and something to eat and meet up with some friends that are around campus to chat and relax for a bit. We are discussing what the plans for this weekend we’ll be. A pot luck dinner maybe!?

06:00pm: Last stretch of the day – “Data Science for Business” class. Today, we learned about language models that are developed to identify and filter possible spam emails. It’s so interesting to learn about the methodology and discuss possible variables and impacts. This class is great to help you understand data mining concepts and prepare you to speak with data scientists.

09:00pm: Class is over! Time to meet with my husband and grab something to eat around campus before heading home. What a long day. Nothing better than watching an episode of my favorite series and going to bed.

Joining the Tech MBA as an International Student

Alina Vrsaljko is a current Tech MBA student at Stern. Within Stern, she is part of the Stern Women in Business Club‘s board. Before starting her MBA, Alina gained professional experience in Digital Strategy Consulting at McKinsey in Europe and in multiple roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Germany and Singapore. She holds a BSc in Business Informatics and a MSc in Management. 

 

In May 2022, the day finally arrived. I loaded my suitcases onto the luggage belt in Frankfurt, Germany and got on the plane to start a new chapter of my life – the Tech MBA at NYU Stern in my favourite place, New York City. 6179 kilometres away from my hometown in Germany. 

Moving to New York for the Tech MBA can come with a few unique challenges especially for international students. But once those are overcome, it gives you the opportunity to have an amazing experience that you wouldn’t get at home! To make the transition a bit easier, I’ll give some insights on my personal experience during the last 7 months.   

Finding a NYC family to celebrate holidays with is amazing

After you have found a place to live in New York, you obviously should make sure that you feel at home in the city. An especially lonely time for international students can be the holiday season, especially if you usually spend this time with your family at home. 

Fortunately, your NYU community will have you covered. My most favourite experience during the last few weeks especially leading up to our Thanksgiving break was celebrating “Friendsgiving” with the Tech MBA class (see picture below). Even though your family might not be there for the holidays, you’ll be able to celebrate with your classmates and especially with your international classmates – more than half of the Tech MBA students are from abroad so you will have friends who are in the same boat as you and will be able to support you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early visa application is everything

Especially international students should ensure to start preparing early on as there are a few things to look out for. One of the major processes you’ll have to go through is the visa application process, which varies based on your home country. One amazing resource NYU provides is NYU’s Office of Global Services (OGS). Even before you’ve officially started your MBA, OGS is by your side and will provide you with step-by-step guidance for the visa application, and can even take 1:1 meetings for specific questions. The process can take up to several months, so it is highly recommended to start applying for your visa as early as possible after being admitted. Further things to read up on are US health insurance and work authorization – here again the OGS provides a lot of material to read up on and assists with personal advice. 

Finding a home in the city from abroad might be challenging

Finding an apartment while living in New York can already be challenging – from abroad, with a potential time difference, it might be even harder. Thus, I can recommend two different but very effective strategies on how to pursue the apartment hunt for internationals.

1) Rent a sublet until the end of May to ensure you’re covered but have enough time to look at apartments in person. A lot of international students choose this way to find an apartment to make sure their new apartment is exactly as it’s advertised and to allow a stress-free move from their home country to the US. Since the full MBA experience anyways requires you to rent a place for 13 months (beginning of May Year 1 to end of May year 2), this can be a great way to rent an apartment with a regular NYC contract that runs for 12 months.

2) You can rent an apartment from abroad, but it’s helpful to have a friend go check out the apartment first. It’s important to do your due diligence and rely on the current MBA students to guide you through the process! Stern will send out a spreadsheet that can help you find a roommate in the program, and you can even rent apartments from graduating students.

Perks of having a large international community: International potlucks!

And last but not least – while it can be a bit more challenging to come to NYU as an international student, there are also amazing perks that come with it. The most important aspect for me is that you get to meet classmates from all over the world with different backgrounds. In our case, our full class benefited from all our differences, and we enjoy discussing different cultural backgrounds and learning from each other. One great way to learn about one another obviously is food! We regularly have international potlucks within our class, where everyone brings a dish from their home country and we have a delicious meal together. In the picture below you can see a few of the national dishes from our current Tech MBA class – Brazilian cheese bread, German cheese pasta, French apple pie, Austrian pancakes, Ukrainian pancakes & fish, Brazilian chocolate cake and of course Indian Samosas!

 

 

Benefits of a Tech MBA in NYC

Aafiya Jamal is currently an MBA Candidate in the Tech MBA Program at the NYU Stern School of Business. She recently moved to New York City from Dallas, Texas. Prior to Stern, Aafiya worked in technology consulting and supported clients in the financial services space, from traditional, global banking institutions to FinTech companies. Outside of the classroom, Aafiya serves as one of the Cohort Leaders for the Tech MBA and is involved in the Stern Technology Association and Stern Women in Business. 

As you explore your business school options, you may find yourself wondering whether New York City is the right place for you – especially if you’re very interested in pursuing a career in technology and torn between Stern and options on the West Coast. Trust me, I’ve been in your exact shoes and can tell you what drew me to NYC:

Breadth of Professional Opportunities

  • New York City offers a broader range of professional opportunities, which holds especially true for tech. Companies in any industry or domain, from financial services to fashion, require technically fluent individuals; what differentiates New York City over the West Coast is the pure breath and scale of these opportunities. Given that a majority of firms are either based in or have a major presence in New York City, this lends itself to even more opportunities at your disposal – far more than the West Coast can offer. For example, I had the opportunity this semester to engage in a client project as part of the Tech Solutions course, where I partnered with Roku to build a solution to better leverage product analytics data to support the company’s ad-tech strategy. Roku sits at the intersection of media and entertainment and technology, while the project gave me exposure to the advertising and product management domains – an opportunity I would not have had without Stern. 
Stern not only offered us the opportunity to work alongside Roku this semester, but also spend time with our project sponsor, in-person, in the New York City office!

Overlap of Existing Network

  • There is no doubt that Stern’s brand is very strong; however, there is a certain degree of comfort associated with reaching out to a familiar professional connection rather than a pure cold call (which can feel transactional in nature). Prior to Stern, I worked in consulting, and New York City is where my prior employer is based. As a result, I have a number of professional mentors and connections within the city, which enables me to keep up with trends in the workforce and broader market. These existing relationships, coupled with my Stern MBA, open doors to additional professional connections and employment opportunities in technology. It is likely that you, too, have personal and professional connections in the city, and I highly recommend that you capitalize on this.

Culture of New York City

  • Finally, New York City is unlike any other place in the world. As cliché as this sounds, I have never been around such ambitious, gifted, and hard-working people – both at Stern, as well as in the broader city. Engaging in this kind of environment pushes me to hustle and expand outside of my comfort zone in a way that no other business school could have. New York is arguably the most exciting place to live, and I’ve tried to make the most of my time here, from exploring incredible and diverse cuisine, to picnicking in Central Park, to attending sports games to celebrating the holiday season – all with my cohort. While one year is certainly a decent amount of time to experience the city, I hope that your chapter here extends beyond the length of the program. 

    Despite the busy schedule of the summer semester, we always made time to picnic throughout various parks in New York City! Central Park is cliche, but certainly a personal favorite!
Celebrating Friendsgiving with the cohort was definitely one of the highlights of my holiday season.

Preparing for a Rapidly Changing Industry

Eugenio Prati is an MBA Candidate in the Tech MBA Program. He moved to New York City from Ann Arbor, MI. Prior to Stern, Eugenio worked as a R&D Program Manager in the automotive industry. His team was responsible for leading new vehicle development from digital prototypes through to mass production. Outside the classroom, Eugenio is an avid runner and a member of the NYU Cycling Club.

Deciding to pursue an MBA can be a scary process. Initially I agonized over when it would be most strategic to quit my job to return to school. Later, I spent months drowning in MBA info sessions and marketing material desperately trying to understand the differences between schools and programs. I drove everyone around me crazy. One week I would tell them about the program I was most excited about and the following week I would tell them about a different program that was now atop my MBA list. The process was maddening, but once I chose NYU’s Tech MBA, I never looked back – and here’s why.

The world is changing and so should MBAs

Working in the automotive industry, the rise of EVs, autonomous vehicles, and car sharing, was a constant reminder of tech’s ability to drive change in any and every industry. From the pharmaceutical industry to financial services, the entire world is being shaped by technologies like cloud computing, machine learning, 5G, blockchain… The leaders of tomorrow will need to have more than business acumen. They will need to understand these technologies and their potential in order to make the strategic decisions their organizations expect from them. By combining tech and business fundamentals into a one year MBA, NYU Stern’s Tech MBA is tailor made for these changing times.

Best parts of the experience and curriculum

Our cohort is composed of people with and without tech experience from all over the world. The differing professional backgrounds provide insights into how to bridge the gap between those fluent in tech and those fluent in business/strategy. The international backgrounds provide insights into the differing levels of infrastructure, development, and tech adoption around the world. Combined, the eclectic group makes for invaluable debates and discussions. 

The experiential learning within the curriculum, Tech Immersion and Solutions, includes company visits on both the East and West Coasts, guest speakers from Google, Uber, Amazon, BCG, Skillshare, and others, as well as semester long group projects with companies such as Waze, Pfizer, KPMG, Roku, PayPal… This hands-on experience provides clarity on the direction Tech is headed in and the nature of MBA roles within it in ways that no lecture or Google search ever could. For example, while partnering with Pfizer, we got a first hand glimpse of how they think about digital innovation and the roadblocks they face when deploying innovations in a tightly regulated industry.

Finally, the curriculum pairs all the business fundamentals one expects from an MBA, with all the tech fundamentals one could want. Courses like Dealing with Data, Data Science for Business, and Foundations of Networks, gave us the SQL, Python, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript overview needed to collaborate with SW Engineers, Data Scientists, and Designers. Courses like Digital Currency and Blockchains are teaching us about the history of currency and the technology underpinning the future of finance. The list goes on…

Who would I recommend the Tech MBA to?

If you are excited about the future, fascinated by the technologies shaping the world around us, and hoping to make an impact, the Tech MBA is for you.

Be prepared to work. This is a one year program but it is a full MBA. Your summer will be intense, but if you grit your teeth you’ll get through it and you’ll be one step closer to having the skills you need to thrive in these changing times.

Networking with Alums & Current Students

Steven is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Financial Instruments & Markets and Management of Technology & Operations. He comes from a background in tech consulting at Deloitte where he was implementing financial software to complete full cycle digital transformations. He is involved on campus with many clubs including OutClass and Management Consulting Association.

At my last job, my coach told me when we first met, “Networking is part of work,” and this insight has always stuck with me. Networking is so important in all of our interactions because it open doors and leads to so many opportunities. I started my networking with Stern Alumni and current students about a year before I came to NYU. I wanted to get a feel of what the experience was going to be like, both from an education and social perspective, and to see where their MBA took them. These interactions led to so many lasting friendships and great professional relationships. 

At the end of the day, people like to help other people when you reach out. I would say don’t be afraid to ask others for a quick call or coffee chat, because you don’t know where this will lead. In part of my networking, pre-NYU, I learned about so many great opportunities that Stern had to offer such as specialized courses, clubs and recruiting. Now that I am at Stern, I have been able to broaden my network with so many clever aspirational classmates that have come from a wealth of industries. Having these friends with so much experience across different business backgrounds feels like I am being set up for success to easily and effectively execute professional dealings in the future as my career grows.

Through networking with current students and alumni, I realized that so many of us come to NYU without a clear understanding of what we want to do post MBA and how so many of us fluctuate with what will do professionally throughout our time at Stern. I was able to get insights into so many different industries and hear what others did through these connections. When I decided that I wanted to pivot careers from all of these chats, I was able to leverage my relationships with current classmates that came from the industry to help set me up with what I needed to do to be successful in this transition and actually get me ramped up for the career change. I was then able to lean on alumni to help connect me with leaders in the industry that would support me and be willing to take me under their wing. Ultimately, it has led for an easy transition into a new role. 

Overall, networking is important! You never know who can help you or who you can help one day. Be confident in reaching out to others because this will lead to so many lifelong friendships and professional relationships that will always be part of your network.

Company Visits & Beyond

Christy Kim is a MBA candidate at NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program, specializing in Business Analytics and Product Management. Prior to Stern, she worked at Deloitte Consulting, driving large-scale data and analytics transformations for clients across various industries. She additionally brings a background in product marketing, alliances, and tech sales and graduated from Duke University.

As a prospective candidate, you have two options:

  1. MBA experience with a summer internship (traditional 2-year program)
  2. MBA experience with multiple in-semester projects for top companies (welcome to our world!)

If I were presented today with the same options above, I would still choose option B in a heartbeat. Here are the 5 reasons why I believe our experiential learning curriculum provides above and beyond what can be gained through a summer internship alone:

1. GUARANTEED ‘INTERNSHIPS’ WITH TOP COMPANIES – and no recruiting or interviews required! Our 2-year MBA counterparts spend their first year recruiting for their summer internships; however, we fortunately had the following in-semester project opportunities land in our laps as part of our experiential learning courses:

A Dream Team: Pfizer Group A!
  • ‘Tech Immersion’ (Summer): Pfizer, KPMG
  • ‘Tech Solutions’ (Fall): 13 companies across various industries and of all sizes – including Waze, IKEA, PayPal, and Roku
  • [Optional] ‘Endless Frontier Labs’ (Fall & Spring): In place of ‘Tech Solutions’, you have the opportunity to take this course for hands-on work with Life Sciences, Digital Tech and Deep Tech startups

Through the above, some students have even found full-time employment opportunities with their respective companies!

2. BOOST YOUR LINKEDIN/RESUME. Through our experiential learning projects we act as consultants to the companies listed above. This is outstanding real world work experience which helps build our skills and our resume. We can also share our success during the recruiting process.

3. LEARN, APPLY, MAXIMIZE. The beauty of our experiential learning curriculum is that the course lessons are directly aligned to our project expectations and deliverables. For example, we had the following interactive sessions over the summer to help with our client deliverable preparations: 

In addition, we also had the opportunity to apply our learnings from our core courses (e.g. Entrepreneurship, Strategy) to our projects as well. This chronological, methodological yet practical approach to learning is one that I have yet to experience in my undergraduate years or professional life.

4. FAIL SAFE, LEARN FAST – a key, unique benefit of the experiential learning experience. With formal summer internships, there may be less opportunity for interns to ‘fail safe’ as their individual return offers are on the line. Through the Tech MBA program, our experiential learning curriculum allows us to:

  • Consult for top companies with a focus on innovation, experimentation, and learning (shoutout to our professor, J.P. Eggers, for always ensuring that our client project direction stayed on course for learning maximization!)
  • Receive continuous direction and feedback from our clients and project leadership (e.g. we had review/feedback sessions every 3-4 weeks)
  • Collaborate and lead in a small group setting with our classmates (e.g. my group maintained rotating leaders on a weekly basis)

    On-site visit and guest speaker session at Google!
Myself and Divya Mehta’s mock pitch for Goldman Sachs Accelerate!

5. TIME TO EXPLORE (& CONFIRM). The summer ‘Tech Immersion’ course served to be a great kickoff to the exploration of my post-MBA career path. I had planned to use this time in the MBA to confirm my continued career in tech consulting or explore other paths (specifically product management) that may be a good fit with my long-term career goals. The course not only  helped re-confirm my continued passion for client services (i.e. Pfizer project), but also provided a great introduction/sneak peek into the world of product management. I plan to build on these experiences and continue the exploration through the rest of the program; I am excited to see what the future holds for not only myself, but also for our entire cohort!

 

Community within the Tech MBA

Alina is a current Tech MBA student at Stern. Within Stern, she is part of the Stern Women in Business Club‘s board. Before starting her MBA, Alina gained professional experience in Digital Strategy Consulting at McKinsey in Europe and in multiple roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Germany and Singapore. She holds a BSc in Business Informatics and a MSc in Management. 

 

How quickly can you bond with 54 other Tech MBAs? Well, apparently it only takes days after meeting them. The first time I got in touch with my classmates was even before the official start of the program. One bold classmate decided to invite all of us over to her building for a party which turned out to be one of the first nights we bonded as a class (see picture below).

Now, the community within our Tech MBA can be described as especially close. Our class profile is made up of 55 individuals with different backgrounds, from over 15 different countries, with between 1-15 years of work experience, different personality types from very introverted to especially extroverted, and with an age difference of more than 12 years between our youngest and oldest class members. Still, we have similar values – we truly embrace Stern’s emphasis on community which is one of the essential reasons why our class climate is especially welcoming and friendly. 

To me, the community within the MBA class was an important factor in deciding on a grad school. I came to New York as an international student from Germany with only a very small network in the city. Especially when leaving family and friends behind on a different continent, the strong bond within a class was particularly critical for me. The Tech MBA at NYU Stern was the perfect choice as the MBA community was there for me from Day One. A few highlights have been finding roommates on our class Slack channel, apartment search hacks and personally curated restaurant / bar lists shared with the class from our NYC-based classmates (New Yorker’s equivalent to gold), and finally, that we got to know each other through our Slack channel even before the start of the program. 

As we are a small cohort of 55 students, it is possible to get to know your classmates quickly. Additionally, as classes start in the summer semester, it is incredibly effortless to connect within the Stern buildings as it’s only Focused MBAs on campus. During the summer months, we had an intense syllabus with 19.5 credits – but this also allowed us to get to know each other through numerous group projects and more intimate MBA events. Of course, we also got to explore New York City after class and on the weekends.

Besides classes, the community within the Tech MBA offers tremendous support to help prepare  for recruiting. As all of us already have strong backgrounds in different industries and roles, we regularly take the time to share our experiences within our classes, and there are even several interview practice groups where classmates help each other with interview prep. 

The summer months created a strong bond within the Tech MBA. Besides connecting in class and during group projects, our incredible social committee organizes regular class events as well as a class trip to the Finger Lakes during the summer months. 

In the fall, club activities pick up again which will allow us to connect with 2-year MBA students. We get to choose a range of electives and have more space in our syllabus, so this time can be used to connect within the wider Stern network. 

For the spring semester, we already have the next class trip planned – this time we will explore the home country of one of our classmates, Colombia!

All those small but valuable things make up the strong community within the Tech MBA as part of the bigger, incredible NYU Stern network. This community made the first months of the program especially fun and helped me to create a home in the city.

Advantages of a One Year MBA

Carlos Rincon is a full-time MBA candidate in NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program. Before Stern, Carlos worked in management consulting at Bain in Colombia, Brazil, and Chile. Upon graduation, he plans to work in strategy at a tech company. 

 

 

 

 

Why an accelerated tech MBA program at Stern? 

For me, there were several elements for why an accelerated program focused on tech was the best decision. The two foremost are: (1) Having a clear vision that I want to focus my future career in tech and (2) being an international student, I was eager to gain experience in the New York City and US tech scene. Some of the advantages I see include: 

Tech is a fast-moving industry: To be ahead in tech, you need to be building permanently.

  • New opportunities generated by Internet penetration: This creates an environment where technology developers can create and change things anywhere at any time. This “coding offer increase” is a complete market shift from the past, where one of the main constraints to develop was to have more coders. 
  • The duration of the program not only means you will return to the market faster, but the program design allows you to be constantly updated on what the New York tech ecosystem is doing.

More interaction with the tech cohort: The tech cohort is not only small (just ~50 people) which allows deep bonding, but also has more experience and general interest in the current tech trends such as the metaverse, blockchain, decentralization, intelligent cities, crypto, etc.

  • The Tech MBA class profile also attracts people with more experience (6.2 years against 5.0 years of the regular MBA), leading to more knowledge on how to approach and leverage classes.
  • The experience of the class concentrates on tech trends that will address the future of the world, creating compelling environments in the classroom conversations on these topics.

Return On Investment: As an international student, I was very focused on the program’s ROI. Although there isn’t time for an internship, the recruiting season begins in the fall, when Tech MBA and second-year MBA students are ready to be back in the market upon graduation in May. 

  • This results in a great recruiting season with second-year MBA students returning to the workforce in only one year 

Entrepreneurial spirit: A significant group of students in our tech cohort have experience in startups or entrepreneurship, or are interested in pursuing this in the future. If you are interested in looking for co-founders, having exciting conversations, or understanding how startups work, you will find a group of people with experience in this field.

  • Joining the entrepreneurship groups is also a great way to acquire some experience and gain exposure to how the VC world works.

Things to keep in mind:

Networking

  • Not having a summer internship requires more focus on the type of industry you want to pursue during the recruiting season. Define the industries and companies you want and begin to build relationships to be updated on job offers and recommendations. Spend energy generating authentic relationships with the companies you target. 
  • My advice – leverage ALL of the Stern network. After defining the companies where you want to work, contact the Stern alums at that company doing relevant roles to the ones you target. The sense of community of Stern is such that most of the time, you will receive an answer and indeed some availability to have a coffee chat and understand better how the company works and if it indeed adjusts to what you want to do. (They have been incredibly helpful to me)

Summer is intense, but don’t stress out!

  • Don’t miss the opportunity to know more of your classmates and do fun things. The program is fast and busy, but putting in the extra time to explore the city with your cohort and get to know one another is beneficial both personally and professionally! 
    • Advice: If you need help with the summer classes, don’t hesitate to ask. One of your classmates will be familiar with the subject, and everybody is receptive to help. You are all in this together!
  • If you’re interested in pursuing consulting or banking, spend time refining your skills over the summer so that you are prepared when the club activities start in the Fall and full-time recruiting ramps up. Don’t miss any opportunity to travel with your cohort! 
  • Unfortunately, time goes rapidly, so understand when your breaks take place and organize all the trips you can with your cohort!

Tips for Prospective Tech MBA Candidates

Carina is a full-time MBA candidate in NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program, specializing in Product Management and Strategy. Prior to Stern, Carina lived in Boca Raton, FL and has 6 years of experience in account management at a hospitality tech company. Upon graduation, she wants to utilize her passion for great UX and years of customer-facing experience within the technology space to pursue a product management role. 

Applying to business school can be daunting. There’s a lot to do between preparing for the GMAT/GRE, keeping track of the various application components, and juggling everyday life! You spend a lot of time in self-reflection: What are your goals? What have you accomplished professionally? What direction do you want your career to take? To help you kick off this journey, here are my top 10 tips for prospective candidates when applying to business school:  

 

  1.     Do Your Research

An MBA is an investment in your future self, it’s important that you take the time to do research about the program you are applying for to ensure that it’s the right fit for you. What electives interest you? What clubs would you be interested in joining? Does the program curriculum align with helping you achieve your post-MBA goals? 

Take your time to walk through the Stern Tech MBA website to read about the specific components of the program, watch videos and check out resources like this blog to read about student experiences.

When doing my own research, the Tech MBA program stood out to me because it provided exactly what I was looking for: a one-year program in a city, a strong tech-focused curriculum, and resources that would help me develop the skills to transition into product management. For me, the reading about the tech-focused curriculum with classes like Tech Product Management and Dealing with Data combined with several experiential learning opportunities helped solidify that the Tech MBA made the most sense for me.

  1.     Attend Admissions events

The Admissions team hosts a variety of events throughout the application season. One of my favorite events I attended was the mock application session. It helped me tremendously as I worked through the application and set a clear expectation as to what the AdCom was looking for! Another favorite was an event organized by the Stern Women In Business club – hearing the passion and excitement from the students about their time at Stern really helped solidify my decision to apply. Keep an eye out for Stern club-hosted events that align with your interests to get a feel for the student body at Stern.

