Berkeley MBA Student Blogs

Thursday, July 09, 2009

workin' it

I really can't believe that I'm already four weeks into my internship. Here's a glimpse of what life has been like so far...

Week 1: Education Pioneers Retreat
This summer I am Education Pioneers fellow. What does that mean? Well, Education Pioneers is an organization that recruits top talent from graduate schools (Business, Policy, Education, Law, etc.) and places them in 10-week internships in the public education sector. In addition to my summer internship, I get to come together with the 40+ other Fellows in the area 7 times over the course of the summer to learn more about issues in education and share our experiences.
This is Team Awesome (my teammate and good friend Roxann is taking the picture), standing next to our tower of awesomeness. The first exercise on the very first day consisted of breaking up into teams and trying to build the "tallest free-standing tower" out of the materials we were given. It turns out that not every team was given the same materials, which had a huge effect on their ability to build a tall/free-standing tower. My team built the biggest tower, but what amazed me was that as the most well-resourced group, we never thought to even look at what other groups had to work with and definitely didn't event consider sharing or bartering our materials. What an interesting analogy for public education... This was the first of many things-that-make-you-go-hmmmm this summer.

Week 2: Stuck in the lobby
My placement for the summer is at the California Charter Schools Association. For the first week of my internship, my boss and much of the SF staff were out of town, so I didn't have to go into the office until my second week. Sometimes it's funny what logistical things people take for granted, until the new chick gets stuck. This photo is from a Wednesday morning when I was stuck in the lobby for a while.
I kept trying to push the button in the elevator for the 8th floor, but it just wasn't having it. If you look closely at the picture above, you'll notice that the elevator was not turned on for the 8th floor. About half an hour later, one of my co-workers came in and showed me how to get the key and unlock the elevator if I'm the first one in the office (this was at 9:30am). Later that day, I was the last one to leave the office, at 4:45pm.

Week 3: Staring out windows
I had forgotten what staring at a computer (or the wall of your cube) all day can do to your eyes. I've learned my lesson and am trying to take more eye breaks and stare out the window.
At my last couple of jobs, the windows always opened out to a beautiful view of the bay or surrounding area. This is the first time that the window provides a view of, well, other windows. I wonder what's going on in some of these other office spaces, like the ones with the orange or teal/green walls.

Week 4: Chugging along
This picture isn't all that exciting. I've been getting a lot of work done lately, so this is what life has been like the past week.

Really I'm posting this because I'd been killing time until Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences. Now it's time to go, so I guess I'll see you back here when I have another pocket of time to fill. Cheers!

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

It's Summertime!

All this past semester, my classmates and I have looked forward to summer. Yay, summer, that wonderful time when we can finish a day of work at our summer internships, come home, and have nothing school-related to do! Right? Uhh, only sorta.

Last Thursday I went over to case de Liz Rockett (a.k.a madame president) to meet with the ladies of the MBAA (all three of us) to plan out some workshops for O-Week this fall. Always one to make sure I keep a stash of food and drink nearby, I brought a couple bottles of wine and some chocolate as treats for our post-work work session.

Liz manages to scrounge up some cookies and pita bread, which apparently were the only things in her cupboards. Rumana and my cupboards were pretty empty at our house because we had been abroad for a month, but I'm not sure what Liz's excuse was. Not that I'm complaining- the cookies were delicious!
We spend an hour or so discussing the various topics we want to cover during O-week (club leadership, diversity, professionalism), try to think creatively about how we can smoosh them into the limited timeslots available in the already packed schedule, then wrap up with next steps and due dates. I'm pretty comfortable chilling on Liz's couch, so although there's a Haas BOW (bar of the week) in SF that night, I convince Liz and Rumana to stay in Berkeley by refilling their glasses. We spend the rest of the night catching up on the past few weeks and discussing the absurdity of our temporary return to work life. Sometime in the middle of this, our stomachs remind us that cookies don't count as a meal, so our hostess with the mostest fixes us up some chicken nuggets. Yum. Overall, a good night.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

The First Haas Talent Show

4638_103705672386_689557386_3135137_4654994_n Every semester, the Haas MBA program office approaches the students and invites ideas for new initiatives. These student proposals are then reviewed by the program office, and some of them get funded based on various criteria. Emily from our class (who is also in my awesome IBD team) proposed to hold a talent show celebrating the many talents in our school on various areas such as music, dance and comedy.

