 |
 |
         |
|
 
|
View past entries:
Hello my dear friends. How are the final days of the year treating you? For those of you applying for the first deadline on November 15th, I hope all your essays, recommendations and everything else are ready to go. GOOD LUCK. Without knowing you personally, I am sure that you have all spent countless hours preparing your NYU application. For those waiting for the other two rounds, keep working, keep polishing those essays and try to improve your overall application. I am very excited to tell you that several days back, a few friends and I signed up for the 10th Annual Deloitte Case Challenge. For students interested in pursuing consulting careers upon graduation, this is an excellent opportunity to experience a consulting case first-hand. For a 24-hour period, teams comprised of MBA1s compete and evaluate a business situation similar to one Deloitte Consulting has handled for its clients. Needless to say, my friends and I are very optimistic going into the competition. It starts later today (4:30 p.m.), and 12 teams are competing. I am really excited. This is what I picture myself doing after receiving my MBA, so this is really a test of how badly I want to be a consultant and how good I think I am at executing in a real-life case context. It seems that I probably need some luck, but with good preparation and discipline, I am sure I will have good news to share on my next blog. See you guys! Hey future Sternies! While I begin to write my next blog, I am listening to Billy Joel’s “Captain Jack.” I know…quite an old song…but it is the perfect introduction to my next blog: living in NEW YORK CITY. Thousands of articles, songs and movies are about NYC. Probably most of you reading this blog have been here, either to tour the city or to work. So now I will give you my perspective of this city. The first time I came to NYC, I was 12 or 13 years old. I remember walking through some street in Manhattan and telling my parents that someday, someday I would be living here. As a kid, I used to talk a lot and asked a lot of questions. Yes, that annoying type who doesn’t stop until he gets it. So, while we were walking in NYC so many years ago, I guess my dad was thinking that this was just “another” one of my ideas… But here I am, some years after that day, living in New York. To tell you the truth, this is hands down the best city on earth. Living in the East Village, or Tribeca, or Soho…so many places, so many coffee shops, museums…. and people. YES. The people. Did I tell you that when I was a kid a wanted to become a writer? Well…I did. Why? Because while watching people on the streets, I always wondered about their stories, their dreams, their sorrows and what made them who they were. I live 20 minutes from Stern and walk to school every day. Now that it’s fall, I enjoy the walk much more than I did in the summer. I still look at people and wonder what their day is going to be like. I wonder if they think of my day. Do they even know that I am looking at them? Jajaja. Freaky. Tonight is game 6 of the Baseball World Series. Although I am not a Yankees fan (go Red Sox!), I’ve heard that the city will go crazy if they win tonight. As if this city is not crazy already. If only you were hear to see Halloween night, you would perfectly understand what I am talking about. It was completely awesome on the streets, and I saw the most amazing costumes EVER. Friends (after 5 blogs, I feel you are my friends), you can’t lose with NYC. No place on earth has both the craziness and the sense of belonging like here. A friend of mine and former Stern student came to visit a few days ago. I could see in his eyes that he not only misses Stern (“the best two years of my life,” he told me repeatedly over a few drinks that night) but also NYC. NYC is like no place around. So yes, like Billy Joel would say, “I am in a New York state of mind.” Hey future Sternies! Today I am going to quickly talk about classes and academics in general. Although you may think that coming to Stern involves meeting exciting new people and worrying about Corporate Presentations and your summer internship position, studying is also a relevant factor while at Stern. I am currently taking 4 core curriculum classes: Foundations of Finance, Financial Accounting & Reporting, Strategy and Firms & Markets. Of course, I have to admit that not all 4 classes are necessarily equal in terms of how much excitement they bring to me, but nevertheless, I do feel like I am learning a lot. My favorite course is Strategy, not only because I want to become a consultant upon graduation, but also because the class is fast-paced, highly interactive and very enjoyable. All my classes are time-consuming, but hey…this is what I came here for! Have to go now. I’ll write again soon! Guess what?! Recruiting season is here! Some of you may know what I am talking about. For those who have absolutely no idea … well, this is just for you. Applying to Stern and getting accepted is one thing; getting your “dream job” after B-school is another. Many of us came to Stern to prepare to ourselves to make a career switch. I came from the airline business, and I want to make a transition into Strategic Consulting. One of the most important reasons for picking Stern for your MBA program is its location……right?? Answer: YES. And I will tell you why. You not only want to come to a top business school, but you also want companies to get to know you. This is why Stern has something that not too many programs can guarantee: accessibility. The Office of Career Development (aka: OCD) is crucial to helping you get your “dream job”. For the months