Coffee Chats are another student-hosted event that provides you with the opportunity to hear about their experience and ask questions!

  1.     Reflect on Your Why

Research and attending events helps you craft your “why” behind why you’re applying to NYU. But it’s also important to know why you want an MBA, why Stern, and why, specifically, a focused one-year program. This will not only help you with your essays, but your interview as well!

  1.     Ask Questions

Based on your goals, your research and your why for business school – ask any dire questions you may have! Utilize Coffee Chats, Admissions events or even reach out to a current student. Clubs are also a great resource to learn more about the student experience. This all works towards helping you make an informed decision and crafting your message throughout your application.

I leveraged the Coffee Chats I attended to ask questions about students pursuing product management roles to see how they shaped their Stern experience. The students I talked to not only gave me ideas about clubs to join and electives to consider but also explained how specific required courses supported the building skills key to pursuing product management.

  1.     Be Authentically You

You’ll see throughout Stern admissions events and the websites the mention of “EQ” – how you represent your emotional intelligence is so important and the best way to demonstrate that is to authentically represent yourself. The best essays and answers are the ones that truly represent who you are as a person – your passions, your goals, your experience, your personality. This is seen throughout your application components, but nothing can duplicate the uniqueness you demonstrated in your Pick 6 essay! Take the time to brainstorm how you can best represent this throughout your application and do not stress about what you think the admissions team wants to see!

  1.     Your contribution to Stern

What clubs do you want to join and how do you see yourself getting involved? How can you leverage your previous experience and contribute to your class? The Stern community? What resources do you strive to utilize while at Stern? Community is such a large part of Stern, I can say with certainty that it is the greatest part of my experience so far. 

The summer semester of the Tech MBA dives into the business core and technology core classes, it is intense, but it was also a time where the Tech MBA community leaned on each other to succeed. There was always a fellow Sternie willing to spend extra time talking through a topic if that meant their knowledge could help you develop a better understanding – I saw this throughout the summer as we jumped from classes like Dealing with Data to Finance. Outside of class, we are always arranging social gatherings. Moving to New York and starting business school was certainly a transition, but this community has tremendously impacted my experience so far! 

  1.     How will you benefit from your time at Stern?

Beyond an MBA degree in hand, how will the Tech MBA at Stern help you achieve your goals? 

In the short time I have been at Stern, I’m already working toward goals I have set for myself: continue to build technical skills, explore areas of tech I’m unfamiliar with and prepare for recruiting for a product manager role. This summer, I continued developing SQL and Python skills during Dealing with Data, and I’m excited to take Data Visualization this fall to continue developing data-related skills. While the Fall semester has just started, the Stern Tech Association has already begun hosting helpful sessions like a knowledge management session about full-time recruiting for tech roles and highlighting job postings in their weekly newsletter. 

  1.     Organization is Key

Create a plan to ensure you have all required paperwork, letters of recommendation, essays and your application completed and submitted by or before the deadline you are aiming for! Choose a deadline and use that as your guide as you work to complete all application requirements. I personally found maintaining a Google Sheet and calendar alerts helped keep me on track! Make sure to ask your recommenders with plenty of time before the deadline so that they’re not rushed, and allow yourself plenty of time to write the best version of your essays.

  1.     Ask for a second set of eyes

As I finalized my essays, one of the most helpful things I did was ask friends I trusted to read through them. This helped me catch anything I may have missed, and they provided good insight as well! As you work through this process, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and a fresh perspective is so helpful! Whenever I got stuck, I found brainstorming with someone and talking it out helped as well. Lean on your community!

  1. Brag about yourself

This is your time to show everything that’s great about you! Show it off with pride and confidence. 

Immersion Programming in the Tech MBA

Kaitlyn Murdock is a Tech MBA candidate, specializing in Healthcare & Strategy. Prior to Stern, she worked at Deloitte, supporting strategy and analytics engagements for Life Sciences & Health Care clients. Kaitlyn is passionate about improving care outcomes for patients with technology and data. 

 

 

 

The Tech MBA is an incredible opportunity that packs all the classes a traditional 2-year student would take into 12 months. When evaluating MBA programs, one major reservation I had about the Tech MBA is the lack of a summer internship. However, the curriculum and programming is designed in a way that exposes students to many companies around New York City, setting us up to build our network and transition into a post MBA role. One of the hallmark classes of the program is the NYC Tech Immersion course, an all-day, once a week class during the summer. The NYC Tech Immersion consists of two main parts: 

  1. A real-life consulting project for a New York-based company, and
  2. Guest speakers and company site visits 

In today’s post, I’ll focus on the latter. Over the summer, our class heard from product managers and professionals in Digital Health, FinTech, EduTech, and more, and had the opportunity to visit the offices of Google and Uber. 

NYC Tech Landscape

In our very first session, professor J.P. Eggers gave an overview of the New York tech scene. He explained how a successful startup ecosystem requires strong talent (universities), desirable employers (to retain that talent), and sources of funding. Over the last decade, New York’s tech and start-up scene has boomed. It’s a very exciting time to attend school in such an active ecosystem. Hearing from guest speakers like Andrew Chang and Christophe Gillet helped me better understand what New York has to offer and how to break into the start-up scene.

Understanding Tech Trends

By speaking with experts in the industry, we got a glimpse into which emerging technologies businesses really care about. Given the technology landscape changes daily, it’s important to stay current and be able to speak to technology trends in interviews. Joshua Ness from Verizon’s 5G Labs explained the history and importance of 5G-enabled distributed computing and its relation to Web3 technologies. As technology progresses, public policy does too; in another session we had Mike Posner and Paul Barrett from the Center for Business and Human Rights speak about ethics and the responsibilities of a tech company to protect its users.

Networking & Company Culture

Each guest speaker offered a valuable chance to connect with someone in the industry. In addition to visiting Google and Uber, we had guests from Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Pinterest, Skillshare, and BCG to name a few. Each guest was willing to chat with students to offer advice and be a resource in the future. These sessions also provided a ‘peek behind the curtain’, giving our class a better understanding of the operations and culture of each business. 

Drawing Connections 

In hindsight, perhaps the most valuable part of our Tech Immersion programming was the ability to draw connections with our other summer classes. We went through a real-life marketing case for Skillshare’s rebranding, and applied what we learned in Entrepreneurship to give a mock pitch to a speaker from Goldman Sachs’ incubator, GS Accelerate. Fitz Maro, a specialist in Design Technology at Amazon, taught us how to make better decisions as a leader, reinforcing what we learned in our Leadership course. We also had the opportunity to utilize the skills we developed in our Strategy course to a case on Uber’s product expansion. Making these connections across courses enriches the MBA experience and helps us appreciate the value of what we learn.

I LOVED our NYC Tech Immersion class. Many of my peers connected with our speakers on a personal and professional level. For me personally, our session with Dr. Sarah Zweifach, AliveCor product manager, illuminated that joining a mid-size digital health startup could be an exciting career path. I’m currently pursuing part-time internships in this space. 

This class was a fantastic way to get to know New York’s tech landscape and is just one of many reasons to pursue the Tech MBA at Stern!

How to Prepare for Business School

As I prepared to start the Tech MBA program at NYU, I felt a wave of emotions: excitement, joy, eagerness, and a little anxiety…I read over the checklists, signed the necessary documents, set up my portals, and tried to prepare myself for a new chapter.

In addition to checking off the boxes on your “to do before business school” list, I recommend taking some time to turn inward to set yourself up for success. Here are a few tips:

Reflect on your why
Earning an MBA is an incredible opportunity to develop skills and build a network to take your career to new heights. However, there are plenty of ways to achieve your career goals. To get the most out of your business school experience, it is important to understand why you decided to apply and ultimately enroll in the program. Are you aiming to gain leadership skills, technical expertise, or to dive deep into a particular domain? Are you most interested in building a professional network? Are you hoping to start your own business and you’re looking for a co-founder and guidance for raising capital? There are many reasons why individuals go to business school and understanding your motivating force before the first day will help you make the most out of the experience.

Prioritize your goals
You might have multiple aspirations for what you want to achieve during your time at Stern. There are many opportunities to get involved with clubs, attend extracurricular activities, TA a class, attend networking and social events, etc. If you want to, you can fill up every hour of the day with something exciting. Business school is a great time to explore new things, but it is also important to prioritize your goals. Reflect on your why and write down what goals are most important to you. For example, your goals might be to hold a leadership position for a club and attend one speaker session per week. Your friend might prioritize working hard in a class so that she can TA the following semester. Someone else might prioritize landing an in-semester internship. Of course it is important to keep an open mind, but writing down your initial goals at the beginning of the year will help you stay on track.

Meet your classmates
If you live in NYC or plan to move here before the first day of orientation, you might want to meet some of your future classmates in person. Check out the Slack group and reach out to a few students. Our cohort met a handful times in the park or for dinner to get to know each other before orientation. While this is not necessary, having a few familiar faces on the first day of orientation won’t hurt!

Relax and savor the moment
You were accepted to a top business school. Business school is an exciting experience, but you worked hard to get to this moment. Take a minute to acknowledge your accomplishments and celebrate.

What to Expect From Your Tech MBA Summer

One of the most unique parts of the Tech MBA is the summer semester – there are no other students on campus, you get to bond with your cohort, and start your journey as an MBA. If you’re wondering what a typical day in the life of a Tech MBA student in the summer looks like, it’s a very busy but exciting time! It’s also a great transition from working into school, since your schedule is more like a 9-5 working day. Here’s an example of what a typical day might look like:

  • 8am – 9am: Commute from Brooklyn to campus
  • 9am – 11:50am: Class 1: Economics
  • 11:50am – 12:30pm: Lunch in the park with friends
  • 12:30pm – 1:30pm: Catch up on reading in the student lounge
  • 1:30pm – 4:20pm: Class 2: Leadership
  • 4:20-6:00pm: Work on assignments
  • 6:00pm: Head home or grab dinner/drinks with Stern friends

Classes you will take: The summer is all about Core classes, and they’re in a special format to accommodate for taking everything over the summer. You’ll take Economics, Leadership, Accounting, Marketing, Communications, and many more courses, but in essence are taking most of the core curriculum that MBA1s take in their first year. The benefits of this are that professors distill down their content to the most important information, and you get a ‘greatest hits’ experience. The challenge can be time management because you need to make time for homework in the evenings and on the weekend. One great part is that everyone is in the same courses, so it’s easy to lean on each other for support.

How to take advantage of the summer in NYC: Since everyone is more or less on the same schedule, it means you’ll get to spend many of your days together during the week! It’s a great time to get outside in Washington Square Park to study or hang out, and check out all of the amazing lunch spots near campus. My personal favorite is Court Street Grocers. Our cohort did lots of fun summer activities, including a lobster boat cruise in Manhattan and outdoor rock climbing in Brooklyn.

What I wish I had done looking back: Time management can be difficult during the summer, because there are so many classes packed into a short period. The best way to manage for me was to block off certain nights or weekends where I would dedicate myself to getting work for the week done. I also used a program called Trello to make a board with tickets for every assignment that I could group by deadline or priority, which helped me make sure I knew what was coming up. Our cohort also made a #homework channel on Slack, and someone volunteered to post assignments each Monday. Like I said – lean on one another!

The summer is a really amazing time, and was my favorite part of the whole program! For those of you about to start the program, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Leadership Opportunities at Stern

Before I joined NYU Stern’s Tech MBA program, as an aspiring manager, I always wondered what opportunities would the school provide for me to grow as an impactful leader? How would these compare to the two-year MBA program? And, how do I prepare to arrive at school so I can best leverage these opportunities?

After completing almost a full year in the program, there are a number of opportunities I participated in that helped me strengthen my leadership & management skills while making the most of the program. I hope you consider participating in these as you choose to pursue your own Tech MBA!

  1. Cohort Leader Opportunity: Early in the academic year, Stern gives a taste of what winning an election must feel like, haha! Jokes aside, students elect a cohort leader who serves as a liaison between the administration and your Tech MBA class.  
  2. MBA Admissions Graduate Assistantship: Into the second semester, Admissions Committee selects 3-4 candidates as the face of Stern’s Tech MBA program. These students regularly mentor, guide and serve as ambassadors for both the aspiring MBA students and the admitted students. *wink* they’re the best *wink* As a GA, I have loved talking with so many of you about your journey to business school!
  3. Professional Club Opportunities: There are a number of professional clubs which provide important board positions for the Tech MBA students. Every year, 1-2 students get elected to executive positions within Stern Tech Association, Management Consulting Association, Data Analytics Club, and more. This serves as an excellent opportunity to shape the experience of Tech MBA students for next decade, especially given how the Tech MBA is still relatively new.
  4. Fun Club Opportunities: In addition to professional clubs, Stern also has a lot of special interest and affinity clubs. I personally am closely involved with Stern Football Association, Stern Follies, South Asian Business Association at Stern and Stern Comedy Club. So, spread your wings and find where your affinity lies – most clubs reserve a leadership position for Tech MBA students, which is a great way to get even more involved.
  5. Orientation Leader: Each year, the Office of Student Engagement recruits 4 Orientation Leaders who work to enable a smoother transition for the upcoming cohort. Personally, the Orientation Leaders were real gems when it came to guiding my initial exploration through the program after moving to New York from India last year. I am thankful for their wisdom, and the it seems like a really fun position!
  6. Miscellaneous: Apart from the aforementioned formal opportunities, Stern’s diverse, EQ-centered community continually presents other platforms to rise up and shine as a community leader. Just last semester, when we were struggling with Finance, some knights in shining armor rose up to use their professional experience to guide us in our projects :). Additionally, students who went through the Fall recruiting process and have their job secured have been hosting casing practice and mock interviews for those of us doing just-in-time recruiting in Spring. Even in small groups, Stern students show their leadership and commitment to helping fellow students.

To summarize, not only are there a ton of opportunities available for students to explore, you will also be able to create your own opportunities as you navigate through this amazing journey at Stern.

How to Pick an Apartment in NYC

Moving to New York City for the first time is not easy, it is a whole adventure. It is even harder when the decision of coming to the city has been made quickly. Through this brief post, I want to give some advice on how to do it, so the experience can be smooth and efficient.

There are three things that you should consider before moving: budget, area and building requirements.

The first thing that must be decided is the budget. Once you have a clear range defined, you can look which areas of the city have places in which you are comfortable with the prices. To do this, use apps like StreetEasy and Naked Apartments. Both apps will show you basic information about each building and prices. Beyond this, I recommend looking for ratings of the buildings for previous experiences, which is a good way to know if the buildings are in good shape or if the landlords & property managers behave in a professional manner when faced with difficult situations. This will save you many problems.

Most upcoming Stern students try to look at areas close to the NYU, often in West Village or East Village. Nevertheless, the school has a bus that can take you all around the city, so it is good to map out your location against that route and the subways.

After knowing budget and area, it is important to analyze building requirements. There are buildings that ask for proof of income for one year, or a guarantor. These requirements could be difficult to meet as you are going to be studying for at least a year, and even harder if you are an international student. Therefore, it will be more efficient to know which buildings can adjust to your situation.

This city moves very fast, so if you see an available apartment one day, it could be gone as quickly as the next day. I recommend you have four or five buildings/ units in mind. I also recommend visiting the city for four or five days and conducting apartment visits. Once you see any apartment that you like, ask for an application and move forward (if possible, on the spot). You don’t want to lose your chance!

With this approach you will have an apartment in your budget, in an area that you like, avoiding stress in the process. It is a whirlwind of an experience, but it’s all worth it to live in such an amazing city!

Building Community in the Tech MBA Program

A huge part of the Stern experience is getting to know your classmates, Stern alumni, and faculty, and building long-lasting relationships.

I have to admit I was a bit nervous about making strong connections in a one-year program, however I’ve been blown away by the professional and personal relationships I’ve formed during my time at Stern.

The one year Tech MBA program is unique because students take the full business “core” during an intensive summer semester. Tech MBA students dive head first into the curriculum and are in class together five days a week for 12 weeks. This summer semester creates the optimal environment to get to know the cohort very quickly. Not only are you paired with classmates during class projects, but students also get the opportunity to socialize during lunch and after class.

In the fall, Tech MBA students are fully integrated into the Stern community and join clubs and take elective classes with MBA 1s and 2s. I enjoyed participating in Stern Women in Business, Stern Technology Association, and Stern Adventures events to meet Sternies outside of my cohort. Additionally, clubs are a great resource to meet alumni and network with the broader Stern community. Through club engagements I’ve met alumni at top tech firms and formed relationships with them to help me through the recruiting process.

Outside of the classroom and formal Stern sponsored events, there are opportunities for students to gather socially and travel together. Our cohort organized a ski trip to Utah during winter break, which was a great way to bond while participating in a fun activity. My classmates have gone on hiking trips and a group recently traveled to Colombia for spring break. Throughout the semester, our class also holds a weekly happy hour on Wednesdays that anyone can attend. We’ve even taken food tours in various NYC neighborhoods and gone to karaoke! Spending time in and out of the classroom with my cohort has been so much fun.

I’ve made lifelong friends at Stern and am confident that the supportive network I’ve built will help me succeed in my career and beyond.

Moving to NYC for the first time?

One of the most exciting parts of the Stern Tech MBA program is the opportunity to live and be a student in Manhattan! However, it can be daunting to think about moving to one of the most well known cities in the world. It is quite natural to feel intimidated, or even unsure, about making this kind of move. I moved to New York City from Boston in 2016, and while I had a network of friends from college already living here, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the apartment search process. There are so many neighborhoods and options, and it felt difficult to determine which apartments would be a good fit. 

I used resources like Street Easy and The Listings Project to look for apartments and eventually found a great spot in Williamsburg, which is a neighborhood in Brooklyn. I have lived in Brooklyn ever since, and found it easy to commute to Manhattan for class. If you aren’t a fan of waking up earlier for those 9am classes, it might make sense to look at housing in the West Village, Noho, or Soho to be able to walk to class, but for me it takes about 30-40 minutes via direct train to get to campus. There are different options for looking at housing during your time at school. NYU offers student housing, which is very close to campus. Pricing wise, the student housing might not be much cheaper, so many students decide to look for apartments on their own. Many people in our class live together after meeting online or at pre-MBA events. My classmates live ALL over the city, in Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, and even New Jersey. New York City is on a speedier rental cycle, so most apartments go on the market about one month prior to the move in date. At first this worried me, but once I started searching, I realized there were so many options it didn’t make much of a difference. It’s important to have documentation like your admission letter, bank and tax statements, and prior landlord information on hand when you are looking, because the process can move quite quickly. Remember that there is no wrong neighborhood to live in!

New York City has so much to offer. I am constantly reading about new restaurants on The Infatuation, and starting the MBA really opened me up to new spots, cultures, and amazingly fun activities with my new classmates. Even as someone who had been living in the city for quite some time, it was incredible to connect with classmates and have tons of fun in a city where so many people were just moving to and making the most of. And remember, a home can be whatever you need it to be, so once you settle into your student routine, you will be able to control your pace and make plenty of time for rest and recharge. 

Why is it Important to Understand Innovation?

Joseph Schumpeter, one of the most important economists of last century, related growth with the capacity to innovate. He coined the term “creative destruction” to describe the process of disrupting old habits (products, services, practices, etc.) for new ones. He saw capitalism as the most useful system to incentivize the impactful power of entrepreneurs to create and deliver value for improving quality of life for people.

In the last decades we have witnessed new technologies maturing in parallel, and due to the pandemic, many trends have accelerated. A lot of capital has moved from traditional industries to nontraditional, and new technologies and startups are disrupting old and long-lasting industries. This is supported by based technologies like cloud, IoT, 5G, blockchain, among others, that have been granting more innovation.

So why is it important to understand this? Innovation is uncertain and nobody can predict the future, but it does have patterns. Understanding how disruption has behaved in the past can allow us to understand in what part of its development each technology is located. Sometimes, technologies are received with a lot of echoes by the market, and we may think that they won’t stop until they have been generalized and used in many fields. Many times, this is only hype, fueled by a trend that won’t last. In order to improve, they may need more time, more capital, or perhaps the technology is not disruptive or useful enough.

Innovation normally coexists between three edges: technology, business, and regulation. Therefore, a Tech MBA is incredibly relevant. The program uses technology as a toolkit for facing business challenges in a way that creates and delivers value. There are cases in which is the problem involves more than simple business, like health tech, and understanding these concepts helps us drive impactful change.

We are living in a time in which most industries are trying to transform into tech. This transformation could be in how they reach their clients, in the experience that their customers have, in production, or in how they use data (among MANY others). Stern’s Tech MBA combines resources and knowledge to be able to connect the dots, lead teams, create capabilities to build a stronger vision for facing the future.

Entrepreneurship at Stern

Stern offers a wide range of entrepreneurship opportunities. Whether you are looking to start your own company or join an existing startup as an early employee or cofounder, Stern has resources to help you achieve your goals. This post will explore some of the amazing centers, programs, and classes that Stern entrepreneurs can take advantage of during their time in business school.

Leslie E Lab
The Leslie Entrepreneurs Lab is a physical building in the heart of the Washington Square campus where aspiring NYU entrepreneurs from across all of NYU’s schools and colleges can meet to connect, collaborate, and tap into a vast array of resources to help develop their ideas and inventions into startup companies. Anyone currently at NYU can take advantage of the resources offered by the Leslie eLab, so it serves as a great place to meet current NYU students, faculty, researchers, and staff. In response to COVID-19, the eLab held virtual programming, workshops, and social events to help the NYU entrepreneurship community thrive during challenging times.

Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship
The Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship is a venture design studio within NYU Stern School of Business. The Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship exists to help foster entrepreneurship at Stern and provide support as entrepreneurs navigate the many challenges their new ventures encounter. The Center provides startup accelerator programs, mentoring, workshops and technical assistance, all designed to provide NYU students, alumni, faculty and staff with the skills and resources needed to discover and execute bold new ideas. The team members at the Berkley Center provide general advising services in addition to helping founders connect with subject matter experts in various functional areas such as branding, customer strategy, legal, prototyping, etc. The Berkley Center also hosts the Entrepreneurship Challenge and Stern Venture Fellows program.

Entrepreneurship and Startup Association (ESA)
ESA is a student-run organization with the mission to empower its members through unparalleled access to NYC’s vibrant entrepreneurial community. ESA provides education and information on the entrepreneurial resources available to Stern MBAs. By empowering and educating its members, ESA aims to position Stern as the broader NYU community’s hub for entrepreneurial activity.

Classes
Foundations of Entrepreneurship: This class is designed to increase the chances of entrepreneurial success by helping aspiring founders or startup employees identify and thus avoid a range of dilemmas all startups face. To do so, this class provides a broad introduction and overview of entrepreneurship based on a range of teaching methods including: academic research, cases, empirical data, videos, and guest speakers.

Managing the Growing Company: This course exposes students to the unique challenges of managing the growth of small businesses. It concentrates on building the company issues rather than start-up issues, although some cases and lectures explore start-ups as well. Included are studies of family businesses that have acute growth issues because of succession and family dynamics. It is designed for students interested in understanding the opportunities and problems involved in the management or operation of their own business, and it is also aimed at students considering employment in a small or midsized firm.

