Andre Koo Technology and Entrepreneurship MBA

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 2^ndyears 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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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 3^rd 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)

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.