of October and November, close to 80 companies will come to Stern and give Corporate Presentations to MBA1s and 2s. Yes, you are not wrong; you did the math right: 80 companies/8 weeks = 10 companies per week! And I am only counting companies for certain industries, like consulting, banking and marketing. I am not even taking about retail, media, non-profit, entrepreneurship, etc. The recruiting season for those companies starts in January. At Stern, here is how it works: companies come and make their presentation. Afterwards, you have a chance to talk one-on-one with recruiters. This is when you can strengthen the relationship with the recruiter by talking about your interests with that particular company. Within the next 24 hours, you send a thank-you note, maybe suggesting the possibility of setting up a more personal interview or informational interview sometime in the near future. The advantage you have? You live in the same city. It is convenient for both the company and yourself. Yesterday, one of the top strategic companies I am interested in came to campus. I have already made a “connection” with one of the recruiters, since he replied to a note I sent after the presentation. We are meeting in two weeks. I am now wondering: if I had chosen a different school, would I even have this opportunity? Needless to say, I am going to be very prepared for my “informational” in two weeks, and hopefully by next summer I will have an internship there! Have to leave you. Another Corporate Presentation is coming up. Better be prepared! Hey, it’s me again, and many things have happened since my last blog. We started classes, preparation for recruiting season is already underway, and finally… the weather is starting to change. (Something, of course, I was trying to avoid at all costs!) There are so much going on right now, but I am going to talk about a very important part of your MBA experience: study groups. During the first week of classes, the 400+ students in the Class of 2011 were divided into 6 groups or “blocks” of about 65 students. Within your block, you are divided again into groups of 6. This is where it starts to get interesting: blocks are assigned randomly, so you have absolutely no idea who is with you! I have to admit that whoever assigns study groups really gets the job done-they could not have picked more different people for my group (LOL). Although we are still getting to know each other, let me tell you that I am definitely going to enjoy the next couple of years with them. There is a total of 6 of us in the group-2 girls and 4 guys. Since our industry backgrounds are very different, we all have something singular to bring to the table when we work on a project. It makes it interesting to hear other peoples’ points of view about a specific topic, and challenging to try to convince the group that a particular plan is the right one to follow. It takes time to get the job done of course, but it is a very enjoyable experience. I need to say goodbye at this point, because in a few minutes, my group and I are meeting to work on a project for our Strategy class. I promise I will be back with more stories and more about Stern. In the meantime, keep working on that application! Stern is .. Passion. Welcome to Stern!! As I begin to write my very first blog just a few days before we start classes, I can not express loudly enough how enthusiastic, excited and glad I feel to have become a “Sternie” and a future graduate of the Class of 2011. I feel that the next couple of years not only are going to go very quickly, but also they are going to be as crazy as anyone has told me so far. That said, I am going to start by sharing the recent response of a fellow classmate when I asked about her impression of us South Americans. She looked at me, and after a few minutes she just said: “You South Americans are very passionate.” I disagree with my newfound friend. After the past two weeks of Pre-Term orientation, I have to confess that not only South Americans have “passion.” At every event during Pre-Term (including the US Open, Broadway Shows and even beer-pong!), I feel the passion among every single student here at Stern. These people bring so much energy, anecdotes and ways of seeing life – it is just so much to absorb! We are such a diverse group from over 40 countries that is impossible not to feel the liveliness of the MBA program. This is truly an international program, filled with so many charismatic, fun and smart people. I’m so excited to still have two more years to get to know these amazing people and “pick their brains.” But let’s not get carried away, at least not yet. You all want to know why Stern. Well, on this first blog, I want to say that people’s energy (or passion) is a definitive factor in choosing a B-School. Why? Because it is this passion that defines us. It is this passion that makes us more creative to solve tomorrow’s problems. It is this passion that makes us better individuals, better classmates today and friends for the rest of our lives. I strongly feel that Stern provides one of the best, if not the best, MBA program in the world. And after all the GMAT studying, essay writing and all the stuff that comes in between, the struggle has been worth it. This is the place I want to be, and this is the place that I have been dreaming of for so long. I hope that you sense the excitement. I have the best two best years of my life ahead of me, and I will take advantage of every single minute of it. I am going to leave you now. I am starting classes tomorrow, and I still have so many things to get ready!
|
Eni Bakallbashi
Felipe Valenzuela
Felipe Valenzuela, Class of 2011