Endless Frontier Labs: Students will learn about the process of successfully taking new ventures to markets, including aspects related to development, management, and financing of ventures. The course will be centered on student observations of the interactions of startup founders & their potential investors. After familiarizing themselves with the startups’ ideas, students will apply basic analytical tools, drawn from management, econ, and finance to evaluate the size of markets, attractiveness of industries, financing options of early-stage ventures, sustainable competitive advantage of proposed strategies, and the risks and potential of ideas. Along with the experiential component, the course will introduce students to a framework for developing an entrepreneurial strategy.

If you are interested in a dynamic startup ecosystem with the resources, faculty, and alumni to help guide your experience, NYU Stern is a great place to begin or continue your entrepreneurship journey.

My favorite course this semester: Emerging Technologies and Business Innovation

I started a Tech MBA so I could “speak and understand” technology, but mainly to use it as a tool to face business challenges and scale solutions. I am enjoying the program as the mix of courses is accurate for this goal. There are incredible courses related to business and others to technology. There are many special courses, but my favorite one has been “Emerging Technologies and Business Innovation,” dictated by the professor Alex Tuzhilin.

This course wraps up what every person who wants to develop a career around innovation would need to know. It starts explaining innovation as the interaction between business, technology, and regulation. With this in mind, we discussed a framework that was present all over the course: the can-do/ should-do. This is a useful perspective to understand how and when to use certain technologies considering their feasibility, context, ethics, and business sense.

We reviewed the history of innovation and technology, watching how certain technologies faced a phase of hype due to an excitement of the market (many times overreaction), but then they lose its attention (and its capital) because they are not useful. Sometimes they just die, or sometimes they come more solid and disrupt markets. Getting to see this in a conceptual analysis, with a big picture perspective, is useful to be able to understand the nature of innovation and use it.

After this framework, we analyzed technologies that passed through the phase of gloom and now are succeeding. These technologies have the potential to shape many fields in business and human activities. We saw virtual reality, big data, knowledge management, and artificial intelligence. In each case we reviewed what industries are impacted and the challenges around them for the present and the future. We saw industries like healthcare, education, work, among others.

During the course we not only studied these conceptual topics, but also reviewed cases around each topic and received guest speakers to put what has been learned in perspective. I really enjoyed the course because it was totally conceptual – now I feel more prepared to analyze our fast-moving world. I feel I have the tools to feed my curiosity looking to the future with a more structured framework.

Why I Chose Stern’s Tech MBA Program

I always hoped I might go to business school, but five years into working, that goal felt more and more overwhelming. I didn’t see a world in which I would be willing to take two years away from my career trajectory and feel like the ends justifies the means. Working in the tech industry where new programs, technologies, and companies are launched daily, taking two years away from the hustle felt impossible.

Once I started to look into different programs, knowing I wanted to stay in New York City, I was pleasantly surprised to discover the Tech MBA program at Stern. At first I thought this must be too good to be true – how could one complete a full MBA program in just one year? Upon speaking to current students in the program, I grew more and more excited about the opportunity to complete an MBA in a year, within my specialized industry, and to join a cohort of students who share the same passion and commitment to the tech industry. 

I’d like to tell you about a few components of the program that make it special, and that have benefited me throughout the experience. First, spending one consolidated year in school felt like the right choice, because I would need to be very intentional about the classes I took and how I spent my time with clubs and social activities. I have really learned in to the experience – it flies by so quickly! 

Next, I wanted the option to take very technical courses and strengthen my product management acumen. I had always told myself I would learn how to code in my free time, but having the access to a blended business and technology core has helped me realize this goal. Taking classes like Dealing with Data, Data Science for Business, and Foundations of Mobile Networks have allowed me to learn how to code in Python, run data models in Weka, and understand the basics of network connectivity. We even had a session about UX design and a workshop on Figma, which I had always been too intimidated to learn in the past!

Finally, I was also attracted to the small class size of the cohort for the Tech MBA. While a typical MBA class might have up to one thousand students, I am really pleased that my Tech MBA cohort has fifty diverse, smart, and emotionally intelligent students. Over the summer, we were one of the only student groups on campus, and took all of our core classes together. This helped foster an amazing bond between the small cohort, and created strong, genuine friendships. We have taken East River boat cruises, planned Friendsgiving dinners, attended concerts, and hosted holiday dinner parties. I felt like I already had a community after living in New York for many years, but can say definitively that the cohort students from across the country and the world have become lifelong friends and future business partners. 

I can’t recommend the Tech MBA program enough – please get in touch if you’d like to hear about my experience further!

My Favorite Class This Semester

One of the best parts about Stern is getting to learn from incredible professors who are experts in their fields. While many of my classes are engaging, there is one class that stands out above the rest: “Strategic Foresight and Predicting the Future of Technology” with professor Amy Webb. The objective of the class is to introduce students to the methods, concepts, frameworks, tools and techniques of strategic foresight, a multidisciplinary approach to deriving new insights about the future. To deliver on this promise, the class is organized into three sections each week 1. Introduction to methodology and a foresight tool 2. A deep dive into an emerging area of technology and 3. Practicing what we learned and applying concepts and tools to our final group project. Not only is the topic of strategic foresight extremely interesting, but the structure of the class also ensures that discussions are relevant and concepts can be applied to any business sector. We learn to identify signals in the world and make connections to form potential trends. We are challenged to imagine what the future of meat consumption will look like in 10 years, what the future of work will be in 15 years, and what the future of media will look like in 20 years. We learn to address assumptions and state uncertainties and back up our scenarios with quantitative and qualitative evidence. To give you a sense of the breadth of what I’ve learned so far, here are some of my favorite things we’ve discussed in class…

1. Why is Nintendo the most innovative company? When we think about Nintendo, we might think about Mario Party or Pokemon, but Nintendo was founded in the 1880s. Nintendo originally sold hand-painted playing cards. As the world evolved and technologies developed, Nintendo paid attention to the signals on the “fringe” and made bets to ensure they could stay in business. Nintendo transitioned from selling playing cards to developing games for malls, handheld gameboys, commercially available video game consoles, the motion sensor Wii, and many more innovations. This example clearly highlighted how companies can use strategic foresight to prepare for the future and remain ahead of their competition.

2. How will a refrigerator be used in 2031? At the start of class we are asked to do a re-perception exercise in which we imagine how everyday objects might be used in the future. Recently we discussed how refrigerators might be used to grow our own food at home, store essential pharmaceuticals, or in new areas of the supply chain as the world becomes warmer. This led to a discussion about when an object is still considered the original object…

3. What are the implications of synthetic influencers? We’ve learned about synthetic influencers like Lil Miquela and K-pop group “Eternity” in class. Prior to this class, I was not familiar with synthetic influencers and their potential impact on not only the entertainment and media industries, but also on society at large.

Throughout the semester, we work on a final group project. This is a great opportunity to apply the theoretical concepts and frameworks we learned step by step.

If you are interested in technology, want to challenge yourself to think differently about companies, societies, and governments, like to imagine what our futures look like, or just love learning new things, then this class is for you. Every week I look forward to rich discussions that develop because this class is a safe space for learning and taking risks. Each week the class time flies by as I absorb information from the professor and her guests lecturers/ class coaches. If you have the chance, definitely take this class!

Why I Chose the Andre Koo Tech MBA at NYU Stern

As a Graduate Ambassador at Stern, I speak to a ton of prospective students. Multiple times per week, I’m asked about my experience and why I chose to pursue NYU Stern’s Andre Koo Tech MBA program. Although there are many reasons someone might pursue an MBA at Stern, here is why I chose the Andre Koo Tech MBA program:

One year program: The Andre Koo Tech MBA program at Stern is a one year accelerated MBA program. Students begin their MBA journey in May, take classes for one full year and graduate the following May. While students do not participate in a summer internship like a traditional two-year MBA student, the Tech MBA curriculum is designed to give students ample experiential learning opportunities to apply the skills they learn in the classroom in a business setting.

The one year program attracts students who are focused on learning the material so that they can directly apply learnings to their work. I wanted to pursue an MBA degree, but was worried about being out of the workforce for two years because in the tech industry everything is constantly evolving. The Tech MBA program provided a path to earning an MBA degree in a timeframe that met my needs.

Opportunity to learn technical skills: Prior to Stern I worked as a product manager at New York Road Runners. While I had experience working with technical teams and engineers, I did not have a background in computer science or engineering. Technology is changing the way business gets done and having a basic understanding of technological concepts and tools will be key in any business role in the future. I was eager to come to Stern to learn technical skills so that I can work more effectively as a product manager. The Tech MBA curriculum does not require prior coding knowledge, rather it is designed for students who are open to learning technical skills in a meaningful way. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my Python and data science classes. While I do not intend to pivot into software engineering, I feel confident in my ability to understand technical complexities and communicate effectively with technical teammates.

Access to the Stern network and community: When evaluating business schools, I was looking for a strong network. I was drawn to the Tech MBA program at Stern because of the resources, alumni, and community that the school offers. As a focused MBA student, I have access to the same career center coaching, club resources, and alumni network as the two-year students. Part of business school is investing in relationships, and I felt confident that at Stern I would be able to thrive and meet intelligent, hard-working, passionate students and alumni.

Live in the greatest city in the world: I’ve lived in New York City for over five years and I’m still excited by the hustle and bustle and all New York has to offer. Each neighborhood is unique and there is always something new to explore. New York is a business powerhouse and as a student at NYU Stern you have so many opportunities to explore everything from the startup scene to the financial services industry.

My Favorite Course This Semester: Brand Strategy

There are so many wonderful courses at Stern that it can feel overwhelming to select elective classes each semester. Because the Tech MBA has put together a robust curriculum that focuses on both business and technical core classes, my hope for elective courses has been that they will be fun, interesting, and help sharpen on specific skill or knowledge area that I have not previously had experience with. For example, I am interested in sustainability and “foodtech,” so I am taking Social Entrepreneurship in Sustainable Food Business with Professor Hans Taparia.

When I was thinking about my prior role as a Product Manager, and some of the skills that I wanted to develop, I realized that I have not had much exposure to marketing. Specifically, I was interested in branding, and the way in which graphic design, strategy and positioning can come together to change the way a brand is perceived in the market, and the emotional impact it has on consumers. I decided to take Brand Strategy with Professor Gormley, and it has turned out to be my favorite course this semester. When I read the first line of her syllabus, I knew I had made the right choice. “Who says you can’t get real world experience in the classroom? Fran Gormley has worked in the Branding business for three decades and can teach you how to create Branding ideas that can propel a business forward.”

Before beginning at Stern, I was advised to take evening electives whenever possible because it would mean that the course was taught by a “practitioner,” or a professor who is currently working for another organization in the field, as opposed to professors who are lifelong academics. I think this is so important when looking to a subject like branding, because learning from a professor who is currently running her own branding agency ensures you are learning the latest and greatest standards from the industry.

Professor Gormley is a great lecturer, and she structures the class so that she delivers course content for half of the session, and then a guest speaker comes in to talk with the class for the latter half of the class. We have heard from executives across many different industries and branding agencies, specifically at PayPal, Fekkai, Edelman, Wolff Olins, and Interbrand. My favorite speaker so far was Frédéric Fekkai, a legendary hair stylist turned businessman, who spoke about his company Fekkai, and the various transitions it has made over the years. Frédéric spoke about the opportunity he had to sell his company, and eventually buy it back, and it was crazy to hear the story of the shampoo I had in my very own shower at home in Brooklyn! Professor Gormley also gives various case study lectures about the projects she has worked on across her career, making it very applicable to see the before and after of the branding work she has done. This class takes place on Tuesday evenings, but the time flies by, and I look forward to hearing from Professor Gormley and whoever she has in store for us each week. We even are working on a semester long project to rebrand a company of our choosing. I can’t recommend this class enough!

What To Expect of the Stern Tech MBA

As a Graduate Ambassador of the Tech MBA at Stern, some of the most common questions I receive are related to who should apply to the program. Potential MBA candidates want to know what characteristics are the best fit for a focused MBA. They want to understand if it is too technical, if it requires a deep understanding of coding and data science, or the expected job for a graduate of the program. I will try to answer these questions throughout this short article.

The program is an MBA (Master in Business Administration), so it goes without saying that the focus is business and value creation. Nevertheless, it has another core: technology. The Tech MBA seeks to prepare its students to be set up for a rapidly changing world by using technology as a tool to innovate and solve big problems. The mandatory courses mix business fundamentals such as Finance, Marketing or Founding a Startup, with tech courses, such as Dealing with Data or Foundations of Mobile Networks. Additionally, the Experiential Learning approach is a group of activities and courses focused in finding solutions for real-world business problems. As a student, you can be part of the EFL (Endless Frontier Labs), which is an acceleration program for massively scalable startups; or the West Coast Immersion, in which we travel to visit and analyze several companies.

One of the things I value is how diverse the program is. Students come from varied careers such as consulting, software development, product management, entrepreneurship, or even banking. To be ready for the program, it is ideal to take a fast introductory course in coding, and another in financial math. Both are just a recommendation; all things you will need will be taught during the MBA.

Nowadays, most companies want to transform into tech firms and this trend will change the way of doing business in the following years. This makes the Tech MBA a powerful program for being ready to work in big companies, growing startups or developing new ventures. There are no restrictions to where a Tech MBA graduate can work, but the main focus is around Product Manager roles, Strategic roles or Consulting roles.

This is a very current program that is constantly updating to the technological changes that the world is facing. It is a dynamic and fun program to pursue big goals and grow professionally and personally.

Navigating Stern’s Sites & Acronyms

You received your acceptance letter to Stern. Your heart is racing with excitement, you have butterflies in your stomach, and you are grinning from ear to ear. The next thing you know, you’ve received a handful of emails with directions to use different sites and mentions of different departments with different acronyms. Feeling overwhelmed? I sure was! Here’s a little study guide to help you navigate all of the amazing sites and resources that Stern has to offer. This list isn’t intended to be exhaustive, rather a helpful place to get started.

Stern Sites

NYU Stern Life
Stern Life is the best place to start after accepting your Stern offer. Leverage this site for all important announcements, events, action items, and access to resources before starting school. From Stern Life, you can keep up to date with forms to fill out, payments, technical setup and more.

NYU Albert
Albert isn’t a site that you’ll be visiting everyday per say, yet when you use it, it is important! Some of the most common reasons why you’ll go to Albert:

  • Managing your school finances / financial aid
  • To check and manage your course schedule (e.g. add/drop classes)
  • View final grades and submit course evaluations
  • Access to other Stern sites and resources

NYU Brightspace
Brightspace is the NYU Learning Management System (LMS), where all of your classes will be hosted. This is where your professors will upload their syllabi, add assignments, share resources and more. Familiarize yourself with how this site works as you’ll be using it a lot!

Stern Acronyms

OCD: Office of Career Development
OCD will be your best friend as you navigate recruiting while at Stern. This department specializes in career development and support, covering a range of offerings such as resume reviews, mock interviews, recruitment strategy and more.

AA: Academic Advising and Affairs
Academic Advising and Affairs at Stern is the go-to department for support with your degree. This includes navigating specializations, credits, exploring electives and more. You can schedule 1-1 appointments with the AA team. Keep an eye out for scheduled events hosted by this department as well!

OSE: Office of Student Engagement
Access support and resources with regards to life outside of Stern through the Office of Student Engagement. The OSE team supports orientation, student orgs, housing and more. This department is super helpful when navigating your Stern experience beyond the classroom.

Building Community Through Student-Led Events

It’s popular knowledge that a big part of the MBA is networking. But that word sounds like work and isn’t well-suited to the reality of things. There is a more appropriate word: friendships! Over the next year or two of your MBA, you will share life with a group of amazing people coming from various backgrounds, yet all working towards similar goals. If you do things well, you’ll build deep, lasting friendships with a bunch of them because you spend time together. In this blog post, I want to share some ways that our cohort has bonded through student-led community events.

Bars and Restaurants
These are classics. Don’t be shy to book a table somewhere and send a message in your “general” slack channel asking people if they want to join. I bet you that you’ll have to call back to increase your reservation to 20 seats.

Parks
This is a go-to in NYC and a fun way to spend Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Our cohort always ends up in Central Park, but there are tons of other parks too. I recommend getting a Moolky, a wooden pin & skittles game, which you can play as a group. Last time, someone brought a portable cornhole game that was also fun to play 2 vs 2. Do not forget sunscreen, coolers, and hats! If you have a dog, there’s a specific patch of grass just north of the East 72nd Street entrance with lots of other dogs running around and playing together.

Workouts
One of the highlights for me so far in the MBA has been running workouts for my classmates. We meet outside twice a week and sweat together for an hour. Then we usually go to brunch afterwards! Wednesdays are at the Houston st playground, and Saturdays are at Pier 46. Only one rule: you have to come to a workout to be added to the group chat! Don’t forget to take a group selfie post-workout! Open to all at any level, reach out to me if you want to join!

Saturday GCNY crew, Pier 46, 5/15/2021

House/rooftop parties
Rooftops are a huge commodity in NYC summers. Make yourself known if you have a rooftop or a bigger apartment than others!

Poker
My classmates and I had a couple good games, both online and offline. I recommend keeping it inclusive to everyone and giving a chance to people who don’t know how to play to give it a try. If you want to play online you can use pokernow for free and have a simultaneous zoom session.

PPT night
Our cohort has been running a powerpoint night every two months that has proven popular and a lot of fun. The premise is simple: 3 people volunteer to present to the group on a topic of their choice. The topics are completely up to the presenters and tend to be fun (or even ludicrous) in nature. Examples include origami, Whiteclaw, Australia’s Great Emu War, travelling to Chile, 90 Day Fiance, etc. 

Escape the Zoom
In this event attendees are separated into teams of ~4 and attempt to “escape the Zoom” by answering a series of ~8 riddles posted by the organizing team. Each team is sent to their own breakout room and given the first riddle. Once a team solves a riddle, one of the team members goes back to the main room and calls an organizer into their breakout room to deliver the answer. If correct, the team unlocks the next riddle. Hints are offered to teams after 10 minutes without a solution. The winning team is the first team to correctly solve all riddles!

Here’s a riddle to get you started:

Complete this logical sequence:

1 – E – 2 – O – 3 – E –
4 – R – 5 – E – 6 – …

a) S
b) X
c) Z

To see the answer, highlight this full line with your cursor: ANSWER is b) (SI)X 

Trips
Spending several days away together is usually an excellent way to get to know your classmates on a deeper level. And some may have the added benefit of discovering new parts of America. With everyone vaccinated and the slow easing of safety guidelines, trips might soon be part of the MBA experience again. There are as many destinations as you can think of. I’m recommending a local spot below:

Hunter Mountain
In the winter, Hunter mountain is a must-do for skiing and snowboarding with slopes available for all level skiers. It’s just about 2.5 hours outside NYC. You’ll need to book your ski passes well in advance and book a chalet on Airbnb for the group. I recommend renting your gear on the way up to the station where the queue will be a lot smaller.

Thanks for the read, I hope this will be useful to brainstorm what to do after classes! Have fun and see you around the city!

Advice for Incoming Tech MBA students

So, you are finally about to start your MBA experience at Stern – it is exciting and a bit intimidating, but I am sure you are looking forward to beginning this life-changing journey! Last January, I was in the same situation as I was approaching the first classes; now after a few months, I want to share with you some advice that hopefully will help you best prepare and  making the most out the Tech MBA experience at NYU Stern:

1. Take time off if you can 

Before starting my focused MBA, I had heard many times that the Tech MBA was intense, but I wouldn’t have imagined it was going to be this intense! Classes are really fast paced and there is a fair amount of pre-work and group-work required for each class, so if you have the opportunity take a couple of weeks off, it’s worth it to arrive well-rested for the beginning of the first semester. 

2. Adjust to NYC life 

From finding and furnishing your apartment, to sorting out your finances (if you are an international student), there are many things to figure out when moving to NYC. 

Here are a bunch useful links and apps that I found useful when I first moved here:

NYU recommended resources for apartment search. I personally used Loftey, and they helped me find the apartment I wanted without paying any broker or extra fees.
– Sometimes Ikea and other furniture shops have long delivery times, in this case I found
second-hand furniture app quite useful.
– The NYC restaurants scene is one of the most exciting – use Resy to discover new places and to search restaurants by availability for up to 20 people (quite useful to organize gatherings with your classmates!).
– Last but not least, take advantage of being a student again: use Unidays to get discounts on restaurants and shops.

3. Map out your goals
Between clubs, networking events, workshops, course electives, conferences, and entrepreneurial competitions, there are so many exciting opportunities at Stern that you might want to take part in – however, it’s really impossible to do everything! So lay out your plans and goals to help identify critical opportunities and stick with your priorities. Of course, your plan can change during this year, but having a set of goals you want to achieve will help you navigate among all the exciting activities happening around you. 

4. Start socializing from day 1 

You will be surrounded by an extraordinary cohort of students, all with different experiences and perspectives, so getting to know each other is not only fun, but it can help you better understand what you want to do post-MBA. Building meaningful connections with your cohort is one of  the most valuable aspects of this experience. So don’t hesitate to organize after-class drinks, dinners and trips together from day one – time goes really fast!

Outside of your cohort, make sure you leverage clubs as a way to connect with the wider Stern community – CampusGroup will be your go-to resource to join clubs and discover events!

Advice on Moving to NYC from the Perspective of an International Student

Ok, so you’ve got your Stern admission letter and your F1 visa and you’re finally ready to move to New York City! Since you’ve never met anyone from New York who didn’t think this was the best city on earth, you’re feeling pretty good about the move. But if you are still wondering what to expect, this post is for you. It covers what I’ve learned in my first 3 months here as a Frenchman, tips on how to successfully transition as a non-American, and odd things I’ve noticed.

A bit about me-

My name is Luc, I grew up near Paris, lived for a year in Houston before college, studied for 3 years in Montreal for my bachelor’s, and I had been working in Shanghai for 9 years prior to coming to Stern. My background is entrepreneurship: 8 years of early stage tech startups, 5 as founder/ceo, followed by some consulting. My experience with NYC was close to none before I moved here 4 months ago.

Apartment hunting-

Units are usually available right away so you can find an apartment in the 2 weeks leading up to your move-in date (it took me 5 days). There are a few online platforms recommended by NYU when it comes to looking for an apartment. If you’re going to use Facebook housing groups, I recommend doing background checks before you sign anything (I dodged a scammer on a Facebook group by doing a reverse Google image search of the photos on the listing). It showed me that the NYC apartment I had selected was also listed in Paris … no wonder the “landlord” didn’t want to turn on her video when we talked!

In my case, StreetEasy got me there and I recommend using this instead. Word of caution if, like me, you are booking your apartment after a virtual visit: video tours are not the same as in person. You cannot control what is shown or get an accurate sense of the size, the view, the noise, etc. So ask if you can commit for only 3 months with the option to extend at the same rate for the rest of the year. The market has gone way down since COVID, so the landlord might agree. My apartment ended up having zero natural light and I was glad to have the option to move out after 3 months. Note that most listed apartments are not furnished, but if you message the agents on the website they might have other unlisted apartments available that are furnished, or have available furniture in storage to give you. In my case, the agent provided me with a bed and a sofa free of charge and I bought the other cheaper furniture on my own. Another option is to rent furniture: you can get a good bed and sofa for as low as $100/month if signing for 12 months (e.g. livefeather.com, cort.com, casaone.com and others).