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As expected, the program office loved this idea and granted a small initial  funding to get the initiative up and running. Like all great managers, Emily immediately focused on recruiting her supporting team that will turn the event into a success. I volunteered to coordinate the musical part of the evening (I figured that that’s the best way of forcing myself to start a band actually perform on the evening).

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With a great team of people involved, we started planning the event. Soon enough, we were getting more and more people on the lineup, with performances ranging between rock bands, acoustic singers (including our dean!), a variety of dancing acts (Indian, Latin, Salon), classic pieces, opera and even a comedy act. It was clear to us from the beginning that we want a professional evening, one that is taken seriously by both the participants and the audience, therefore we urged the participants to practice and nominated some talented MCs to lead the event.

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And what a night it was. The 300 people who packed the auditorium we rented were very absolutely fascinated by the amount of talent that was discovered on stage. Even those of us who were involved in organizing the event could hardly imagine how wonderful this night turned out to be. And for me personally, it was an opportunity to remember how awesome it is to play on stage with a real band.

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It is now at the hands of the incoming class of 2011 to make this a lasting Haas tradition. We count on you, guys!

(pictures taken by the talented Chris Quek)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

2 years on...

My then fiancee (now wife) and I headed out to DC after we both graduated in 2007. A few others from our class came out as well, and since then we've met other great Alumni and have remained an active part of the Haas community, both socially and as part of the Berkeley MBA interview/info session process.

After a very long two years, we decided to return and spent a wonderful Memorial Day weekend in Berkeley. We caught up with old friends as well as those that we've kept in close contact with since graduating. To complement the social cycle, we hit up some of our favorite eateries and enjoyed some new ones. Most importantly (when it comes to food), we made the obligatory stop at La Burrita.

It's been two loooooong years since I've had a great burrito, and the large super carne asada burrito hit the spot.

In addition to La Burrita, here are some other great eateries that have stood the test of time for those lucky enough to be starting their Haas adventures shortly:

Ici (wonderful ice cream)
Cheeseboard Pizza
Le Cheval (French Vietnamese)
Brazil Cafe (tri-tip sandwich and mango smoothie)
La Note (awesome brunch)
Crepevine
Noodle Theory
Paragon (Mac & cheese at the Claremont)
Great Wall (best Peking Duck in the world, this from native Chinese who have travelled the world)
Trattoria La Siciliana

Now if we can only get back to Berkeley before another 2 years pass....

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Monday, May 18, 2009

We graduated!

Yesterday, I, along with my classmates, graduated! All of us nearly died from the heat, but it was a wonderful day filled with lots of hugging, laughing, picture-taking, and meeting each other's parents. (I noticed that many of my classmates look EXACTLY like their mother/father!)

We came together as a class less than two years ago. The first semester seemed long, with core classes and countless study group meetings. But with each subsequent semester, time seemed to fly faster and faster.

This past week was especially fun. We had daily events during "Dis-orientation Week" including an unofficial weekend in Las Vegas, clubbing, BBQ, Cohort Olympics, gala, etc.


Some classmates are staying in the Bay Area, while others are moving to various parts of the world. Thanks to Facebook, Skype/gtalk, and our respective traveling budgets, we will always be in touch and will see each other relatively often. Classes have ended, but the fun and friendships will continue...

This will probably be my last post on this blog. It's been great writing about my Haas experience here. I am always happy to share my thoughts, so feel free to look me up on Facebook and get in touch if you have any questions during your business school application process. Best wishes!

P.S. I will be moving to London later this summer. I can't wait to make another country my new home!

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Janet Yellen at Haas

Great speech last night by Janet Yellen, CEO of the San Francisco Federal Reserve and a member of the Federal Open Market Committee. Yellen had been a professor at Haas before joining the Fed and came back to Haas to discuss the current economic situation in an event that attracted quite a large crowd and received plenty of news coverage.

Overall she struck a cautiously optimistic tone. Some great insights into the risks of deflation and inflation and what tools (both conventional and unconventional) the Fed has to fight inflation going forward and to stave off deflation in the short-run.

Janet was a great speaker and clearly an extremely intelligent person. This was probably one of the last speakers I could see before graduating, and while I am busy finishing papers and projects, I am so glad I went to see her speak.

A video of her speech is online at http://www2.haas.berkeley.edu/Videos/Janet_Yellen.aspx.

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Sunday, May 03, 2009

Go Bears

Yosemite park, May 3.

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