One of the more popular classes at Goizueta is Patrick Noonan’s Strategic Decision Analysis. The class is primarily one on game theory and is taken by students in every concentration – from finance to marketing to human capital and healthcare. Professor Noonan teases that this is a course where he teaches students to be Jedis.

In addition to classwork and other assignments, every class member puts together an “application portfolio,” or a series of articles and pieces of interest that apply to the subjects covered in the course. A number of students post their application portfolio via blog. Since I’ve also started one, I thought I would share the blog here, especially since I’ve included a list to many of my classmates’ blogs. Enjoy!

Kate’s SDA Blog

Last week concluded the MBA11’s CMC week activities during which first years get involved in career specific activities and treks both in Atlanta and throughout the country. Trek stops included Finance, Marketing and Healthcare Treks in Atlanta, and then, a Finance Trek to New York, a Marketing Trek also to New York and a Technology Trek to San Francisco (A post-CMC PE/RE trek to Chicago is also in the works).

To say the least, my week was busy. I decided to go above the required 2 CMC week activities and reap all the benefits I could from the week. It all started with a 2 day Valuation seminar – Training The Street – from Friday through Saturday. One word for TTS and our instructor: Awesome! I learned so much more about ‘real world’ (very different from academic world) Finance/Banking/Valuation than I thought I would going in. I feel that much more prepared for my technical interviews now. Though it was a very loaded 2 days, I wouldn’t trade the the value added for the world!

Next stop, I joined the Atlanta Finance Trek on Monday at the Coca-Cola headquarters. Everyone at Coca-Cola was extremely warm and pleasant and made us feel right at home. The campus was beautiful! Overall, a great trip! I came back to school afterwards to work on my Cover Letter and participate in some Behavioral Interviews to get me further prepped. By Monday night, I felt like I had already done enough for the week. But Tuesday saw me sitting in Crack the Case workshop, yet again, all day. By this time I was very exhausted, but Crack The Case was also awesome, so it had my full attention (a plug: all aspiring Strategists/Consultants must invest in this workshop…the instructor is great, and the material is extremely relevant!).

By Tuesday evening, I was on a plane headed East to my hometown, New York City for the NY Finance Trek, and boy, if I thought I was exhausted before, taking a look at the itinerary, I just knew I was in for a treat! Over a 3 day period, Wednesday to Friday, we were literally all over New York City. From Downtown to Midtown to Uptown, and back to Wall Street we went. Our visit included stops at almost all the major Investment Banks/Bulge Brackets (i.e. GS, JP, CS, UBS, BofA, etc etc), and the formats were mostly identical: presentations about the company/banking in general, opportunities for MBA Summer Associates and then a Networking portion. Everyone we met was nice and friendly, despite the numerous “warnings” about the intense banking lifestyle. Aside from the Networking opportunities it created, the trip was beneficial in the sense it helped provide clarity that a certain path was exactly what one wants to pursue, or exactly what one wouldn’t want to touch with a 50-yard stick! There was a networking event every night after trek stops (except Friday night), where the Finance Trekkers met up with the Marketing Trekkers for a mini “Goizueta Reunion”. We had drinks and finger food at Metrazur at Grand Central the first night, and on Thursday, the main event was the Emory mixer/social on the floor of the NYSE! Awesome times. Having drinks and hors d’oeuvres on the floor of the NYSE was a great experience! We even got to take pics right on the Opening Bell podium!

Overall, CMC week, though hectic, was very much value added for me. I got a lot done during the week, both tangible and intangible, and I feel much more prepared for my internship now. Of course, even though the official CMC week is over, it doesn’t mean my “CMC activities” will halt. I will continue honing my interview skills and working on arming myself with the arsenal for success when I do start my internship. My goal is to not only secure a great internship opportunity, but also to be fully prepared for said internship, so when I do begin, I will be a rockstar of an intern!

When I got to school on Friday, October 2nd, I knew the day would be a bit different. Students in blazers and no bookbags. Employers like Deloitte and Wipro setting up in our many crescent classrooms. Career Management Center personnel racing to put out last minute fires. Goizueta Career Connection was about to begin – and the density of business suits would have impressed a Hong Kong tailor.