Where to live-

There are a lot of differing opinions on the topic. A lot of my classmates live in the West Village and everyone loves it. It feels a bit more European and there are a lot of good spots, but it’s a bit pricey. The East Village and Lower East Side are great options as well (I live on the border of the two). The area is a bit more grungy in my opinion, but has lots of great bars and restaurants. If you don’t mind the commute I’m a big fan of Brooklyn (Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Prospect Heights, Greenpoint, Williamsburg): I like the smaller buildings, the sense of community I get walking its streets, and the welcoming and unpretentious vibe. I also have a classmate who lives in Jersey City right across the river with a beautiful view of the Hudson River, and it takes him just 20 minutes to get to campus.

Hudson & Perry St – West Village

Services-

Once you have your place you’re going to have to figure out a data plan, internet, utilities, and a bank.

Phone plan: Assuming you already have a phone, the best value I found is AT&T’s 12-month prepaid plan, at $25/month + tax for 8GB of data. There’s a catch though: it’s available only online and you need to already have a US phone number to order… your US number…. I was tricked into paying for a 1 month plan at a physical store just so I could order the prepaid 12-month plan online. If I were to do it again, I would get a temporary Skype US number and use that to order instead.

Internet: In theory there are two options, Verizon FiOS and Spectrum. But they cover different areas of NYC so you end up being forced to subscribe to the available supplier for your apartment. You can use your NYU email to get 2 months free with Spectrum, but then it’s $55/month for wifi for the first year and $70 after that. Although I’m told you can call back at the end of the year to get the ‘new customer’ discount again.

Utilities: Another monopoly. I hope your activation on ConEdison’s website goes smoothly as they’re difficult to reach via phone. Your landlord or agent should tell you what you need to do for utilities.

Bank: I pre-opened an HSBC account from abroad (not available in some countries like China so you’ll have to check) and then applied in-person for their credit card when I arrived. You’ll want to get a credit card because it allows you to build your credit history (without which it’ll be hard to finance anything in the US), and because it’s the only type of card that works in all situations, 100% of the time (for some reason my debit cards are a hit or miss). Until I had my credit card, I used Revolut, which offers free payments and free currency conversions. Note that if you’re using an international card and the POS machine or ATM asks for a zip code, enter 00000.

Transportation-

Most people I’ve met like to walk. If that‘s the case for you, you’ll have a great time here. I don’t like walking much, so I’ve explored different options:

Options:

  1. Metro & buses: $2.75 a ride, but you can transfer for free (e.g. metro to bus). There’s no need to buy MetroCards as you can tap your credit card to enter the station. Public transportation will take you anywhere, but it will take time: I find that I tend to have to wait for the next train or bus, and there’s still walking to be done when you arrive at your destination. 
  2. Revel: $1 unlock fee + $0.49 per minute. I love Revel as I used to ride an electric moped every day in Shanghai. These are particularly fast and good. The downside is that it’s relatively expensive (my rides have been $8-10) and you might spend a few minutes looking for a legal spot to park. They accept international driving licenses. The mopeds have a phone holder built-in which is super convenient for using google map. I heard that Revel is starting to rent out electric bicycles for $100 a month as well.
  3. Citi Bike: $3.50 a ride. Good if you can find an electric one, bad if you can’t: the bikes are super heavy and slow. You can book those directly from the Lyft app, too. I’m told that there are subscription plans available if you like City Bike.
  4. Uber/Lyft: More comfortable and expensive. Good to get back home after a night out.

My personal recommendation:
Buy an electric scooter or electric longboard for as low as $350 (or a bicycle). My longboard takes me to most places in 10 minutes. I can take it on the metro or on top of a Revel if I’m going far so it combines well with other forms of transportation. You can even ride across the bridges to Brooklyn. Getting a scooter is both safer and more comfortable than skateboarding because the roads in NYC are quite bad (rough pavement with bumps, iron railings, and holes), especially the bike lanes! Then use Revel when it’s nice out!

A girl on a Revel enjoying the breeze. She’s probably thinking something along the lines of “four wheels move the body, two wheels move the soul.”

Odd things I’ve noticed-
Dogs: (NYC) Americans love dogs. I mean LOVE dogs. I mean you’ll go to some dinners where people will spend a full hour talking about their dogs. If you’re taking a class on Zoom and someone’s dog enters the field of view, the class will stop until classmates and instructors are done commenting on how cute that dog is (and yes, all of the dogs are cute).

Prices: Don’t trust them. All the prices you’re given here are deflated. You’ll need to add taxes, and tips if it’s food or drinks. A typical restaurant bill is 30% higher than previously stated. You might need a calculator to figure out the tip, usually 18-20% of the pre-tax amount given.

Messaging apps: Not everyone uses the same messaging app. Most people have iPhones and use iMessage so they may not use WhatsApp. Regular SMS, Facebook messenger, Signal, and Discord might also be used to communicate with different people. This was odd to me given how everyone uses WeChat in China no matter what phone they have.

Cash: It’s still a thing here. Even coins. Actually, your laundry might not be inside your apartment, so you’ll need to go to your bank to get lots and lots of quarters to operate the machines in your building or at your nearest laundromat. Many smaller businesses refuse credit cards until you reach a certain $ minimum, and I haven’t seen mobile payments being used here yet.

Note that as a result, it takes a lot of time to pay at a restaurant. So instead everyone paying, what happens is 1) only 1 person at the table pays for everyone (yay, credit card points!). 2) Another person usually volunteers to divide up the amounts, goes back home and uses a spreadsheet to proportionally divide the tax and tip, and texts everyone how much they owe. Then 3) you’ll have to download Venmo and link it to your US bank account to pay that first person back. Teamwork.

actual split bill I’ve gotten

 

I hope this was helpful to get you situated in NYC and that you’re excited; this is going to be a fun ride. Please reach out to me with any questions at mbaga@stern.nyu.edu.

Learning to Lead: An Overview of My Favourite Spring Class

Only three months into the Tech MBA program at NYU Stern, my classes have already played a large role in impacting my future career as a professional and leader. 

Our Spring semester was packed with many business core classes such as Accounting, Economics, Business Communication, and Leadership. Among all of these great classes, Leadership in Organization (LiO) – the opening class of the MBA, taught by Professor Petitt – specifically stood out. Not only because it was a very engaging class, but also because it’s centered on a topic that all of us can relate to. No matter what point of your career you are at, no matter if you are in a tech, creative or strategy team, Leadership will be the key to unlock your success at its maximum potential as well as the success of your organization. And, a bit more surprisingly, this course also taught me that strong leadership skills are critical to helping your personal relationships flourish. 

But first, let me start by addressing the most common question that people ask themselves (including me) when approaching a Leadership class: “Can I really learn Leadership in a classroom?”
The answer is rooted in the notion of leadership itself. Leadership is the ability to create change in a given environment; this could be your organization, your team or your family/friends.
We are all naturally capable of creating change by making decisions; if you think about it, you make hundreds of decisions everyday, with various degrees of risk. This course provided me with the right tools to analyze difficult situations and opportunities to act and to make difficult decisions to achieve the best outcomes for a set goal. And when I say making difficult decisions, I literally mean decisions that impact your actual life – not a business case, not a simulation. So yes, you can learn Leadership in a this classroom! 

So what was so good about this course? 

– Content: human, social and organizational aspects of leadership
Throughout our six intensive sessions, we have explored all the different dimensions and aspects of leadership, from individual motivations to group dynamics inside and outside the organization, touching on cultural differences in business interactions and ethical dilemmas. We covered a wide range of interesting topics, yet went deep enough to be able to embed these learnings into our professional lives. 

– Methodology: pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone
The greatest aspect of this course was the “experiential” component that enabled us to test our leadership skills in many different situations – I won’t spoil anything here, but get ready to push your limits and face some challenging situations! And – bonus point – while doing so, you will get to know your classmates better and also have fun!

– Outcome: increased self-knowledge
Because of the way the course was structured, through each session and each assignment we had the opportunity to reflect on our strengths and weaknesses when it comes to leadership and take actions to improve some of the key areas that are critical to become a good leader. I learnt about the theory and the frameworks, but most importantly I learnt more about myself, how to recognize my biases and how to overcome them, as well as how to leverage my current skills to improve my leadership style.

Mix all the above points with the enthusiasm and humor of Professor Petitt, and you will get all the ingredients for a memorable, game-changing class! 

Creating Community in a Virtual Environment

I’ve always heard people say that one of the biggest takeaways from business school is the community and network you create. In fact, the community of Sternies is one of the main reasons why I ended up at Stern for my MBA. Prior to starting the program, I was so excited to meet my classmates, learn from their experiences, and build an amazing community. Though, given the current state of the world, I was nervous about how all of that would work with a hybrid learning model.

It’s true that the experience looks a bit different from what I had first expected while going through the application process. As the program was first getting started, it was certainly daunting to create connections and make friends with brand new classmates in a virtual environment. This wasn’t just a new experience for me, but it was a new experience for all of us. As soon as we all embraced that this year would be a bit different but we were all in it together, we were able to make just as meaningful of connections through screens as we would have in person.

So how did we create a community in a virtual environment? Follow these tips and tricks to learn how:

Find a platform where everyone can stay connected: Our cohort has been loving Slack. Having a platform where the entire class is connected offers opportunities for us to chat throughout the day, share resources, celebrate one another and more. We’ve created different channels for us to discuss different topics that we’re interested in like tech, gaming, popular tv shows, and fitness.

Turn your camera on (if you can!): If you are able to, consider keeping your camera on while in class or participating in group events. Of course, there are different reasons why we need to keep your camera off, but if you are able to, having your camera on helps create that in-person experience. Using video offers the ability to see reactions, body language, and emotions. The use of video can make that virtual zoom feel that much more like real life.

Leverage the chat function and emojis: The chat function on video conferencing sites adds an additional layer of communication and connection with classmates. It’s another place where you can engage with your peers and learn more about each other along the way. The emojis allow you to acknowledge different moments without having to unmute. You can show that you agree, that you have something to contribute, applaud a classmate and more just with emojis.

Don’t just use Zoom for class – host virtual gatherings as well: Zoom isn’t just a great mechanism for class, it’s also a great way to build connections with your peers. With Zoom, you can host coffee chats, game nights, get togethers, open mics and more. It allows us to get together safely beyond just that classroom environment.

Bring elements of your personal life into the camera (if you feel comfortable!): It always brings the class joy when we get little glimpses of each others’ lives via Zoom. Whenever a cat decides to come on screen or a loved one makes a cameo, you can see large smiles across the grid of faces on Zoom. Getting that little glimpse of people’s lives is a reminder that we’re all Zooming from home during a challenging time — and we’re all in it together.

Why the Tech MBA, Why NYU Stern?

What a beautiful sight! I took this picture outside of the Kaufman Management Center on my first official day of classes as a member of the Tech MBA Class of 2022. It feels surreal to say out loud seeing as I submitted my application to Stern in November of 2019. An unforeseen global pandemic and a 7-month program delay later, I finally arrived on campus this past January as a full-time student. While it seems long ago that I was wading through the MBA admissions process and deciding on the right program for me, this past year has given me a unique opportunity to “sit” with my decision before attending school. I hope that by sharing my application experience and why I ultimately chose Stern’s Tech MBA program, I can provide some clarity to those thinking about pursuing their MBA and whether Stern would be a good fit.

A Little Bit About Me – 

After graduating from Villanova University in 2015 I spent 5 years as a Technology Consultant with Deloitte Digital in their Philadelphia office. There, I specialized in digital transformation project delivery for our public sector customers. I gained a lot of valuable experience during my time with Deloitte and got to see first-hand the powerful role that technology can play in driving positive human impact (namely the underserved constituent populations that our solutions supported). I developed a curiosity for human-centered design and started to feel the urge for change. Consulting was the only world that I knew, and I wanted to seek new opportunities that would allow me to use my skills to design and deliver the very solutions I was implementing as a consultant, from inside the organization. To do so required me to improve my admittedly narrow technology skillset and my business acumen. An MBA seemed like just the change I was looking for.

Why the NYU Stern Tech MBA – 

Fast forward. One of my first classes at Stern was Leadership with Nate Pettit (a class I highly recommend). During class, we talked about leading through change, specifically the importance of appealing to both emotion and logic. Both are required to affect change, much like a vector requires intensity and direction. Lightbulb! This is a perfect metaphor to illustrate how I arrived at choosing NYU’s Tech MBA as the next change in my career.

Appealing to Logic – 

During my MBA pursuit, I thought a lot about the direction of my career. This isn’t to say that I had my target company and role pre-determined but understanding where I was headed directionally helped me narrow my MBA program search. As I mentioned, I plan to stay in a technology or tech-adjacent industry. Roles in Product Management appeal to me and align well with my previous work experience. I knew that I was not using the MBA to make a huge pivot in my career but to accelerate it.

Therefore, the format of the Focused Tech MBA program made a lot of sense. Firstly, the one-year accelerated program had clear cost benefits. Getting an MBA is a big investment, and I felt that the one-year format was the more ROI-conscious choice given where my career was headed. I was also very sensitive to the fact that the pace of technological change is very fast. Being out of the workforce for too long in the tech industry would require a steeper learning curve post-MBA. The one-year format allowed me to minimize that risk.

The program’s focused curriculum provided an opportunity to build my technology acumen in a city with a finger on the pulse of the tech ecosystem. In New York, NYU has access to some of the largest and most innovative technology companies in the world. Whether learning through experiential opportunities alongside NYC-based companies or from faculty who come directly from the industry, getting that kind of exposure and experience in and out of the classroom would help me develop a unique point of view before heading back into the workforce. It crossed my mind that with a one-year accelerated program, one of the key differences from a traditional 2-year MBA is the lack of a built-in internship during the summer. I felt, however, that the experiential learning opportunities in our Tech MBA program were more than sufficient. From a logical perspective, the Tech MBA program seemed like a great format to maximize my MBA experience and align well with my career aspirations.

Appealing to Emotion – 

If the structure and benefits of the Tech MBA program provided the logical appeal for my decision, then the community at NYU appealed to my emotion. What really impressed me during my Stern application process was the emphasis on strong EQ. This is one of Stern’s values that you read about online and hear about from current students. It sounds cliché, but it is one of the biggest contributors to building a strong sense of community at Stern. I saw it first-hand in every interaction throughout my application process; whether I was talking to an alumnus, a current student, or a representative from the admissions office, everyone was welcoming and spoke to the collaborative and inclusive culture that exists at NYU. Classmates are willing to go the extra mile for each other and Stern alumni are eager to help current Sternies in any way that they can. In addition, the breadth of Academic Advising and Career Development resources at our disposal provide individualized attention to maximize your time in school and get you where you want to be after graduation. This made me feel confident that if I inevitably stumbled at any point throughout the year, NYU would be there to lift me up. The Tech MBA program, specifically, is a smaller cohort of people that come from all walks of life and careers. The size of the program lends itself to building strong and lasting relationships and offers an opportunity to learn from each other.

What was equally impactful for me was Stern’s call to action for students centered around change – “Dare It, Dream It, Drive It.” This really stuck with me. I felt that NYU recognized how powerful change can be to grow and encouraged students to embrace it. I felt that there would be no better place to embark on the biggest change in my professional career. NYU was exactly the place I was looking for: a community that understood the power of change.

I am happy to report that the past two months in the program have exceeded my expectations. I am being challenged academically, getting to know my incredible classmates, and learning from some of the best professors I have had in the classroom. I know that I made the right decision to choose Stern and that I am headed in the right direction.

My Stern MBA List

It’s hard to believe the year is coming to an end. We’ve got just a couple weeks remaining to wrap up spring semester courses before we’ll emerge as the latest class of Stern MBA graduates. As you consider applying to the Tech MBA program – or if you’ve already been admitted – I will offer you some utilitarian (and quite frankly, kind of boring) advice, but advice that I hope will be as helpful to you as it has been for me.

My advice to you — prospective or incoming Stern MBA — is to make a list of knowledge, experiences, and things that you want out of your time at NYU. For me, it’s fun to look back on now, but my list was a helpful tool that provided me with strong footing when I was presented with the many diverging paths and opportunities available to students here at Stern. From classes you want to take, knowledge gaps you want to plug, or extracurricular and professional experiences you want to have, going through this exercise helped me set goals and provided structure to ensure I was making the most of my time on campus. Amidst the new and promising opportunities available to me, referring back to my list was a helpful way to check in with myself on whether or not I was staying true to my reasons for coming back to business school. In many cases, it helped me recalibrate my focus, and in others, it allowed me to reflect and sometimes change my mind, indicating both personal and professional growth, which is what pursuing graduate education is all about.

To give you an example of my list in action, it was a few months ago in October 2019 and Stern had entered the course selection period for the upcoming spring. As I went through the course catalog in search of electives I wanted to take, I identified more classes than I had room for in my schedule. I conducted a ton of research through talking with other students, reviewing syllabi, and reading course reviews, but to no avail on any narrowing decisions. I was considering an intense finance class, higher-level strategy courses, a pricing strategy class, a few interesting entertainment and media courses (just for fun), and more. I clearly couldn’t take all of them, so I decided to refer back to the list I created prior to arriving on campus because I remembered that it included knowledge gaps I wanted to fill through my Stern coursework.

Upon review, one of the items on that list was to learn strategies for pricing a product—in my previous work experiences I had never priced a product or service from scratch, and I knew there were many strategies and techniques to do so. My list became the tiebreaker in my elective selection, and I couldn’t be happier with the decision. I have learned so much while taking the pricing class in which I enrolled, well beyond anything I could have initially imagined. The professor, Masakazu Ishihara, is amazing not only because he’s an expert in his field, but also because despite our classes going remote, he’s been incredibly dedicated to making each class session engaging and interactive. Also, the classwork and projects have been some of the most practical applications of the concepts we’ve learned that can be used across many industries. It’s become my favorite course this semester, and I feel well equipped to re-enter the workforce and apply this new knowledge.

The point I’m trying to make here is not to tell you to take a pricing class or model your list after mine, since that might not make sense in the context of your reasons for pursuing your MBA. But whether your list includes traveling to a new country, working with one of Stern’s professors, meeting a business leader at a campus event, or simply just speaking up more frequently in class, I think you’ll find that creating this list is a helpful exercise in keeping you on track toward your goals—it’s helped me achieve mine, and it’s a reassuring feeling in the last few weeks wrapping up my great experience here at Stern.

Reflections from Spring Semester

In my first blog post, as the fall semester kicked off, I wrote about some of the things I wish I could have told myself going into the summer term for the Andre Koo Tech MBA. Now that we’re here in the spring semester – I thought I may share some thoughts that, if I had a time machine, I might share with myself as the fall semester got underway!

The Fun Is Just Beginning
The summer term is an amazing roller coaster with so much going on – new environment, new classes, new life-long friends. It feels hard to imagine things could move any faster, but when the fall semester kicks off, a whole new world opens up. The academic workload shifts to reflect a traditional semester-based structure, the larger two-year MBA community returns to campus, all the programming from student groups ramps back up, social events spring up, formal recruiting gets kicked off, and on and on and on…

It’s not any “busier” per se, but it’s a whole new set of events and experiences that you need to account for. I return to one of my favorite reflections from a Sternie in the Tech MBA class before mine: “It’s the hardest you’re going to work, but the most fun you’re ever going to have.” That held true over the summer (I mentioned it in my first blog post too), and it certainly remains true in the fall. You will have the most amazing opportunities open up, and they happen very quickly, so be ready!

Vice Dean JP Eggers mentioned once that the MBA experience – and particularly a focused program like ours – is a “year-long exercise in prioritization” and that certainly rings true. The more you can be aware of that fact, and stay proactive in how you manage your activities, will be paramount.

Lean Into As Much As You Can
The amount of student-run clubs that kick off in the fall is amazing, and I highly recommend taking the time to experience as many of them as you can! For me personally, attending events by Stern Speaks and Stern Listens have been incredible, and have really highlighted the amazing levels of EQ in the NYU family. I was also blown away by the amount of programming that was held for allies of certain communities such as Outclass, SWIB, AHBBS, and others. And, of course, there is Stern Social, which brings students together once a week for drinks and laughs. I am happy I had the chance to experience as much as I did during the fall, and I wish I had done more!

Focus With Flexibility
The recruiting season arrives quickly, and the summer months are valuable in helping clarify what sorts of opportunities are in line with your post-Stern goals. When things get “real,” and the cover letters and resumes start flowing, it’s really important to stay focused on what type of work/job/opportunity matters most to you, and then remain flexible in how or where those opportunities surface. Between the amazing staff in the Office of Career Development, your MBA network, in-semester internships, and classes with an experiential component (that connect you with real companies and real projects for said company) there are dozens of different ways to find your “dream job.” Maintain focus on the finish line, but stay flexible on how you arrive there. 

West Coast Immersion

This past year has flown by, and it’s hard to believe we’re already almost halfway through our final semester at Stern, and graduation is only a few short months away. The January West Coast Tech Immersion was a great way to kick it off too.

Over winter break, we spent two weeks in Seattle and San Francisco exploring the tech space there, visiting all kinds of companies. It was a wonderful opportunity to get a better understanding of each company’s role in the tech ecosystem, and how they were leveraging it to drive innovation within their organization. It was also great to connect with Stern alumni at each of these companies and learning about their experiences in their roles and living in each of these cities.

We kicked the trip off in Seattle with a visit to Amazon, where we toured their campus and learned about their most innovative projects. It was interesting to learn about these initiatives, and to connect with Stern alums currently working there, and hear about the different projects they were working on, and how much they enjoyed living in Seattle.

Another highlight of the Seattle portion of the trip was visiting Microsoft’s campus in Redmond. Like Amazon, we spent the day touring the campus and later talking to Microsoft senior management about their latest projects. We also had the opportunity to meet Jeff Teper in person, Corporate VP at Microsoft, NYU Stern alum, and member of the Tech MBA Advisory Board.

The rest of the week was definitely packed with more visits and meetings with Boeing’s Horizon X division, the Create 33 entrepreneurship center, networking event with Stern alums, and catching up and reconnecting with classmates about their winter breaks and all the places they traveled before arriving in Seattle.

After an action-packed week in Seattle, we all flew to San Francisco, where another busy week awaited us. We started off with a corporate visit to Salesforce downtown and met with representatives who shared what services the company provided, and success stories of some of their clients. The next day, we visited Oracle and PayPal, explored their offices, and learned about how they help their clients, and what new projects they’ve been working on. Given my specific interest in fintech, I was particularly excited about visiting PayPal and learned so much about the company during the visit.

Our last day in San Francisco couldn’t have been better. We first met with David Ko, President and COO of Rally Health and also a member of the Tech MBA Advisory Board, and learned about his experience as a startup founder and his career trajectory. His story was truly inspiring and we all thoroughly enjoyed having the opportunity to meet him and connect with him. We then visited Google’s offices, another company visit many of us were very much looking forward to. There, we met with Google employees from many different divisions, from AdWords to Waymo, and learned firsthand about their different projects and how they fit within the larger organization.

