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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.

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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!

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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.

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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! 

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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.