GCC is our annual career exploration and networking event. What does that mean? Think career fair, but more personalized. We spend the day with actual company employees learning about everything from industry challenges to the typical day at the office. But GCC itself is no typical day at Goizueta. Consider the schedule:

11:30am: Sponsored lunches with companies like Capgemini and J.P. Morgan, with good conversation and delicious grub

1:00pm: Keynote address by the CEO of Turner Broadcasting – more on that in a second…

2:15pm: Something we call “Interactive Learning Modules” (ILMs), where companies like Atlanta Equity and WellPoint walk through their most interesting problems on topics like marketing, finance, and consulting. Wander into 208 and hear Humana talking about their beef with the public option, or slip into 304 and listen to a Goldman Sachs VP acknowledge that yes, some do consider a GS career to be “the Goldman ticket” (get it?) to bigger and better things.

7:00pm: Goizueta Casino Royale night at Aja Restaurant. Employer reps  + open bar + casino games = a surreally fun night of gaining contacts and losing bets.

One of the highlights was the talk by the Turner Broadcasting CEO, Philip I. Kent. First thing you need to know about Chairman Phil is that he’d been “banned” from speaking at Emory. Turns out that seven years ago he was speaking to the BBAs (undergraduate business students) and called an MBA degree nothing more than a “white-collar union card” – a statement only slightly less awkward for a business school dean than asking how he spends his salary.

In his talk, Chairman Phil touched on the value of youth, happiness, and not having much to lose. A few quotes stood out:

- “I’ve never read a business management book cover-to-cover, and I’m the only CEO of a Southeast company who doesn’t play golf.”

- “There’s nothing that you can do in the next ten years that you cannot undo, besides committing a felony or putting something inappropriate on Facebook.”

- “Your personal attitude is what is 100% within your control. Be positive, energetic, and happy to take on the hardest and most unpopular tasks.”

It’s this last message I enjoyed most. It’s the spirit of spending 12 hours with company reps exploring what the heck we might want to do after this thing called Business School. A different kind of day at Goizueta – and a good one.

–
Andrew K. Stein
Goizueta Business School
MBA Class of 2011

11:30 p.m., the night before orientation, I’m sitting in my new apartment between half a dozen semi-opened IKEA boxes, my suitcases still largely unpacked, only milk and cereal in my fridge, scratching my head, wondering how I ended up halfway across the world here. This wasn’t the dream start I had imagined while applying to B-School.

And then I attended orientation session, met the people I would be spending the next 2 years with, started to learn my way around school, and jumped off a 30 foot tree (I’m not kidding!). In the space of those 5 days of orientation, my enthusiasm returned. I realized that all 170 of my classmates were as lost as I was. Some had left the security of their jobs to come back to school, some had relocated with their families, some had no clue which career they were going to go into, some were coming back to school after a gap of more than 10 years, and some had decided to relocate to USA even though they didn’t speak English very well. But in all this confusion and chaos, I could feel the underlying bond of community starting to tie us together. People were willing to help and offer advice to classmates who had been complete strangers just a couple days ago.

And since orientation, the spirit of collaboration and camaraderie has grown even more. From having numerous offers from students I have just met a couple of times to take me shopping (I don’t own a car here), to classmates sharing information about prospective employers, there hasn’t ever been a time when I’ve felt alone or have asked for help and not received it.

The entire experience at Goizueta has made me realize that I made the right choice coming here. I know I’m a part of a strong community and there are people watching over my back. Be it the professors, the administrative staff, the former students or even alumni, I know anyone and everyone who is related to Goizueta will do everything in their power to help me.   

I have enjoyed my 3 months at Goizueta so far, they’ve been intense, fun and enlightening. I can’t wait to see what the other 21 have in store!

I have a rocking chair list. It’s like a bucket list, but essentially, it’s a list of things that I can say “I did this…” when I am old and grey and contemplating the world from my rocking chair. Skydiving is on that list. It has been for about five years now and I haven’t done anything about it. Why skydiving? I guess because I’m afraid of it. I am terrified of heights, and there truly doesn’t seem like much sanity in jumping out of a plane for fun, not from my terrified-of-heights perspective. There’s something about having skydived though that I thought would be a sort of feather in my cap. Or maybe I just imagined that once I had skydived, it would put other fears in perspective: “this deadline is really aggressive, but I’ve jumped out of a plane, how bad could it really be?” Or “I’ve never done anything like this before in my job, but I’ve jumped out of a plane, how bad could it really be?” Apparently the ability to qualify everything with “how bad could it really be?” is pretty significant to me.