Overall, the Tech Immersion Trek was a great trip and provided an incredible opportunity to explore these cities, learn more about the different companies we visited, and reconnect with fellow classmates. It is definitely one of the highlights of the program for me so far, and I loved every minute of it!

And So It Begins

I can’t believe the summer semester has already ended and we’ve begun fall classes! These past few months have definitely been a blur and so much has been going on. While we’ve had many challenging classes, we have also had so many opportunities to explore New York, get to know our classmates better (and create lifelong friendships), and explore the tech space throughout the summer.

One of my favorite parts about our summer classes was the tech immersion. This class was more practical than our other classes and included company visits, workshops and presentations from industry experts, and our immersion project (which this year was in partnership with Verizon). In the tech immersion, we had the opportunity to visit and network with companies such as Union Square Ventures, Deloitte Digital, Uber, JPMorgan, and Nestio, and to learn from and connect with experts on topics such as cyber security, data visualization, UX/UI and many more. I am so thankful to have had these incredible opportunities to learn and connect with experts and professionals in these spaces and learn from each of them.

I learned more about topics I hadn’t had much exposure to before Stern, and that helped me discover different companies and potential opportunities that I perhaps wouldn’t have considered before. These company visits and workshops with experts were invaluable resources to better understand the industry, an incredible opportunity to connect with industry leaders and to connect what we learn in the classroom to the real world and to see what the broader NYC tech sector was like, and each company’s role or position within it.

It was amazing to have the opportunity to explore how these companies are leading innovation and creating value, and understand how companies such as Deloitte, Uber, and Verizon are leveraging AI, 5G, machine learning, big data and more to create business value, provide better products and services, automate processes, and generate valuable insights to generate efficiencies, increase productivity, and contribute to an organization and the tech ecosystem in general.

The workshops and presentations by experts were also tremendously valuable, because even if you weren’t particularly interested in the topic beforehand, the sessions were so compelling and insightful that everyone certainly got a lot of use from each of them. Furthermore, they were on varied topics from UX/UI and data visualization, to cybersecurity and ethics in tech. While you may not specifically work in any of these areas upon graduating, they are all extremely relevant and important areas in tech that will undoubtedly affect each one of us personally and professionally, no matter what industry or role you end up in.

This is just a glimpse of what the summer was like for Tech MBAs, there’s so much more to it! I learned more than I ever thought I even could during the summer, and am excited to see what the fall semester will bring!

Days 1-90

The summer at Stern as a Tech MBA was one of the most action-packed, wonderfully hectic, and fulfilling three months I’ve ever had. The Focused MBA experience includes an intense first semester academically, professionally, and socially. I thought I might share some insights on what my first 90 days were like both as a Sternie and as a New Yorker!

A quick snippet on my background for context…

I came to NYU by way of California – having spent the majority of my professional life working in strategy and general management for tech-centric companies in San Francisco (Silicon Valley) and Los Angeles (Silicon Beach). When it came time for me to research MBA options to further my career as a tech leader, it was clear that NYU was the perfect match. For me, part of what made Stern Tech MBA program so special was getting the chance to receive a world-class education in the heart of Manhattan with some of the most brilliant classmates I have ever met.

As you may imagine, starting a new chapter as an MBA Candidate — coupled with a cross-country move — comes with a lot of first-time experiences and learning moments. To that degree, here are a few things I learned during my summer semester that I hope helps others!

Finalize your living situation ASAP
As someone coming from out of state, I simply underestimated how wild the apartment and roommate search process was moving out to New York. I did not begin my apartment search until a month before the summer term was set to begin, and it was trial-by-fire for me when it came to securing a place to call home before the summer semester began. It all worked out well in the end, as I settled in Brooklyn and have fallen in love with the borough, but I could have saved lots of time and energy by using the resources at my disposal. NYU has a multitude of great resources to help connect you with housing options and roommates, and they were crucial in helping get settled. I also have a brand new network of Tech MBAs who are all moving to the city with me, so coordinating with them was critical.

Get to know your professors!
The Stern experience means being surrounded by high IQ/EQ individuals, and the professors are no different. I quickly realized that I was learning from world-class individuals both as professors and as professionals. I remember how surreal it felt taking a class with a professor in the morning, then seeing him that same day on MSNBC as a subject-matter expert on the future of ride-sharing services.

For me, Professor Pettit’s class on Leadership in Organizations and Professor Marciano’s class on Strategy were the highest-impact sessions, but the point is every professor is not only extremely accomplished, but ready/willing/excited to meet with you further to help you advance your career goals. Take them up on their offer to meet during office hours, it’s one of the best things I did.

Be proactive in your time management
A Tech MBA in the class before mine said about her Stern experience, “it’s the hardest you’re going to work, but the most fun you’re ever going to have.” I can officially say that her perspective and insight is valid. Moving from the working world to an MBA program means getting involved with academics, leadership opportunities, professional development, recruiting, and your new Stern family simultaneously. Every activity in and of itself is amazing, and I learned quickly that I needed to be thoughtful about mapping out my days and weeks so that I could make room for all of it.

It was also VERY helpful to, essentially, have the entire Stern campus to ourselves as the two-year MBA students were out for the summer. That time not only allowed me to get my bearings with all the various MBA activities, but also gave our Tech MBA cohort the time and space to get to know each other extremely well. I’ve met a whole new set of lifelong friends, and proactive time management really helped me make the most of the summer with my new family. 

 

NYU and NYC Opportunities Galore

One of my many reasons to choose the Tech MBA program was the immersive opportunities the program offered. Over the summer, I visited over ten companies ranging from the prominent Union Square Ventures and Deloitte Digital Consulting to the digital arm of the massive JPMorgan Chase and unicorn IPOs such as Uber. I also had the opportunity to chat with the founders of Handy and real estate startup Nestio and visit the NYU accelerators buzzing with innovation.

These immersive experiences have given me a better sense of the opportunities available to me at the intersection of business and technology, provided me with a network of alumni and professionals to seek guidance from and have given me a better understanding of which companies have cultures that aligned with my values.

The VC focused sessions were among my favorites, in particular, the one at the Union Square Ventures, a leading venture capital firm based in New York. We attended a speaker session, led by Albert Wenger, who is a partner at the firm. Dr. Wenger is a serial entrepreneur and was the president of del.icio.us, a USV backed bookmarking service and is also a board member of companies such as Twilio, MongoDB, and Clarifai. It was fascinating to listen to his experiences in the industry and about his thoughts on universal basic income. It was interesting to learn about USV’s thesis-driven investing and how their commitment has changed focus over the years from application layers of the internet and network effect companies to decentralized blockchain-focused technologies and brands that broaden access to knowledge, capital, and well-being. He explained about the network effects on the B2B side by discussing an interesting company in his portfolio, Sift Science, that uses machine learning to detect and prevent online fraud and abuse. Following that was a stimulating discussion about his book, “The World After Capital,” and how he envisions the potential of blockchain methodology and cryptocurrency to move money creation to the individual level to offer a universal basic income (UBI).

I came into this program not entirely knowing what to expect. I had anticipated that my interests would lie at the intersection of business and technology and was fully expecting my options to be limited to a few career opportunities. Now that I have embarked on this journey and after completing my first four months, I can confidently say that this program has opened my eyes to the multitude of opportunities that NYC and NYU can provide.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities at NYU

This summer, our schedules were packed with classes, meeting new people, industry treks, and evening events like happy hours, panel discussions, and receptions. As a Tech MBA student, a few of my main interests include entrepreneurship, startups, and early stage ventures. At NYU, there’s likely an event on campus that covers any one of these topics every week, but one of my favorites that kicked off summer was called B-School Disrupt.

B-School Disrupt showcases 10 entrepreneurs from NYU, Stanford GSB, and Harvard Business School, and each founder presents 2-3 minute pitches of their startup to the audience, as well as a panel of industry judges who ask questions and provide their perspectives. The event was followed by a networking reception that allowed attendees to connect with the companies.

I attended B-School Disrupt with 14 of my classmates, many of us with entrepreneurial aspirations of our own. In addition to the topics we discuss in the classroom and consulting with companies through Stern Solutions, it’s nice to hear about the businesses that students create and bring to life. A broad range of industries were represented and the startups were as different as they were interesting. People have some crazy ideas! For example, one startup created sustainable cleaning products that come in the form of a dissolvable tablet and reusable spray bottle, while another created a mobile app concierge service that returns your car for you at the airport. There was also a fashion retail brand that sourced its designs from artisans and designers in Africa.

Not only were the startups themselves diverse, but each entrepreneur had a different story. There were students who had just started their business, and others who had been working for years. Others worked full-time on their venture, while some juggled a different, full-time job and pursued their company part-time. I think I had a narrow definition of what it means to be an entrepreneur, but B-School Disrupt, along with the many other startup-related events and activities on campus, has helped expand that definition for me.

These definition-expanding experiences are built into the curriculum: it’s not uncommon for professors to invite founders and industry leaders to class who always share an inside look at their companies and offer students a chance for Q&A. I’ve also found that some of these definition-expanding experiences happen more organically through conversations with classmates who come from many different backgrounds, industries, or geographies. Outside the classroom, there’s a plethora of resources on campus to take advantage of: the $300K Entrepreneurs Challenge, one-on-one coaching at the W. R. Berkley Innovation Labs or the Leslie eLab, and more. NYU has resources for entrepreneurial students and alumni regardless of what stage their company is at. As someone who has benefited from these resources in just a few months, I’d encourage any prospective student who is interested in entrepreneurship to look into these opportunities. I think you’ll be surprised at how much support exists for students and their startup ideas, even if you have no background in entrepreneurship at all. It’s definitely one of my favorite things about NYU and the Tech MBA program, and certainly something I’m planning to continue exploring!

What a year!

We made it (barring us passing all of our finals per Dean Raghu at the graduation ceremony 😊)!

It is still a little bit hard for me to wrap my hear around the fact that just a little over a year ago, I was still working full time and living in a different state, barely knowing any of the 30 people whom I would call family now. At a recent conversation with the next class of Tech MBAs (yes they have already started their amazing 1-year journey), I got asked a question: do you think this has been a life-transforming year?

The answer is absolutely yes.

Over the year, I kept getting asked why I wanted to do an MBA after a PhD. I have said the answer enough times that I distilled it to this: because I not only want to know how to solve a problem, but also what problems to solve. With this degree, I definitely feel more comfortable defining and justifying problems worth solving. My way of thinking about a problem or situation has been slowly transformed over the year: from delving straight into numbers looking for one ‘true’ answer, to factoring in interests of and impacts on all stakeholders finding the best solution from all possible ones.

Before our orientation, one of the action items was to write a vision statement for May 2019, imagining what we would consider as success at the end of this year. I imagined along three dimensions – academically, professionally and personally. Today, I can proudly say I achieved most of what I set out to accomplish. One thing I am most proud of is the personal growth I had by constantly challenging myself. As an introvert, I didn’t like speaking in class or talking to strangers but at the end of the year I am contributing frequently in class and comfortable starting a conversation in networking sessions. As a number cruncher and non-native English speaker, I didn’t read a lot in English and my writing wasn’t as polished. During this year, I probably read more cases, articles and textbooks, and wrote more papers for classes than I did for my entire physics education. As a type A personality, I wanted to spend as much time as possible to perfect each task but with so many activities pulling me in all directions this year I learned the skill of time management and got comfortable with ‘good enough’ and setting my boundaries.

As I get ready to start my job at IBM post-graduation, what I will miss the most is the Stern community: all the professors – who all are so eager to help and invite us to stay in touch for the rest of our career, all the staff members from OCD, OSE and Admission – who always support us and cheer for us along our journey, all the administrators – whose doors are always open whenever we have any feedback to share, and mostly all my fellow tech MBAs, focused MBAs and Sternies – who made this year so much more special and memorable. What bonded us so strongly will stay with us for life: those late night and weekend meetings for a class project or case competition; those happy hours after a company visit, an exam or just a class; those trips we took together, near or far; those impromptu conversations just to cheer each other up while we were overwhelmed with recruiting and school; that night of Karaoke in San Francisco at the end of the Tech MBA west coast immersion trip; all the tears we shed and laughter we had. The MBA was a journey but also just the beginning, the beginning to many many life-long friendships.

Now, as a proud member of the over half million NYU alumni and over 100,000 Stern alumni, I can’t wait to see everyone at our reunion – be it one-month reunion or 20-year reunion – and hear all the wonderful stories we get to write in the next chapter of our lives.

Final Notes: A Year in Review

I moved to New York just over a year ago to join the inaugural Andre Koo Tech MBA class of 2019. Now, with graduation just three short weeks away, I’d like to write some final thoughts about the first year of this innovative program. If you’ll be joining the next class, have only started your application, or are just exploring your MBA options, I hope these notes are helpful:

Plan Your Specializations

Stern offers over two dozen specializations and the Tech MBA degree naturally lines up with two: Product Management and Entrepreneurship & Innovation. While these specializations satisfy most students that attend Stern’s Tech MBA program, you may want to take advantage of the school’s world-renowned finance faculty and tack on a Finance or FinTech specialization to your degree instead. If so, remember that you’ll likely need to take an extra class or two by taking advantage of the free credit overload policy, and you will also need to plan your fall and spring semester schedules more carefully. While the degree is already “specialized” in tech as a whole, these additional specializations add signaling power to your resume that demonstrate your knowledge in specific disciplines.

Understand the Tech Recruiting Cycle

During the first (summer) semester, there aren’t very many students on campus. Undergraduates are on their summer vacations, incoming MBA2s are working hard at their internships, and MBA1s are still packing their bags to move to New York. It’s a quiet time for job hunting and recruiting. However, when the fall semester begins, everything changes. Part of that change involves the exhilarating, but competitive, recruiting cycle. MBA2s are recruiting for full-time positions, MBA1s are recruiting for internships, and some Tech MBAs students are still figuring out what they want to do. Believe it or not, just three months in, it’s time to recruit for a full-time job.

Many large tech firms, like Amazon and Microsoft, recruit in the fall. Larger companies have defined MBA recruiting cycles and will be on campus early. However, these tech firms are in the minority. Most tech recruiting takes place in the spring, so don’t fret if you don’t land a full-time job in the fall – there just aren’t that many.

Prep for Interviews with Classmates

After you go through a few rounds of interviews, you’ll realize that the people who conduct first-round interviews are no different than you or I. That being the case, your fellow students provide great interview practice. Before, during, and even after recruiting is complete, you should be working with your classmates to nail down solid answers to common questions, practicing product management cases, and soliciting resume and cover letter feedback. If you’re wondering why you would still want to be doing this after you’ve finished recruiting, it’s to help your other classmates who may still be hunting.

Negotiate Your Start Date

Once you do receive a full-time job offer, don’t be afraid to ask for a later (or earlier) start date. It may be very beneficial to take some time to recharge between school and work. This will allow you to walk in on your first day ready to tackle the new challenges that await you. New employers would prefer that you bring your best self to work, not your burnt-out self. Completing an MBA in 12 months is no small task and giving yourself time to reflect between the degree and your new career will be essential for long-term success.

Time Flies

I know it’s cliché, but the year really does go by in a blink of an eye. Make sure you take full advantage of being a student again. There are discounted student tickets flying around, events in the city that would conflict with a traditional 9 to 5 job, and an energy at NYU that embraces learning, failure, and everything in between.

If you’ve made the plunge and are attending Stern or any other MBA program, remember how privileged you are to be in an environment that fosters learning and is focused on helping you grow. Then, make the most of it!

So many events!

At the end of March when I looked at my calendar for April, I said to myself: “Whoa, April is going to fly by so quickly with all these events!” And just like that, here I am sitting at the end of this month realizing the semester is only couple weeks away from ending. I guess having a jam-packed schedule was the manifestation of realizing that I don’t have much time left and wanting to take advantage of being at this wonderful community as much as I still can.

After all the events in April (which I will tell you more about), I really wished I could have two years at Stern so I can do them all again. So if you are a one-year student at Stern like me, please make sure you take the opportunity to participate in the ONLY chance you have! And for the lucky two-year Sternies, you gotta start early so you can have twice the fun 😊

So here are a few of the events happening at Stern in the spring:

Stern Speaks

Well, this is actually a year-long event – every week or two, on Thursday afternoon right before the beer-blast (another year-long event, but I won’t talk too much about it here, you will have to do more research yourself 😉), we have this closed-door event featuring two MBA students telling stories about who they are not what they do. After going to many of them, I finally mustered the courage to be a speaker and share my own story at the beginning of April. It was kinda scary going into it – public speaking in front of a big crowd, sharing a personal story I barely told anyone at Stern and being vulnerable in front of an audience – and the weeks of formulating and practicing the story can be an emotional toll. But after the Speaks I am very glad I did it: I was able to build a deeper much relationship with many of my fellow Sternies. Did I mention I did this together with another amazing person from the Tech MBA program? Eliza-Eve and I were able to support each other through the preparation process. Right before my turn, she squeezed my hand firmly and with just that, I knew I was ready. So make sure you mark this on your calendar, support your fellow Sternies, and be a speaker if you are brave.

SWIB conference

The Stern Speaks I presented in was actually part of the Women’s Week at Stern. Stern Women in Business (SWIB) put many events during this week, from self-care workshops to work out sessions, from ally lunch to salary negotiation workshop, from female founders panel to community volunteer trek. At the end of this week celebrating women at Stern, was the annual SWIB conference. This year the theme of the conference was “through her eyes: navigating the jungle gym”. We had many passionate and brilliant women leaders talking to us about how they managed their career and made a positive impact, including Trish Donnelley from Urban Outfitters Group, Colleen Taylor from Mastercard, and Annie Edwards from Daily Mail General Trust. The event ended with a network cocktail party with all attendees – prospective students, current students and alumni – and we had a blast!

Preview weekend

This was an event different from all of the rest that I am mentioning here – as the name suggests, it was a weekend for admitted students to preview what Stern life is like. As a chair of the torch committee, I was able to participate all of the events and meet many of the future Sternies including 30 focused MBAs! One consistent theme I heard from all the graduating MBAs speaking or volunteering at the weekend was: “we are really jealous of you”. I guess this speaks volume about how much we enjoyed our time at Stern being part of the community. As our time at Stern draws close to finish, we know how great of a time lies ahead of the incoming class of MBAs and we really wish we got to relive it again. I sure hope we showed all the prospective students what it feels like to be a Sternie and got them excited about being part of the family!

Passport day

This is a multi-cultural event that I have been looking forward to since I submitted my Stern application. As an enthusiast for ethnic dances and a foodie, nothing excites me more than a spring event where more than 35 countries showcase their food and/or traditional performing arts. Under the big tent in Gould plaza right in front of Stern, you get to sample bite sized servings for two hours (don’t let that ‘bite size’ thing trick you, after 30 of them you will feel so full you could roll on the ground) while also cheering for fellow Sternies doing some acts you don’t usually get to see. This is probably one of the best attended events at Stern and definitely one of my favorites!

Follies

If you think the amount of Stern talent outside of B-school is amazing with Passport day, wait till you see Follies. Follies is Stern’s annual theatrical production mixing digital shorts and musical theater. The entire show is produced by the members of the Stern Follies club – from scripting the play to coming up with the jokes, from choreographing the dances to filming the shorts, including all cast and crews. This year the show, titled Beauty and the B-school, ran in the Skirball theater on April 26th in front of 600 people. I made my contribution by being part of the stage crews. It was such a humbling experience to see all the passion and effort from all the cast members. They are all MBA students with a ton of other things going on in their life, but they stayed many late nights to rehearse so that they can put the best show forward for our friends and families. Now looking back, I wish I had realized how much fun it is to work on this production and join the 8-month journey way earlier starting last fall. Focused MBAs only get one chance to experience everything and I am super thankful I get to take part in this in some way!

 

But wait, there’s more! Other NYU Grad Schools

On March 28, NYU hosted their fourth annual “One Day” fundraising campaign. The University collectively raised over 4,000 matched gifts and the MBA class of 2019 made dozens of contributions to their annual class gift. As a student that has benefited remarkably from NYU’s Tech MBA program with a shiny new job offer, I felt compelled to give back. While I was determining how my gift would be spent, I was reminded of the sheer size of NYU and the academic resources available outside of Stern. Between recruiting, club events, and classes, it’s easy to simply stay inside of the business school and maintain a packed schedule. However, NYU is much more than just Stern, and I want to highlight some classes and opportunities available outside of the business school in this blog post.

There are a couple of core technology classes that are required as part of the Tech MBA program: Foundations of Networks and DevOps & Agile Methodologies. These two classes are graduate level computer science courses taught at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. If you’re not already familiar with Courant, I highly recommend making a quick Google search to learn about the high-caliber faculty that make it such a competitive graduate school for applied math, computer science, and information systems. If you’re joining the Tech MBA program with a lighter technical background, these classes will be challenging. Nevertheless, the full-time and adjunct faculty at Courant understand they are teaching a variety of skill sets among business students and your more technical classmates will be invaluable throughout the year.

Stern also offers a credit overload program. The credit overload policy at Stern allows full-time MBA students to take up to 3 additional credits. This can be completed as one 3-credit class in one semester or split over the fall and spring semester with two 1.5-credit classes. If you take full advantage of the credit overload system, you will graduate with a total of 54 credits, just 6 credits shy of a two-year MBA from Stern. This is an incredible value considering the Tech MBA takes only 12 months to complete.

These additional credits allow you to take various elective classes, and some are offered outside of Stern. I have taken advantage of this and will be venturing down to the NYU School of Law during my final semester. The class is called, “Negotiating Complex Transactions with Lawyers and Business Professionals” and is comprised of both law and business students. Combining the two sets of students from the different graduate schools offers new learning opportunities, debates, and conversations to take place, in addition to new networking opportunities.

In addition to classes outside of Stern, there is a university-wide event calendar that posts concerts, lectures, exhibits, games, and more happening on or around campus. I hope that if you attend NYU, you make the most out of your time by exploring everything that the greater university has to offer.

Spring Break!

Work hard. Play hard. I think this is a motto that most MBA students can identify with. While of course there is plenty of work and studying to accomplish in order to earn the degree, an MBA is likely the last time in your life you won’t have a morning commute and boss to report to – and you should take advantage! There are plenty of opportunities to unwind and have some fun throughout the MBA program at Stern, from the weekly Thursday night “Beer Blast”, to the Welcome Back Boat Cruise around Manhattan. But perhaps nothing can match the spring break treks led by some of the amazing affinity clubs at Stern. This year, we had options of heading to one of the following school-sponsored trip locations: Israel, Vietnam, Tanzania, New Zealand, Japan, Himalayas, and Patagonia. After working hard through the first half of the spring semester, the break finally arrived, and I and many of my classmates left New York City and jetted off to different corners of the world.

I attended the trek to Israel, and it exceeded even my lofty expectations. First off, it’s a great opportunity to meet other two-year MBA students. It can be easy to stay confined to your fellow Tech MBA students during your year at Stern, but between classes and events like these treks, there are ample opportunities to grow your network outside of 1-year classmates. After a long flight, we wasted no time in exploring and learning about the country. Throughout the trek, we were joined by a professional Israeli tour guide, who shared his knowledge about the thousands of years of history in the country. Some of the historical stops in the trip included: The Old City of Jerusalem, the Yad Va’Shem Holocaust Museum, a sunrise hike and tour of Masada (seen in the photo above), excursions through Caper Naum and Nazareth, and finally a tour through the old town of Jaffa. But it wasn’t all history – through visits to an Israeli Air Force base, and lectures from a former military Colonel as well as a business CEO, we were able to learn about all the forces shaping Israel and the Middle East today, and how we might want to keep them in mind as future global business leaders. And finally, what would be a successful spring break trip without some fun: from beach parties on the shores of the Dead Sea, to ATV rides through northern Israel, to nights out in world-famous Tel Aviv clubs, this trek offered something for everyone.

For now, it’s back to school and homework, but these last few months of the final semester will undoubtedly offer lots more opportunities for fun and chances to make even more lasting connections with classmates who will be part of your network for life.

Starting the third and last semester

On February 4th of 2019, we all got back to Stern with a strange feeling, this was to be our last semester and we wanted to make the most of it.

We came back even more united than before thanks to the two weeks of the West Coast immersion trip that we took in January. During this immersion, all the students of the NYU Tech MBA went to Seattle and San Francisco to meet with companies and leaders in the tech industry for three main reasons :

  1. Understand the tech ecosystem of the west coast
  2. Speak about business and tech challenges of today
  3. Discuss the future of tech.

The diversity in company visits was amazing. To give you a sample we had the opportunity to visit the Boeing factory, the Tableau office, and we met with leading VCs of the valley who talked about their portfolio. And that is just a small sample of the meetings we had that week.
We all felt impressed by the time every person spent with us – everyone seemed genuinely ready and pleased to share their journey, their challenges, and even asked our opinion on their business or tech questions.

During the trip we didn’t only learn about tech and business, we also learned about each other – the 31 students of the inaugural Tech MBA class. Because when you spend two weeks, 24/7 with people, you learn more than just what’s at the surface. We got to understand the challenges, fears, life goals and values of our classmates, and we all, as a team, worked on trying to make this trip the best for each other. We made introductions to people we knew and made sure everyone had the chance to speak during networking time and corporate presentations. With empathy and compassion, we made the best out of the trip. We all felt that these two weeks were very special, and it was very hard to say goodbye.

So, here I am in my last semester. This is my third Masters degree, so clearly I have said that sentence a lot, but it never felt stronger than on that day facing Stern. For me, this semester is about getting to know as many classmates as I can. I gave myself the challenge to create a strong network with the MBA1s and MBA2s and try to learn as much as I can. So I picked classes that were not tech focused, and I have to say that I love it. I have a class in brand strategy where we have been working with cosmetic and kitchen tools brands, and it is super fun for me to get out from the tech-focused program and expand my horizons in what takes to create a business.

This semester will pass at light speed, but I know that we will make sure to enjoy the time together as a team, as a class and to get the best out of it.

International Women’s Day at Stern

In the spirit of International Women’s Day, I want to take the chance to highlight a few female professors I have had Stern. They are not only just teachers to me but also mentors and role models. They inspire me to keep learning, dreaming and charging forward.

Professor Sonia Marciano

I had professor Sonia Marciano for my strategy business core class in the summer. Still adapting to the business mindset at that point, I was completely blown away by Sonia’s class. She is super smart and down-to-earth. She has a witty and straightforward way of explaining concepts – they all seemed so common-sense and obvious yet I would have never thought of them from those angles on my own. Many of the things she taught us not only apply to business situations, but also to daily life situations, too.

First, focus your time and energy on things that are high weight and high variation. She used the example of her daughter’s sock puppet assignment in her English literature class (hence the term ‘sock-puppeting’) – if the outcome between spending 2 hours and 20 hours on this assignment is 2%, it’s probably worth spending the 18 hours on things that will have a bigger impact on grades.  This was definitely a life saver in business school where there are so many things competing for our time and we have to be strategic about how to spend our time.

Second, leverage your strength and be big in a dimension. In business, this carefully chosen strategic position allows a firm to enjoy a monopolistic position in an industry. On a personal level, I pivoted my job searching strategy from looking for product manager position in tech companies (which I have little background in) to looking for strategy position with heavy data analytics component. I received way more response after I changed my job searching strategy and ultimately landed an internal strategy consulting position at IBM.

Professor Anjolein Schmeits

Professor Anjolein Schmeits was our finance professor at the end of the summer. She is very passionate about teaching and cares deeply about her students. That reflects in how energetic she always was in class despite the fact she was teaching 9 hours in a day. Finance is a very quantitative subject and the lecture can get very dry if not thought out properly. With Anjolein’s class, you never noticed that 3 hours went by. All the concepts were explained in an easily digestible way. Her structure was logical and emphasized not only the what and how but also the why. I definitely wished we could’ve had more class time with her!

Professor Amy Webb

Professor Amy Webb is teaching one of the most unique electives at Stern – Predicting the Future of Technology. This class goes through her unique framework of strategic foresight regarding to technology trends – CIPHER – explained in detail in her book “The Signals are Talking”. Amy has an amazing talent of telling stories so her class is always engaging and thought provoking. The ‘moment of trends’ exercise we did at the beginning of every class started my habit of keeping a pulse of news in the technology industry, from announcements of new products to PR of tech companies to mergers & acquisitions in the industry. We were able to apply her methodology in each class on current trends we care about – like what we might do once we graduate. These in-class exercises are what she would do with her executive clients. Did I mention she brought delicious gluten-free, nut-free and dairy-free treats to every class? Also, check out her TED talk on how she found her soul mate using on-line dating platform, the story is being turned into a movie now.

There are so many more amazing female professors at Stern who were essential to my experience this past year. Lastly, I want to give a big shout out to all my fellows at Stern Women in Business (SWIB) and all the male allies. We recently hosted an event titled “Shattering the Glass Ceiling” featuring an incredible panel of executive women. Happy international women’s day!

 

Advice for Admitted Students

The second year of Tech MBAs is currently being recruited and if you are one of the lucky candidates that got admitted, first of all, congratulations! I have received quite a few questions from admitted students who are planning for the year ahead. Below I will try to answer the most commonly asked questions:

 

How do I best prepare myself for the year ahead?

If you have the opportunity, I would try to take some time off in between resigning from your job and starting the program. Not only is there plenty to organize if you are moving to New York, but also mentally I think it is beneficial to take some time to switch from employee to student mode. Finally, make sure to make time now for your friends and family!

 

How do I find a place to live in New York?

There are two options: student housing or the regular housing market. While the student housing is very close to campus, the Stern graduate housing has similar pricing as regular housing while being shared, so most students decide to find something on their own. Students from our class live all over the city: in Manhattan, Brooklyn and also New Jersey. Where you want to live depends mostly on your personal preferences and budget. The rental market cycle in New York is later than most other cities and typically viewings are two to four weeks before the rental start period. If you prefer to share, some of my classmates met at one of the admitted student events and decided to live together!

 

How do I make the most out of the year?

It is a bit cliché, but I personally believe that if you don’t know where you are going, you will never get there. Therefore, before the start of the program, take a moment to sit down and write out your goals. These can be academic, social, career and personal. An optional way to do it is to imagine yourself at graduation and write what you will have achieved. As the year progresses, look back at this document from time to time. This will allow you to stay focused on your goals, as the year will go by so fast.

 

I’m an international student, what should I do in preparation?

Besides the visa process, moving internationally is a bit more challenging. Firstly, finances: Open an American bank account as quickly as possible as this is often required for housing (often this needs to be done from within the US, with the exception of HSBC). I found TransferWise very useful to transfer foreign currency to my US bank account with low fees. Set up Venmo with your US bank account, which you will use it often to transfer small amounts to classmates etc. Secondly, phone plan: I remember that I received a SIM card from Mint mobile in my international student packet from Stern, which provides good value. Third, housing: You most likely need an US co-signer for renting an apartment. If you don’t have one, there are companies that will be a co-signer for you (for a fee) such as TheGuarantors. I also find that larger real estate companies like Two Trees are easier in the process of renting out to international students than individual land lords. These companies don’t require international students to pay a couple months of rent upfront which many individual landlords do.

 

Can I work during the year?

As an international student on an F1 visa you can only work on campus. There are several job possibilities, although all require an application process: teaching assistant (supporting professors) graduate ambassador for the admissions office, or support on an undergraduate trek. If you are eligible to work in the US you can of course also do internships during the semester. Whether the workload is manageable is a personal question. I have classmates who work 5-10 hours a week with no problem and classmates who say they would not manage that. Typically, the first summer semester is very intense, but the fall and spring semesters have a bit more flexibility as those semesters you will not have class on Fridays.

 

If you have any more questions that are not answered above, don’t hesitate to reach out at mbaga@stern.nyu.edu!

5 Ways for Tech MBAs to Meet Other MBAs at Stern

If you’re admitted and decide to join Stern’s Tech MBA cohort, you should be careful not to only focus on mingling with your close classmates. Instead, find ways to reach out to the broader MBA community. While I’m not disregarding the importance of developing sustainable relationships within the Tech MBA class, the nature of the program will offer plenty of opportunities to do so by default. That being the case, here are five ways that I’ve made the most out of the Stern community by networking with other students in the various MBA programs. Remember, Stern has several other MBA programs including but not limited to the full-time program, fashion and luxury specialized program, part-time evening classes, and dual degree students.

1. General Interest Clubs

Most clubs are open to any MBA students and if there is a common interest, you can bet there is a club created for it. There are even a few leadership opportunities for Tech MBA students specifically in some of the technology-oriented clubs. Here is a list of all of the clubs that Stern has to offer.

2. Case Competitions

Several case competitions will float through your email inbox throughout your year at Stern. Case competitions are a great way to put your new business school knowledge to work while collaborating with other students at Stern. Most competitions even have a pretty substantial monetary reward! If you’re not familiar with case competitions, check out this Poets & Quants article on them.

3. Alumni Networking Events

Before mentioning alumni events, I feel as though I should mention is this first: don’t target recruiting events strictly as a way to network with your classmates. Recruiting events are designed to help students learn about companies, not students. Similarly, the pressure and competitive mindset of certain industries may make recruiting events high-stakes and stressful for attendees. On the contrary, alumni events are set up specifically for networking and meeting current and former students. Most alumni who come to these events have open arms and ears and are looking forward to meeting you. You can see a list of upcoming alumni events here.

4. Elective Classes

When the fall semester rolls around, Tech MBA students are viewed as second-year MBA students from a registration perspective. That means your classmates in electives will be composed of students from the full-time program who have known each other for at least a year. Make an effort to form class groups with students outside of your Tech MBA cohort and sit next to people you haven’t met yet. Here is a full list of elective classes.

5. Happy Hours & Social Events

Finally, the obvious one. Happy hours and social outings are often held at the end of the week, which happens to be Thursday in business school. Even if you don’t drink alcohol, your classmates will happily welcome you to these events. One of the most notable events is Beer Blast, which takes place every Thursday night, often following another great event called Stern Speaks. These events attract students from every program and are a great way to connect after a long week of classes.

I hope these five ideas help you make the most out of your year at Stern. It will fly by, so make sure to take advantage of as much as you can while you’re here!

Foundations of Network

When in business school, people often think of network as the group of people you are connected with socially and professionally. And one might naturally think of interpersonal communication skills as the foundations of network. The Foundations of Network I am about to write about today, however, is something completely different.

This is actually one of our tech core class, taught by Professor Lakshmi Subramanian from Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. The network in discussion in this class is the network of computers – PCs, mobile phones, routers, servers, cloud and many other devices connected through the internet. The participants of this class include us (the Tech MBAs) and the students from the Courant Computing, Entrepreneurship and Innovation (MS-CEI) program, whom we already know very well through some of the business core classes we took together in the summer.

Taking such a class within the computer science school might seem too technical and irrelevant for MBA students – after all, we are unlikely to be creating the network architecture or writing lines of software codes for the companies we will be working for in the future. But having a high-level understanding of various pieces of the very network that is so essential to our productivity nowadays can be hugely beneficial to understanding the risk and opportunities behind a product or business. On a practical level, some high-tech companies are known for asking MBA candidates questions like ‘what happens behind the scene when you type the address of the website in your web-browser?’.

Professor Subramanian has done a great job this semester at explaining many engineering concepts to non-technical audiences and covering a wide range of topics that are highly relevant to current landscape in the tech industry. We started with the foundation of the internet – communication protocols between devices of different complexity, location or form, to how data packets are routed through the internet, to how a web page is downloaded through the http protocol onto our browsers, to how signals are sent over the wireless and cellular network, to cloud computing services, to more advanced topics like 5G network and data center architecture.

As the capstone of this class, we are supposed to submit a project at the end of the semester – either build (code) a functioning product or write an in-depth case study about something related to the content covered in class. Our class is roughly split half and half between ‘build’ and ‘case study’ projects. It is very exciting to see what my classmates have come up with for their projects: interactive ads for mobile games, google phi case study, finger print authenticated QR code for login, Amazon data center in Chile case study, multi-user web-based games, case studies on mesh network and many, many more. Don’t be surprised if you see some of our apps pushed to app stores or case studies published in the near future!

This class seemed a bit odd at the beginning but it has quickly become one of my favorite classes. Tech core classes like this class provide us with a unique opportunity to get exposure to the intersection of tech and business from the perspective of the tech side. Last, I want to give a shout-out to our Teaching Assistant Talal Ahmad, who is a PhD student in Professor Subramanian’s lab researching on mobile networking and mobile systems. Besides the fact that he is passionate and empathetic toward his students, he has also done amazing things with his research like deploying software-defined network base stations in Ghana. Talal is graduating soon – can’t wait to hear his new adventures!

Here is a screen shot of my network project – location based android app telling you where are the nearby public recycling bins in NYC

Recruiting Season

Fall semester in the Tech MBA program comes with new classes and friends, endless fun club activities, and everybody’s favorite… recruiting season. Tech is different than more traditional business school paths like consulting and banking, in that the timeline of recruiting varies based on the companies you are targeting. If you are targeting medium-sized companies or startups, they usually can’t predict headcount too far in advance and do just-in-time recruiting that will happen during the spring semester. But if you are targeting Big Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft or Google, then you will likely be applying and interviewing during the fall semester.

But preparation for interviews happens long before that, in fact, it will happen before you even step on campus. A few weeks before starting school in May, you’ll need to submit your resume to the Office of Career Development (OCD), who will go over it with a fine-toothed comb and provide feedback. Then over the summer, OCD conducts a number of helpful job search related workshops. Once the fall semester begins, you’ll start preparing in earnest for interviews.

Earlier this semester, the Stern Technology Association invited Lewis Lin to campus for a full day workshop on tech interviewing. If you aren’t familiar with Lewis Lin, he literally has written the book on interviewing for product jobs at big tech companies. It’s never too early to start preparing for interviews, so if you’re searching for reading recommendations, take a look at his books. The first half of the workshop focused on the types of roles that tech companies are looking to fill. The second half of the day went even more in-depth on product management, with lots of practice problems covered that you might receive during an actual interview.

While this workshop provided a solid foundation, there is no substitute for good old repetitive practice. To prepare even more, I partnered up with a few fellow Tech MBA classmates who were also recruiting this fall, and we spent hours lobbing practice questions at each other and providing feedback on answers. The Stern Technology Association provides guides on each company, so we were able to use that to tailor the practice problems based on the next interview. The last few weeks I have had multiple interviews at big tech companies, and all of this practice proved invaluable. The format (phone/virtual/in-person) and questions will change depending on the company, but with the right practice, you will feel confident in any interview situation.

Outside of the Classroom: Clubs at Stern

I get a lot of questions from prospective students around clubs, and rightly so, you are not only coming for Stern for your studies, the clubs are just as important for your experience! The clubs are also a great way to meet the other MBA students, help you networking with potential employers, learn something new, and of course have a lot of fun.  There are three types of clubs: professional clubs, affinity clubs and what I would call “other” clubs.

Professional Clubs

These are clubs that focus on career related events. There are many professional clubs at Stern, below the ones most relevant for Tech MBA students.

For Tech-MBA students the Stern Technology Association (STA) is invaluable. For example, they organized a lunch where the MBA 2ndyears who had just done an internship at a tech firm told us about their experiences. This was very valuable for us to get an insider perspective on what each company was like and we got a lot of job hunt advice. Another workshop I really liked was on Product Management and given by Lewis Lin, a PM “guru” and author of several books on the topic.

Entrepreneurship & Start-up Association (ESA) is another interesting club. The club focuses both on students interested in starting their own start-up, students looking to join a start-up after graduation and on students interested in venture capital. I find the club valuable for pointing out start-up competitions in the city as well as all events related to entrepreneurship that are organized by the university, not just Stern.

The final club I want to mention is the Management Consulting Organization – a great resource for practicing case interviews and networking with consulting firms.

Other professional clubs are in areas including emerging markets, entertainment media and sports, FinTech, government and business, marketing, luxury & retail, social impact and sustainability, energy & infrastructure, healthcare, private equity and real estate.

Affinity Clubs

The affinity clubs are either based by region, such as the Asian Business Society, these clubs are for students from that region and students interested in the region. The Latin American Business Association is known for the best parties, whereas the Stern in Africa club organized the most popular spring break trek this year. Then there are also non-region-based affinity clubs such as the Military Veterans Club and OutClass, Stern’s LGTBQ community. I am a member of the European Business Society, which always serves the best food and Stern Women in Business, one of the largest clubs at Stern.

“Other” Clubs

Then there are clubs for almost everything else: any type of sports, theatre, eating, drinking, public speaking etc. In total there are more than 40 Stern clubs, so something for everyone. And if there is a club that you are missing, start one!

For me personally the clubs are my greatest source of FOMO, as I am a member of too many of them that almost every evening I have choice of several events to join. I guess it is a nice problem to have 🙂 . If you would like to know more about any of these clubs, send me an email at mbaga@stern.nyu.edu and I would be happy to answer your question or bring you in touch with the clubs.

Your Top 5 Tech MBA Questions Answered

Every week I have the opportunity to speak with prospective applicants about the Tech MBA program. Here are the top five questions that people ask:

1. How “Tech” do I need to be to complete this program?

I’m not a developer and don’t have an engineering background. My background has varied extensively. I’ve worked on teams with engineers, marketers, designers, and entrepreneurs in tech and non-tech companies. Ideally, you have a passion for technology and industry experience is a plus.

You will be required to learn basic Python as part of your early coursework and would be much better off if you spend some time to learn it on your own before joining your classmates on campus. There are several free resources to do so, my favorite is Codecademy. If you do arrive on campus without knowing Python, expect to spend some evening and weekends figuring it out – it’s not the end of the world, but I’d rather be out with friends on a rooftop in Brooklyn on a summer evening. If learning Python on your own time sounds daunting to you, the two-year MBA may be a better option.

Keep in mind, your application is reviewed holistically by the admissions committee and they will be able to determine if your technical prowess aligns with the Tech MBA class profile.

2. What is “tech” about the Tech MBA?

The Tech MBA is first and foremost an MBA. In essence, it is an accelerated business degree with a focus in technology. The degree contains a tech core that was designed with the Department of Computer Science at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and features technical classes that will teach you about networks, DevOps, and software engineering at a high level. On the business side, you will learn about technical product management and skills such as leveraging big data and business analytics. The tech classes don’t exist to teach you specific skills and technologies, but instead teach you how to think about technology, how it will change over time, how to harness it, and how to speak the language. Apart from that, we also partake in traditional business courses ranging from leadership to corporate finance and economics.

3. What is the recruiting process like when you’re finding a job?

I should start by saying that as a Tech MBA student, you can recruit for the exact same roles as the traditional two-year students. You will be in the same corporate presentations, application pools, and networking events. That being the case, your status as a Tech MBA student will resonate differently with different firms. I have interviewed with tech companies and “Big 4” consulting firms and based on the response of my interviewers, the Tech MBA has only made my candidacy stronger. It’s a great talking point and shows that you are serious about your interests and know your strengths. Many firms are seeking more technical candidates and view the Tech MBA as a key option to source top talent. Some industries and firms strongly prefer a two-year MBA, especially in finance, so make sure your career goals align with your MBA journey. Remember, companies are seeking qualified MBAs with a strong business acumen and EQ – that’s ultimately why they come to Stern.

4. Why did you pick the Tech MBA over the traditional two-year program?

As you may have read above, I have a passion for tech and knew that I wanted to work for a large tech company. Based on my goals, the Tech MBA was the best option for me and offered a really efficient way to get a top-ranked MBA in a shorter amount of time. Many of my colleagues in the two-year program are pivoting their careers – they may be changing industries entirely, exploring all of their options, or just taking the additional time to take electives and figure out what is best for them. I also have always been a “Type A” person and appreciated an efficient option to achieve my goals.

5. What do I lose by not completing an internship as part of my MBA?

I consider internships an opportunity to “test drive” a specific company or role, specifically by experiencing something that you’ve never done before. Many of the two-year MBA summer interns receive full-time offers to return upon graduation, however, many students also restart the recruiting process entirely. There are a handful of jobs that require a summer internship prior to receiving full-time offers, so do your research and reflect if an internship is something from which you would benefit. As a part of the Tech MBA curriculum, you will take an experiential learning course called, “Stern Solutions” during the fall semester. You will have the opportunity to work with a company for the duration of the semester and many of my classmates have seen this as a minor internship role. Some other classmates also intern with companies during the fall or spring semester if they have the time. Once you decide how important completing an internship is for you as part of your own MBA experience, it will help you narrow down your application choices. For me and my classmates in the Tech MBA, not completing an internship during our program has never been an issue.

I hope these questions and answers were useful! Please feel free to reach out to me and the other graduate ambassadors for Stern’s MBA programs at mbaga@stern.nyu.edu.

A Week in the Life of an NYU Stern Tech MBA

In this blog I hope to give you a little insight in what it is like to be in the Stern Tech MBA by providing an overview of my recent week in the program during October 2019.

Monday

The week started with one of my electives, Foundations of Entrepreneurship. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of venture capital funding and what considerations to make before reaching out to VC’s. Then we had our Data class where we discussed the different ways of doing data analysis, by Python or SQL.

I held early afternoon held office hours at the Berkeley Innovation Lab (one of my on-campus jobs) where I provide advice to the teams participating in the NYU Stern 300K Entrepreneurs Challenge. This is one of my favorite activities, and I provided the teams some UX research advice which is part of the next challenge.

I ended the day with giving a tour of the school and answering questions of prospective students for the Admissions office (my other on-campus job). There were some really enthusiastic students that are going to apply for next year’s class. A good start to the week!

Tuesday

In the morning I had an interview with a recruiter. Unfortunately, the role was very different from what I expected and am looking for, so I decided not to continue, but it was good to find this out early. In the afternoon, there was an on-campus career fair where I met with the recruiters of some large and small tech companies which was useful as I added some new companies to my “interesting potential employers for after graduation” list.

At the end of the day, I had a ‘Networking’ class, which is super interesting. We discussed in technical detail how the internet really works, and the professor has a talent for explaining very technical concepts in a way that we all understand.

Wednesday

In the early afternoon I did an ‘Introduction to Python’ course organized by the NYU library to increase my Python skills a little bit. I did not have any coding experience before coming to Stern, and my advice to prospective students is to do some self-study before you start at Stern so that you can hit the ground running.

Afterwards, I met with my group for our ‘Technology Solutions’ class, where we do a semester long project for a company. Our company Nestio, is a real estate software start-up and my group met to discuss what to present to them in the next meeting.

In the evening I attended a corporate presentation from a large Tech firm, which was helpful and also fun as there were Stern alums talking about their journey from Stern MBA to their current position.

The day ended late with drinks and food with the European Business Society, a Stern Club for European students and anyone interested in Europe.

Thursday

In the morning, I had my other elective, ‘Collaboration, Conflict and Negotiation’, which is one of the courses that I will use most in the rest of my career. We practice negotiation techniques and styles by doing live negotiations in class. In the afternoon, we had our ‘Tech Solutions’ class which is a combination of the project I described prior as well as cases and guest speakers. During class we discussed a case about LinkedIn and how it built its corporate culture  (very inspiring!)

In the evening we had our Tech Product Management course from a really good professor who currently still works as a Product Manager for a technology company. He lectures on all responsibilities of a Tech PM and at the same time we apply what we have learned in a new tech product of our choosing. We all gratefully soak in the knowledge.

Friday

Thank goodness for Friday! On Fridays there are no classes at Stern. It was a very good but also exhausting week. In the morning I participated in a yoga class for charity organized by one of my classmates. This was some very welcome relaxation. Afterwards I had the meeting with Nestio, where my group and I discussed next steps for the semester long project.

In the afternoon I had a Google Hangout meeting with an alum who had a very similar background to me, coming from consulting and now working as a Product Manager at Google. It was great to hear from him about how Stern helped him make this switch and more about his day-to-day job activities. The great thing about Stern is that you not only have a great network of more than 800 students on campus, but also the whole alumni network who are more than happy to meet with you when you reach out to them.

All in all, a good week, and I will spend the weekend preparing for the classes and assignments for next week and doing some sports. Good to know for prospective students about the new 1-year MBA, is that it really is a 7-day a week commitment, but one that is extremely rewarding!

Learning beyond the walls of an MBA classroom!

One of the biggest advantages of pursuing an MBA in New York City is to get the opportunity to attend events and meet industry professionals from a variety of fields. One of the technology entrepreneurship events that I attended was a cross between a TED Talk and an open mic night. The event provided an excellent networking opportunity within NYC healthcare tech industry, differing opinions about tech in healthcare from the two featured speakers, and the chance to learn from the audience members. I was drawn to this event because speakers were encouraged to share learnings from their entrepreneurial journey rather than pitching about their company.

Go early to events.

I arrived about 30 mins early and interacted with the CEO of the company that organized the event. I learned that the company hosts such events every quarter where they attract health-tech entrepreneurs. I met an MBA student who also works as a Pharmacist.  He shared that pharmacies use machine learning tools to predict and fill prescriptions in the pharmacy. I also met with a founder of a health tech marketing organization who works with other healthcare companies to market their products.

After initial networking conversations, it was time to hear from the two featured speakers. The first speaker kicked off the session and focused on the importance of new tech advances to provide health care using online platforms. This contrasted with the second speaker who did not fully embrace the importance of tech in healthcare and instead highlighted that best healthcare means providing better care and not the tech tools that aid in providing that care.

During early stages of a new product idea, surround yourself with optimistic people.

Some of the learnings from this talk were – it is difficult to find and convince a co-founder to team up with, rally people around your idea especially in the early days. Your idea won’t be stolen so start socializing it now! He also emphasized that ideas are fragile at the start, so it is better to surround yourself with optimistic people first; make your idea look real by creating wireframes even if you don’t have a real product yet; use that as your Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and this will make your idea look real. Additionally, it will trick others and yourself into believing it. He further noted that even if you’re launching in a few months, start signing up people early and start putting thoughts into writing to help streamline your thought process. He shared that the MVP for his company was just 3 slides with rendered website images to make it look real. His key takeaway was your idea should have a big finish and easy start while making your idea appeal to diverse stakeholders such as in engineering, marketing, and finance, because, then more people would have fine-tuned the idea using their professional expertise.

Attending a tech entrepreneurship event!

Listen and appreciate differing viewpoints.

The second speaker was a physician and a founder of a modern sports medicine clinic. Throughout the talk, he strongly emphasized that in the healthcare industry clinical care and customer experience are more relevant than the technology behind it. During his talk, I also learned about new Apple medical record API. He equated learning about machine learning and AI in healthcare to learning about rocket science by villagers – which in his opinion is not that useful. I did not completely agree with his opinion, but I appreciated listening to his viewpoint. It was good to hear a different perspective which was not in line with every other opinion I hear around me.

After the two featured speakers, there was an open mic session where audience members could share their entrepreneurial learnings.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this event especially meeting and hearing from the entrepreneurs in the healthcare industry. Differing opinions about the use of tech by two featured speakers made the event really stand out for me. It also gave me the opportunity to learn about a completely different industry.

Stern Tech Solutions – Sky High Innovation

Fall semester is here and with it comes for me one of the most looked forward to components of the Tech MBA curriculum: Tech Solutions. Without the benefit of a summer internship associated with a traditional two-year MBA, I knew I’d have to prioritize in-semester opportunities to gain work experience. Stern Solutions is woven into the curriculum of the Tech MBA, offering students a chance to work on projects that enable them to design, build and launch technological solutions to solve real-world problems.

Having gone through design thinking and analytical workshops over the summer, the fall aspect of Stern Solutions is focused on delivering an actual technical product that addresses a problem facing a company today. After ranking a list of 13 potential projects to work on, I was assigned to a group with a fellow Tech MBA student as well a two-year MBA student. We are working with Infosys, a global leader in technology services and consulting, to develop a solution that utilizes machine learning techniques like natural language processing to help financial analysts pinpoint investment opportunities. I know that’s a lot of tech and finance buzzwords rolled into one sentence, but I could not be more excited to work on this project.

After being assigned a group and a company contact, it’s really up to us to drive the project forward. Like most successful projects, it all starts with a kick-off meeting. Last week, the team and I traveled to Infosys’ office, a stunning location on the 79th floor of One World Trade Center. One of the big advantages of going to business school in the heart of NYC is that most world-renowned companies have an office no more than a few subway stops away. After taking the blazingly fast elevator up, we got started in a conference room overlooking the city. I’ll be honest, it was a little intimidating when 5 Infosys consultants, including a senior partner, joined us for the meeting, but I quickly realized how friendly they all were, not to mention eager to help.

We clarified project objectives, deliverables and timelines, as well met additional Infosys employees we could use as resources on the project. For a minute I forgot I was even in grad school! But the meeting soon ended, and we left with a stronger understanding of what the client is expecting. Over the course of the semester, we will have weekly check-ins with Infosys, as well sit-downs with Stern faculty advisors to ensure we are on track. This will no doubt be a challenging project, but I can already tell it will be one of the most useful and rewarding aspects of the Tech MBA program. Check back here later in the fall for an update on what we actually managed to build!

Tis the recruiting season!

Fall is the official kickoff of the recruiting season for MBA2s and us focused MBAs in the TechMBA program. You will constantly bump into fellow Sternies in the Kauffman center who are dressed up in formal attire attending various events put up by the Office of Career Development (OCD): corporate presentations, career fair, coffee chats, workshops and campus interviews. At this point in the fall semester, we have been focusing on events that help us get to know the potential employers and build a good relationship with them. These are great opportunities to talk to as many companies as possible and learn what they actually do which might be very different from what you thought they do. Through these events, I confirmed my interest in some companies, crossed some companies off of my target list, and added many companies that I never knew I would be excited about.

As I am getting started with job applications and interviews now, I am greatly thankful for all the preparation work we did over the summer, mainly through OCD’s IGNITE program. IGNITE is a series of workshops and online modules designed to build job searching skills such as resume writing, networking, developing pitches, building a LinkedIn profile and interviewing. As one of my classmates put it: “I always dreaded attending the IGNITE workshops but I walked away from each one learning so much!” These workshops usually start with a short presentation going over the background and techniques in the relevant topic followed by an interactive practice session. The round-table practices provide an intimate and safe environment for us to practice our communication skills and provide real-time constructive feedback from classmates and career coaches. Through hearing our classmate’s responses and stories it not only helps us in building a strong bond but also provides additional thoughts for us to consider on our own career development.

Another important component of the recruiting preparation is the individual coaching sessions with an OCD career coach. These are 30-minutes sessions dedicated to a specific topic we want to talk about related to the recruiting process, including resume feedback, cover letter feedback, pitch refinement, career goals and personal strength review, job search strategy etc. All the career coaches at OCD are knowledgeable, passionate and personable. If you are more comfortable in a one-on-one setting and want to seek more personalized feedback, definitely take advantage of these coaching appointments!

Lastly, every alumni and career coach I have talked to emphasized the importance of networking in the process of job searching or career development in general. I have heard repeatedly ‘use your student card and ask for coffee chats. You will be surprised how many people will respond to your request. It might seem a bit intimidating at the beginning, but sometimes you just have to try it and the response I’ve got so far is overwhelmingly positive. To search for potential networking candidates, I have asked for help from OCD career coaches, utilized LinkedIn alumni functionality, and cold-contacted people I have met through industry events I attended. You will be surprised how willing people are to help and to share their stories!

Pumpkin spice and a new iPhone? It must be the fall semester!

We returned to campus after a two-week break and it’s clear that Stern has a renewed sense of energy. Over the summer, the students on campus were limited to the one-year focused MBAs, which consisted of my Tech MBA colleagues and the Fashion and Luxury MBA cohort. While we spent most days in class or doing homework, we became close with the other focused program students and managed to fit in plenty of socializing between courses. As the fall rolled around, the campus began bustling. However, it’s cooling down outside and commuting in the city is much more enjoyable.

Our first day back on campus was met with an influx of second-year MBA students returning from their internships, first-year  MBA students part of the traditional 2 year program, part-time students from the Langone program, and even some lingering undergraduates who found themselves roaming the halls of the MBA classrooms. While it may be slightly harder to find a quiet study spot in the student lounges, the combined energy of all of the students on campus together truly captures the experience of an MBA. During our first week, club kickoff meetings and social events started immediately, along with corporate recruiting.

Over the summer I applied to be a VP of the Stern Technology Association, a professional club with a focus on technology. The club helps students with or without tech backgrounds learn about the benefits of having an MBA in the tech world and offers several unique immersion treks and recruitment opportunities for all of its members. I was interviewed by the current club leaders and am now the proud Co-VP of Academics and Collaboration along with another student from the Tech MBA program. In addition to the club’s scheduled programming, we are focusing on integrating the Tech MBA students with the rest of the club to share knowledge on interviews, casing, and general preparation for recruiting. The diverse backgrounds of both Tech MBA students combined with the traditional MBA students allow for a unique blend of knowledge that everyone can learn from.

Speaking of recruiting, I’ve been attending my first corporate presentations hosted by the Office of Career Development, or OCD, as you may hear it called around campus. Companies spend about an hour introducing themselves speaking about their culture, working styles, and development opportunities available to MBA students. Following the presentations, the events are typically opened up for casual networking to learn more about specific opportunities or your own compatibility with the firm. If you are interested, be aware that the application deadlines come quickly, and then interview invitations are sent out. Traditional industries such as finance and consulting typically recruit in the fall semester, while tech-oriented jobs wait until spring to come on campus.

While the summer was spent focusing on academics without the distractions of clubs and recruiting, networking with the additional students has been another way to learn about what career paths are available to us. They are also receptive and friendly to the one-year focused MBA students and are happy to see the specialized programs in place. There are new opportunities for the entire academic community to come together and be a part of a more inclusive, diverse network at Stern and even more to do.

Summer Semester – Over Already?!?

Somehow the summer semester is done and I’m ⅓ of the way through the Tech MBA. I’m about to leave NYC to travel for a week or two, and I still can’t believe it! A lot has changed in the past 3 months – I finished 10 classes, many career development and other sessions, and I got married in the middle of it (to a Stern alum, no less)! While it’s a lot to keep track of, I want to use this post to reflect on three things that stood out to me from this summer:

1. The experiential learning was exactly as claimed…an experience.

I feel incredibly grateful that we got to visit a wide variety of companies every Friday – from consulting and established banks to startups and VC funds. While I loved many of the visits, I also saw a few companies for whom I’d never want to work. However, even in the case of the ones I didn’t fall in love with, I really appreciated the opportunity to see their inner workings and start to understand *why* I didn’t want to work there. I can’t say I’ve quite yet honed in on what I want to do after the program, but I feel like I have a much, much better understanding of what to look for. Additionally, each visit provided perspective that made our classes and the business world in general make more sense, which brings me to #2…

2. I feel like I’ve gained significant knowledge and perspective in the last 3 months that helps make the world make sense.

I feel like I have an entirely refreshed perspective on how business works and what drives the economy. In the process of getting through the entire MBA core in 3 months, we compressed econ, finance, strategy, marketing, and many other classes into a small amount of time. This meant that I was forced to synthesize a lot in a short timeframe, but that also forced me to draw connections between the classes, our experiential learning, and what I see and read about in the world around me. All of a sudden, news articles involving financial markets and business strategy make a whole lot more sense.

I knew coming in that finance has long been a specialty at Stern (and I was a little intimidated by that), but I was blown away by the quality of my intro to finance course. All in all, I shouldn’t have worried at all about this summer, but there’s a lot coming this fall.

3. The unknown of this fall is exciting and a little bit scary, but the community we’ve built so is reassuring

The dynamics of school are going to change a lot in two weeks when the fall semester starts. There will be more than 10 times the number of students at Stern, and clubs and recruiting will get into full swing. While I can’t wait to meet more students who will be my classmates for the next two semesters, it’s definitely a change from our small tight-knit groups we’ve had this summer. That said, the community we built in our program shows me that we will continue to support each other, and if the broader Stern community is anything like what we built within the Tech MBA, we have a lot to look forward to.

There’s a lot more to say about the summer, but those are some top-of-mind thoughts. I’m looking forward to a couple weeks off, some travel, and getting into the swing of fall semester!

Marcus and the Trading Game

As part of our summer curriculum, we have the NYC Tech Immersion class, which is a blend of guest lectures, company visits and Stern solution group project. “What does this have to do with the title of this blog?”, you might have asked. Well, Marcus and the trading game were my favorite sessions during our visit to Goldman Sachs in Jersey City on Friday August 3rd as part of our class.

Before the visit I didn’t quite know what to expect besides the fact that GS is in the finance industry and that this was going to be one of the longer company visits (4 hours). Our afternoon started with a welcome note from Andrew Trout, the managing director of Human Capital Management, giving an overview of engineering at GS: 25% of the total global workforce and the mantra “challenge the status quo”. Then Sinead Strain from the FICC technology team talked to us about Marquee – the digital storefront for Goldman’s security division, and all the valuable lessons learned through the process of building Marquee, such as figuring out the proper business model, understanding the user persona and focusing on KPIs while creating the product.

Next we had Regina Lerit from the digital finance technology team talking to us about Marcus – their consumer banking product launched just a few years ago. Regina shared the growth story of Marcus with us, from the initial customer research, to the ideation and development of its MVP – personal loan platform, to its growth strategy. She even quizzed us about the name ‘Marcus’ and explained why this name was chosen. My favorite part of Regina’s presentation though, was how she explained the traditional waterfall vs. the agile framework of project development. She used our classmates sitting at a table as an example of multiple participants on the team and described the workflow of how they would improve the design of a water bottle had they been using waterfall vs agile methodology. The explanation was very clear and easily relatable. I think I am going to use the same way to explain the two frameworks in the future.

By this time, our class started to be a bit tired from all the presentations on a Friday afternoon: just in time for some highly interactive and fun activity – the trading game. Facilitated by two young and brilliant traders at GS, each group sitting at the table got to collectively decide the asset allocation among 4 stocks, the position we want to take (long vs short) and the opportunity to re-balance the allocation each quarter based on the macro-economic news and firm-specific news given in the simulated game. This got us all ignited and we even got to name our own team. From Fine-Ants, to Goldman Stacks, we got very creative. We had to discuss, calculate and decide how much we wanted to invest in each stock. We love to talk and our recent accounting and finance classes prepped us well. We had a lot of heated discussion on what the economic news meant, whether we should go long or short a company and how much to invest in each company. In the end every team was able to beat the average market return and the Goldman Stacks team made a whopping 60+% return over the course of 4 quarters (they had a CFA on their team so the other teams were playing with a competitive disadvantage)! This was before we learned the portfolio theory and importance of diversification in our finance class. I imagine our investment decisions will be different now.

The visit concluded with a Q&A panel with a few Stern Alumni on their experience at GS and a networking session with the panel. Everyone had a great time and we of course didn’t waste the amazing skyline view of Manhattan from Jersey City! (Photo credit: Isabel Izquierdo)

Stern – Social in so many ways

Everyone told me that my classmates would be one of the best parts of business school. While I was already very excited to be moving to New York and to make new friends, I have been blown away by everyone’s warmth and friendliness. Since our Tech MBA program in small (only 32 of us this year!) we all seemed to know each other by day 2. Additionally, we’re lucky to be spending the summer at Stern with students in the Fashion & Luxury MBA program, so we are able to meet, work with, and make friends with another group of individuals who have fairly different professional backgrounds from our own.

While our class tends to go to happy hour once or twice a week (the neighborhood around the campus has numerous options) here are few other ways I’ve gotten to meet my classmates outside of Kaufman Management Center:

  • Finding new lunch spots: Exploration of the restaurants in the neighborhood is a great way to start appreciating our location and getting to know people. With the growing LunchTech scene (yes, I might coin that term), we seem to find new sign up deals every week from some new app that offers us $3 lunches. We are likely destroying that young startup’s customer acquisition costs, but eating good food along the way!
  • Biking, running, and other outdoor pursuits: While it’s 92° outside today in NYC, and I won’t be setting foot outside besides to get to and from the subway, I’ve spent several Saturday mornings on long bike rides with classmates. As someone from New England, I was skeptical of NYC biking and outdoors, but it turns out there are some great ways to quickly bike out of the city onto beautiful back roads, and great running paths along the rivers. These adventures have provided a break from the noise of the city, and continue to be a great way to get to know my classmates – what better way to do it than while you’re all wearing spandex biking gear?

Dumpling tours: Yes, an actual class activity. It turns out that the leader of NYC’s top dumpling tour is a classmate. He’s a highly rated AirBnB experiences guide, and knows all the spots to hit in Chinatown. We’re lucky to have such diversely skilled classmates.

Getting back in the swing of classes

This year is flying by. I’m a solid 3 weeks into the Tech MBA at Stern, and it’s time for finals! It’s crazy to think that I’m already almost done with two of my classes.

Since classes are on my mind, I’ll use this first post to talk a bit about my initial impressions of the academic experience at Stern in the Tech MBA. Though I was thrilled to be coming back to school, I spent the months leading up to May dreading the idea of sitting in a lecture hall. At work I was that annoying coworker who would get up and start pacing around conference rooms 10 minutes into a meeting. How on earth would I sit still for hours of classes? Luckily, it turns out my fears were unfounded. Here are a few aspects of the program that have helped:

The classes are highly interactive – but not in a scary way. It was easy to let my mind wander during undergrad differential equations class. I can’t do that at Stern. The professors expect active participation, but not the type where you’re just regurgitating numbers or facts – they want us to share our experiences and opinions. Given the diversity of our class, this allows us to all draw from our range of backgrounds, experiences, and failures. This leads to reason #1 why I’ve been able to sit still in Stern classes: They are engaging and participatory in a way that makes you want to jump into the conversation.

Second, I quickly learned that our course content is highly relevant and thoughtful. In an era when issues such as workplace gender discrimination and corporate ethics are far from solved, I am glad to see us facing some of these issues head on. When I saw a class called “Leadership” on my schedule, I figured I was in for a lot of fluff. The first time Professor Nate Pettit opened his mouth however, I instantly knew my assumption was wrong. We don’t talk about how to give the punchiest PowerPoint presentation – instead, we focus on issues like barriers to communication, cultivating positive culture, leading effective change, and how to have difficult conversations (yes, he makes you practice!).

So that leads to reason #2 why I can sit through classes: the professors are astoundingly thoughtful about why material is important to creating strong leaders, and focus on content that resonates with our past experiences and future aspirations.

Lastly, Stern is an oasis away from a deluge of work emails. I am taking notes on paper for the first time in probably 10 years. I still can’t read my own handwriting, but putting away the laptop, putting my iPhone on do not disturb, and focusing on all the things that will further me professionally brings me to reason #3 I can sit through classes: I’m never going to get this opportunity again, and so far the program is filling the exact gaps I came here to address.

Meet the inaugural class of 2019 Andre Koo Tech MBA!

While you might be able to find the official class profile on the Stern website, or this article about a couple members from the inaugural one-year specialized MBA classes, you are probably still wondering, who are they?

Well, it’s hard to describe ‘us’ in a universal way. We are a pretty global group: out of the 32 of us, we have 8 different nationalities and speak at least 11 different languages (I mean, natural languages like English or Spanish, although I am sure if you count the computer languages we know, it’s going to be at least that many plus 10 more as well). Although most of us had work experience before joining Stern, our professional experience can’t be more diverse: we have consultants, bankers, data scientists, software engineers, accountants, product managers, entrepreneurs, career coaches, game designers, relationship managers, talent agents…. The list goes on and I hope you get the gist 😉

You might have noticed from the list above that some of us come from technical backgrounds and some of us come from business backgrounds. One thing we have in common, though, is that we all have a passion for the tech industry. Worried about your rusty math skills? Stern offers math prep course for this program. Don’t know what “pandas” mean besides the cute animals in China? Dealing with Data, a tech core class built into the summer curriculum, will walk you through that (Stern does assume you have some basic programming knowledge coming to the class and will send many coding prep resources prior to the orientation). Plus there are class projects which promotes even more learning from your classmates with more technical backgrounds.

Don’t think the techies will be able to just fly through this program either (which I think is a good thing, otherwise why pay the tuition to learn something you already know?) The summer is loaded with business core classes such as Leadership, Marketing, Strategy and Economics (click here for a more comprehensive description of the curriculum). For introverts coming from STEM backgrounds like me, walking into the first class was a bit intimidating not knowing what to expect. The minute Professor Pettit, our leadership professor, opened the class with a question, our business-versed classmates started to chime in on the case study. It took me a while to warm up to the atmosphere but eventually I started to feed off from the energy in the classroom: everyone has something to contribute and we are very supportive of each other, even when we disagree. Three weeks into the program, I may still be a bit reluctant to raise my hand when Professor Foudy asks for volunteers in his Economics class, but I am a lot more comfortable to raise my hand if I have some ideas I would like to contribute than I was when the program first started.

Summer has been pretty quiet at Stern while all the 2 year MBAs are interning and we have pretty hefty course load (18 credits!). Nevertheless, you might still catch us hitting the happy hour scene with our Fashion & Luxury MBA friends (we agreed on ‘flux’ for their short name) around campus. We are hard to miss. If you see 40 people with Stern backpacks walking into a bar near Washington square park, all happily chatting with each other, occasionally taking a selfie or group pictures, that’s us! Networking is an important aspect of the MBA experience, right? 😊

Hopefully that gives you a bit of idea about who we are and what we have been up to so far. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our wonderful AdComs or us student bloggers!

Why do an MBA ?

Why do an MBA? That is the question everyone I met in the last year has asked me: I am 32 years old (so older than most of the MBA candidates), I have two Masters Degrees from good French universities, and I had a job that I was passionate about.

My only answer: because I want more! Not more money like most people seem to think, but more experiences, more options, more adventures. Because YES ! Having an MBA open doors, especially in the US market. I started to realize it when I was applying for jobs in the US market and in every single description of the jobs I was interested in, was the mention: “ MBA a plus.”

But I also knew that I did not want to do a regular MBA. I did not want to be away from the professional world for two years. I was at the age and had the professional experience where I could apply for part-time EMBAs, but I wanted the experience of the full-time program. Moreover, I knew that I wanted to work in the Tech industry, and the Tech world is moving so fast that it forces you to be flexible and to adapt. So I started to look online at MBA options, and I found that a one year MBA program was just created by Stern. That was just a perfect fit.

And what is more exciting than being part of the inaugural class of the NYU Tech MBA? Being the first class gives you the opportunity to shape the model for future generations. It is also fascinating to be an agent of change because one-year-MBAs are a new offer created by business schools to answer the demands of companies and students alike.  I can say that I feel as though I am a part of a startup experience and that’ s exciting!

I just fell in love with the NYU Tech MBA program. It gave me the option to get a degree from one of the best business schools worldwide, live in my favorite city in the world and be part of one of the leading innovative programs the MBA world has seen in the last decade.

So I decided to do it! But what I did not realize was how hard it would be to get in. I was used to being an excellent student in France. I was the class president every year with great grades … but facing the GMAT and this entirely new way to think (especially the multiple choice questions) was more than challenging! But I did it, and I won’t share with you how many times I took the GMAT but let’s just say that at the end the employee center knew my name.

So when I received the acceptation Letter from NYU, I was ecstatic!

Little to say that it was just the beginning of an intense journey: getting my student visa, moving across the country (I lived in San Francisco), and leaving my job were challenging tasks, but the help I received from the NYU Offices made it almost effortless.

And so on May 10th, 2018, the day before the International Student Orientation day, I was excited to begin my MBA journey and to meet my classmates. At the same time, I was nervous about getting back to school, meeting my classmates and this whole new world in front of me.  However, after 5 minutes in the classroom, I already made five jokes with the others students in my class, we all laughed, and I felt at home.

 

Citi Ventures Project Kickoff

The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here… we kicked off our NYC Immersion summer project with Citi Ventures. Over the next few weeks, our cohort will be split out into small groups to brainstorm solutions to some of the city’s biggest problems. While we won’t be able to implement our solutions as part of our coursework in the next few weeks, the goal is to use design thinking methods to identify relevant problems and start quantifying them. Once we have identified a problem we would like to pursue, we will explore tackling it from a holistic, tech perspective and distill the business risks and opportunities into a presentation.

We met with thought leaders in the “smart city” space to help us identify unforeseen challenges in our ideas and to talk through current efforts underway that may help or hinder our work. New York, like any major metropolitan area, is full of opportunities for improvement. Cities are controlled by local governments and are often slower to implement major technology improvements primarily due to their heavy focus on tight budgets. My group was directed to focus on the government as our primary “customer.” That being the case, we’re exploring the ways in which we can create sustainable solutions that last for many years and are easy to sell to stakeholders with clear, quantifiable results.

The idea of a “smart city” sounds new and trendy, especially with projects in the works like Google’s Sidewalk Labs, however, cities have been undergoing massive technological improvements for generations. Nevertheless, this is the first time in modern history we’ve been able to combine the efforts of urban innovation with the internet. We are at a turning point in time when we can collect vast amounts of data, even if we don’t know what we’re going to do with it quite yet. This data includes metrics on the basics such as temperature, humidity, and air pollution, but also expands to micro levels including street-level noise and light pollution, traffic flows, and consumer behavior. Collecting this type of data today will allow data scientists in the short-term future to analyze this data to predict future trends, along with what kind of impact we can have on it. Successfully predicting the human impact on city-wide efforts allows us to focus our efforts on the most pressing tasks at hand.

As part of our NYC Immersion summer project, we are exploring some of the ways in which major cities are starting this process and how it will shape the future of business. While the primary consumers and collectors of this data are inherently municipal and public governments, the private sector is beginning to fund projects in the effort to solve societal problems with innovative, tech solutions while building positive brand associations. We are trusting companies to use this data to help solve everyday problems that ultimately benefit society and it will be fascinating to see how this plays out as new solutions are built.

My group is excited to kick off this phase of the summer project and we will be finalizing a version-controlled project charter this week. We have approximately 5 weeks left in the summer semester to complete this project and are looking forward to presenting our proposal to professors, business leaders, and team members at Citi Ventures.

What is Ethnographic Research?

Back in early June when Professor Anne-Laure Fayard introduced the concept of ethnographic research in her design thinking workshop for our NYC immersion class, was the first time I had even ever heard of the word. With English not being my first language, I had to look up what that word meant. I wasn’t the only one in my class new to the term either. So we had a great conversation with Professor Fayard on what it means, how it is typically done, and most importantly, why we should do it. First of all, here is my interpretation of ethnographic research:

“Popularized by anthropologists, ethnographic research is a qualitative method to study people’s behavior in their own real-life environment.”

In the business setting, ethnographic research is typically used to study customer needs and customer behavior. Over the last two and half months, we have heard so many times the importance of product-market fit. Whether in marketing class, strategy class, in speaking with entrepreneurs we met during our visits to various start-up incubators, or during the kick-off of our summer stern solution project, time and time again, we heard the number one reason a start-up or new product fails is that no customer wants to buy it. We have heard stories of hugely successful products coming from customer research, far from what the business originally intended, such as Swiffer sweeper (can you imagine the original product in-mind was a new floor cleaning detergent?). We have also heard stories of failed products due to the disconnect between customer needs and product such as PlayPump (a pump to be deployed in Africa that harnesses the energy of children playing on a carousel and uses it to pump water out of the ground).

How do we conduct ethnographic research then? There are two typical ways: ethnographic observation and ethnographic interviews. For the observation, one would go in the ‘field’ or an organization and watch people’s natural behavior in the environment. During our design thinking workshop, our group decided to address the walk-ability aspect of mobility in NYC as a smart city. The observation entailed us going to Astor place near Stern, watching how pedestrians navigated the subway exits, sidewalks or intersections, and summarizing common pattern of people’s behavior in their ‘natural’ state. We generated two insights from the observation. First, when people are lost at the subway station exit, they just follow the crowd without checking signs or maps for the proper route. Second, when pedestrians run into unexpected constructions they tend to cross the street in the middle of a block to avoid the construction. As it turned out in our ethnographic research, the top pain point for pedestrians in NYC is not uneven pavement, not accessibility for strollers or wheelchairs at the intersection, but construction ! None of our team members anticipated that in our brainstorming session!

The other type of ethnographic research is through interviews. This is definitely more challenging from our experience as we needed to find random users who are willing to talk to us. For our entrepreneurship class assignment, we had to interview twitter users, persuade them to download the twitter app if they didn’t have it installed on their phone already, and ask for permission to take a video of the phone or computer screen as they interacted with the app or the website. Since classmates are not allowed to be a study subject (that would be too easy!), my teammate Jim and I took a field trip to the World Trade Center and tried to find random strangers to participate in our interview. About 50% of the people said straight out loud they don’t want to talk to us. I was surprised this wasn’t higher, but I guess the student card helped (more on that later). About 30% of the people were willing to talk to us about their social media usage but not willing to download the app or let us video them using it, and the rest, about 20% became our amazing interviewees for the class project. Through listening to their description of how they use twitter and observing their body languages, we were able to see some patterns of how twitter is or is not meeting the needs of users. Stay tuned for our finished class presentation on this topic!

Networking at Stern

It’s been a remarkably busy summer and it’s continuing to fly by. Summer in New York is certainly toasty, but we were lucky enough to get a 4-day weekend to cool off. A colleague in the Tech MBA program recently posted the following update on LinkedIn that really put things in perspective:

As of today, we have completed 6 weeks of Stern’s 1-year Tech MBA. During this time, we completed 5 courses, 30 assignments, 5 group projects, 5 immersions, 5 presentations and countless readings.

The volume of work that we’re completing over the summer semester is not trivial. We’re cruising through 18 credits and learning about several subjects including finance, leadership, strategy, big data, and economics. While we’re only scratching the surface of some of these subjects, the fall and spring semesters offer the opportunity to dive deeper into disciplines and specializations that we’re passionate about. I’m really enjoying this high-speed approach to learning. The classes are long, and the homework stream is constant, but it’s amazing what Stern professors can compress into six or twelve 3-hour classes when they are asked to.

We’ll be switching to a more “normal” grad school schedule once the fall semester begins. This means that classes will be taught through the entire semester and the pace of each class will be less accelerated. That being the case, other on- and off-campus activities will start gaining steam. The 2-year students will be back on campus from their internships (or just starting school at Stern) so the social outings are set to increase tenfold. Clubs will be packed with new members and the student government will be back together coordinating events. In addition to this, recruiting for specific industries begins in the fall and I’ll be seeing more of my classmates in their best interview attire between classes.

A large part of business school at Stern is spent meeting and networking with the NYU community including other students, alumni, and professors. While I was searching for the perfect MBA program, a constant theme was the quality of the network that I would have access to. I knew Stern had a large network, but I didn’t understand just how welcoming it would be. Connecting with the NYU community is encouraged regardless of who you’re reaching out to. From the first day of orientation it’s embedded into the culture that we are a strong community that supports each other during our time at Stern and long after we graduate. Apart from forming friendly connections within our cohort, we’re encouraged to reach out to Sternies who may be able to help us learn more about where we want to be or what we want to do, whether they are students in the other programs or recent alumni at our target companies.

Before I started at Stern, I was reluctant to actively network. I did what was required to thrive in my career, but rarely stepped out of my comfort zone. I felt somewhat awkward reaching out to people in a strictly professional manner, sometimes secretly hoping they could help me further my career. I assumed that if done incorrectly that it would come off as desperate, inauthentic, or self-promoting. My assumptions were quickly challenged – everyone I’ve reached out to has been thrilled to help me navigate the next year and upcoming recruiting season.

What I have learned is that networking is ultimately a two-way street. When I put myself in the shoes of a prospective mentor or if I were called upon to help a student, I would happily do so. Many working professionals enjoy sharing their experiences and relish helping students avoid making mistakes that they may have made. Often times, the advice they have to offer can only be given by someone who has lived through a specific unique experience. They will likely also be curious about what we are learning at Stern and how the landscape of MBAs is changing in real time.

Networking is a major piece of the business school experience and a large network offers opportunity. However, filtering through a large list of contacts to find the right mentors is up to you. Once you have identified who you would like to meet, whether it be through a school’s database or LinkedIn, reaching out to them in a clear and professional manner to ensure that you can create a mutually beneficial relationship is the next step. I’ve already made several connections through NYU and plan to continue to do so until graduation and beyond.

Entrepreneurship at NYU

NYU Stern might not strike you as a business school with a strong component in Entrepreneurship. A month into our Tech MBA program, we were astonished by the amount of resources available on campus for entrepreneurship – it felt a bit overwhelming at some time, in a good way though. Last month we visited the Digital Future Lab in Brooklyn and the Leslie E-lab right next door to Stern. The creativity, collaboration and synergy flowing at these places are amazing.

First, let me tell you a little bit more about these two labs. Digital Future Lab is one of the four future labs started by NYU Tandon school of engineering, the City of New York, NYSERDA, and the New York Economic Development Corporation. With the funding from the city and state government, digital future lab is external facing – helping companies in the NY community by leveraging the resources at NYU. This incubator has various programs that help start-up companies to secure funding and grow to about the size of 50 employees. On the other hand, Leslie E-lab is the internal facing NYU entrepreneur hub – helping current NYU students and faculties across all NYU schools to bring their ideas to real life. The E-lab offers a wide variety of opportunities to foster entrepreneurship and cross-disciplinary collaboration, including startup schools, NYU entrepreneur festival, Healthcare Makerthon, 1-on-1 coaching and mentoring, Startup Sprints and Summer Launchpad, just to name a few.

During our visits to the two labs we met with Craig Wilson, the General Manager of the Digital Future Lab, and Frank Rimalovski, the Executive Director of the Leslie E-lab, together with several founders at these two labs. Through our discussion with these panelists, one important lesson for every start-up or even product development in an established company is the importance of initial customer research. Apparently 75% of the venture capital backed start-up companies ended up failing, mostly because they built something which customers can not benefit from. This tied closely to the design thinking workshop we did with Professor Anne-Laure Fayard a week ago. We got to do some exercise with customer research ourselves during the workshop. There were many assumptions we made during our brain storming session that turned out to be wrong after interviewing potential customers. Extensive customer research at the beginning of a project is something I will definitely apply to our summer project and my future career!

Another thing mentioned repeatedly during the visits was how difficult it is for start-ups to hire the right employee. It is very time consuming and costly to find the right talent. On the flip side, to be able to work at a start-up, you must be very passionate about the mission of the company and be clear about what you can offer the founder: building the product, bringing in funding, or saving time for the founder. If founding a company is not the kind of entrepreneurship experience you desired, maybe joining a start-up as an early member is another way to explore the start-up scene. To foster this match making between early companies and passionate entrepreneurs, there is a bulletin board at Leslie E-lab with postings from companies needing talent or individuals looking to join a start-up. Make sure you check it out next time you pass through the E-lab, just like some of my Tech MBA classmates did!

On top of these two labs we visited, there are many other entrepreneurship resources at NYU to check out: the newly founded Creative Destruction Lab, Berkeley Innovation Lab, and Fubon Center for Technology, Business and Innovation.

One month in the program, time flies!

I have been in the NYC Tech MBA inaugural class for almost a month, and it has been a tremendous and intense discovery.

However going back to school turned out to be harder than expected. When I envisioned my MBA experience, I anticipated the classes but not the homework, and the time constraints. It is not my first time experiencing the “going back to school effect” as, in between my 2 Masters Degrees in France, I worked for a year, and I decided to go back to school to obtain an academic degree in the area I am passionate about, International Business.

However, it is the first time in 10 years that I have left the work environment altogether, and it is a massive switch in my life. The first, and obvious consequence, is that I do not have a paycheck waiting for me at the end of the month. It is changing the way I organize my life, and I cut back a huge part of not highly necessary activities …. like eating out every day of the week. We actually have an essential portion of the students that are making their lunch every day!

Second, I knew that going back to school would be a shock in term of work schedule and theoretical learning, and I have to say that the shock is stronger than expected. I am very excited to learn and go to school every day, but the capacity to be focused without any screen in front of me for 3 hours is a new and challenging experience.  I also used to travel a lot in my job, so I sometimes miss the feeling of being in hundreds of places at the same time.

But the most important point is that I forgot what means to learn every day about subjects in which I am not always familiar. In our first month, the entire class had to take five classes as part of our business core curriculum. Among other courses we had:

  • 18 hours of leadership where we learned seemingly simple but in reality very difficult things like how to be an effective listener
  • 18 hours of economics where we studied the structures of supply and demand as well as offer and price setting
  • 24 hours of Dealing with Data where we mastered SQL, Python, as well as had an introduction to API and data visualization.

It is dense and intense, it makes us think, and it forces us to change the way we used to work. We need to adapt to different people, from different backgrounds in a short period. It is a compelling experience that will change the way I work, and change the way I see the world.

Moreover, I can reflect on several situations I went through when I worked, and I can always think about the actual use I could use for every class.

It makes it more comfortable that we are a small class (32), and it feels that Stern is only for us this summer. The buildings are almost empty, so we feel a sense of ownership, and it allows us to take time to discover the place. And everyone in the academic offices and administration are highly supportive to help us navigate this new chapter in our life!

 

The Tech MBA: An Immersive Experience

When I first started exploring my MBA options, the Tech MBA at Stern stood out to me for a variety of reasons. One of the most prominent reasons was the immersion courses that take place in New York and Silicon Valley. We’ve only completed four full weeks of classes and have already had the opportunity to meet with several key players in the New York Tech ecosystem. (We’ve also finished two classes already, time is flying!)

Every Friday we sit down with business leaders and learn about their place in the tech industry. Our class gets to see a day in the life at prominent consulting firms, incubators, tech companies, and the like. Business leaders invite our class to their offices and present to us about the work that they do and the clients they work for. After each visit, I find myself having conversations with my classmates about which career paths feel the most desirable for us and if our post-graduation goals have changed. Oftentimes, even if our current goals are aligned with our original business school intentions, the new perspectives on tech in New York are invaluable in exploring what other opportunities may exist. An MBA from Stern is an impressive credential to add to a resume and meeting industry leaders has proven that new doors are being opened for all of us.

Our first visit was to General Catalyst, a venture capital firm that invests in tech companies. Our second visit was to Deloitte Digital, the firm’s digital arm. The third was an exercise in Design Thinking with Anne-Laure Fayard, a professor from the Tandon School of Engineering where we explored methods of design thinking and ended the day with prototypes of solutions to improve the lives of commuters in New York. Finally, just last Friday, we learned about how many entrepreneurial resources there are for Stern students who are planning on starting a venture during or after their MBA.

The opportunity to ask questions about what it’s like to work inside and outside of these firms and how they integrate within the city’s environment is a great way to go beyond the classroom. Seeing our lessons from classes put into practice by forward-thinking companies connects our academic experiences with the real world. The more we explore and network our way through the city, the more we find NYU connections and opportunities. Somehow, it’s like NYU has found a way to integrate themselves within every part of the city, they’re everywhere!

Participating in this immersion-style course as part of the Tech MBA has provided our class with opportunities to learn about the New York tech ecosystem, network with industry experts and leaders, and explore different career opportunities in the New York area and beyond. Throughout the rest of the summer, we’ll be starting our work with Citi Ventures to continue to innovate and build new solutions for the city’s challenges. All of these opportunities were strictly available to us thanks to our location in the city, and I’m happier than ever to be here.

Application Tips: The Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA

Vidisha is a current Tech MBA student, specializing in Tech Product Management. Prior to Stern, Vidisha was a Senior Consultant at West Monroe, leading digital transformation efforts for health and dental payers across the country. Post-MBA, she plans to pursue product management in the Health Tech space. At Stern, she is a Makhoul Family Leadership Fellow, involved in Stern Technology Association and Stern Women in Business, and enjoys taking dance classes and reading a good book in her free time.

Navigating the MBA application process can feel like a daunting task. There’s a million different things to keep track of: soliciting recommendation letters, crafting genuine and compelling essays, fine-tuning your resume, securing your undergraduate transcripts – the checklist feels endless. Balancing all of these demands alongside your daily life can be quite the challenge, but staying organized and proactive can make things a lot less stressful.

Read on for some strategies for effectively managing the MBA application journey and some advice on how to tackle the Stern essay questions.

Be Your Own Project Manager

One of my first steps as I kicked off my application journey was organizing everything into an Excel spreadsheet. I logged each task along with its deadline, estimated time commitment, and current status. It’s crucial to have a handle on all the pieces required for your applications and allocate sufficient time for each. 

Reaching out early to your recommenders is important to give them ample time to compose their letters. And essays usually require several revisions before they are polished. Even seemingly minor tasks like obtaining your undergraduate transcript can eat up a couple of business days. 

Do Your Research

It is essential to have a clear understanding of why you are drawn to a specific school and how it aligns with your professional and personal aspirations. As someone who is interested in pursuing a product management role post-graduation, I thoroughly researched the various opportunities Stern provided to help me achieve my goals.

I looked into courses such as Technical Product Management and DevOps and Software Engineering, learned more about the Tech Product Management Specialization, and spoke with current members of the Stern Technology Association. I was also keen on gaining hands-on experience building and launching a product so Stern’s experiential learning courses such as Tech Solutions and West Coast Immersion really caught my eye. Furthermore, I was interested in exploring my entrepreneurial interests during my MBA, so NYU’s start-up accelerator, Endless Frontier Labs, was also something I dug into.

While there are ample resources online, the most valuable advice often comes from engaging with current students and alumni who share similar interests and career goals. I highly recommend reaching out to these individuals, as they are always willing to provide invaluable insights and guidance to prospective students.

Craft Your Story

Developing an engaging narrative, your “why” for pursuing an MBA at this point in your career, is a key part of the application process. The best stories are the most authentic, so don’t hesitate to let your genuine passions shine through!

I found it helpful to identify a couple of anecdotes or themes from my life that have really shaped who I am. I then explored how these personal experiences connected with my professional aspirations. I actually really enjoyed the reflective nature of this process and felt like I gained valuable insight into what I truly seek in the next phase of my professional journey and personal growth.

Revise, Revise, Revise

Your first draft is never going to be your best draft. Once I had a solid foundation for what I wanted to say in my essays, I invested a significant amount of time seeking input from trusted friends, especially those that had gone through the MBA application process before, and refining my writing. Often, something that sounded perfect in my mind didn’t convey the precise message I intended, so it was helpful to get another set(s) of eyes on my work so I could gauge how the admissions committee would perceive my words. 

Specific Advice for the Stern Application

Stern’s MBA application stood out compared to many others, as it offered more of an opportunity to express my creativity. Here’s some guidance on approaching the essay questions:

  • Essay Question #1: Change: _____ it.

For this question, I really tried to reflect on what change meant to me. I aimed to select a tagline that not only resonated with an experience I had lived but also one I could plan to continue embodying through active involvement in Stern’s academic and extracurricular offerings.

Change: Chase it.

I chose “chase” for my verb to highlight my belief that you must proactively seek opportunities to build the life of your dreams. I described how I had previously demonstrated my commitment to actively seeking new ways to challenge myself and grow as a leader and how I plan to continue doing so during my time at Stern. I even mentioned specific courses and extracurriculars I was interested in participating in that aligned with my growth goals.

More than the actual verb you choose, what matters most is the “why” behind that choice and how effectively you can convey that rationale through your past experiences and future aspirations. 

  • Essay Question #2: Personal Expression (a.k.a. “Pick Six”)

This question quickly became my favorite to put together! It can seem very broad at first, so I started off by making a list of things that were important to me. This can be anything from influential people in your life, your favorite hobby, your life philosophy, to things you are passionate about personally and/or professionally. From there, I narrowed my list down to 6 and tried to find a photo or image that best captured each of those concepts. Personally, I drew from my camera roll, but you have a wide array of options, including photos, infographics, drawings, collages, or any visual medium that resonates with you. 

I chose to highlight (1) the importance of family in my life, (2) my obsession with books, (3) my passion for learning and performing new dance styles, (4) a creative venture I started with my sisters, (5) my love for adventure and travel, and lastly, (6) my aspirations to develop innovative solutions to address healthcare challenges.

Keep in mind that your caption can only be a sentence long and this is another good opportunity to gut check with a friend that the image you chose does indeed convey the meaning you intend it to. Have fun with this one! It’s a great way to add some more color to your application (literally) and highlight what makes you, you!

As you embark on this journey, remember that it’s not solely about perfecting your professional persona; it’s also about showcasing your individuality and what sets you apart. Don’t underestimate the significance of introspection and creativity in this process; they can be your most powerful allies.

And enjoy the ride! It’s a chance to not only gain admission to a prestigious institution but also to embark on a transformational experience that will shape your future in profound ways. Best of luck as you take the next steps towards your MBA dreams!