One of the best pieces of advice I received when I came to Goizueta was from one of our orientation captains my first year. She encouraged every one of us to throw ourselves into our experiences and to not hold back because we have a short time here, we are ready for change if we came to business school, and Goizueta is rich with experiences, so if you hesitate you’ll miss them. Skydiving is also a kind of tradition at Goizueta. About once a semester a group of students go and temporarily put their sanity on hold or have one of the best adrenaline rides in their lives, or both (depending on your temperament of course.)

The community at Goizueta encourages this too. Courage is one of our Core Values. I doubt the Core Value of Courage was written with the idea of jumping out of planes, but intense physical challenges do tend to put other things, like standing up for what you believe in, in perspective (i.e. – the excuse to tag “how bad could it really be?” onto just about everything.)

Last year the chance came to skydive and I bailed. I had signed up and just chickened out. I wasn’t ready and I was too terrified. This year, after a year of intense growth at Goizueta I found myself no less terrified, but a lot more willing to just go for it. So I did. I jumped out of a plane last Saturday. The support and cheers from my classmates (both those who went and those who greeted me in class on Monday) made my courage that much sweeter. I understand why it’s a tradition at Goizueta now. Not just because I can tack on “how bad could it really be?” to nearly every challenge, but because throwing myself at every opportunity has yielded me some incredible results. Including crossing off an item on my rocking chair list that could have easily become dusty with age and opening the way to many more challenges I might have otherwise hesitated on too long.

As we all get back into the swing of things, some of us longer than others, it is interesting to reflect on what everyone did before they were back at GBS.  Some of us were working while others were in school, and others were preparing for their new journey at GBS…we hope this really celebrates our diversity, and welcomes everyone back for a great year!

We also want to take this time to welcome our new bloggers, and invite our readers to an exciting year of insights from Voice of GBS.

“I worked at GE Money and bought a car!”

-Hazel V.

“I hung out on a beach in Greece…”

-Ian R.

“I worked in a law firm in NYC.”

-Jonathan G.

“Quit my job, chilled out, and moved to Atlanta!”

-Jim P.

“I traveled in Montana and Calgary and went hiking.  I also attempted world peace, and tried to improve the stock market….the latter seems to have worked!”

-Veronica M.

“I visited 3 major cities on business.  Went through an airport security line twice in one trip.  And hit up a cool NYC rooftop for Happy Hour.”

-Dave C.

“I was in Atlanta working at Coke, and I attended a family wedding in Vegas.”

-Nick A.

“As an exchange student, I had to do something since I was not going to intern.  So I took classes in Negotiations and Finance this summer.”

-Quan D.

“We were in school – we worked a lot.  We slept a little.”

-One-Year Guys

“I was here in Atlanta and went to a lake for a weekend.”

-Deborah N.

“I took Guitar lessons.”

-Chirag T.

“I took a 2 month vacation around Venezuela.”

-Ezekial Z.

“I went scuba diving in Columbia.”

-Felipe P.

“Vegas.”

-Brandon L.

“I traveled for 43 days through Central and Eastern Europe!”

-Duke U.

“I worked at UBS and hung out in NY 3 times!”

-Andrew K.

“I traveled for 8 out of 11 weekends of my internship, very tiring, but very fun.”

-Parul L.

Tune in to the activities as Goizueta Business Schools hosts the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, September 2, 2009!

Duncan Niederauer (GBS MBA Class of 1985) CEO of NYSE Euronext will co-host the event.  There will be live coverage all day long, including the ringing of the closing bell by the Goizueta Business School Community.

The event will be televised on the national media feeds including:

• CNBC
• Bloomberg
• www.cnn.com
• www.nyse.com
• www.goizueta.emory.edu

After the event, all the details, videos and news will be housed at:

http://www.goizueta.emory.edu/nyse/

We are all really excited about this momentous occasion, and would love your support!

On behalf of the GLOBE team, welcome back GBS Class of 2010!

Also, we want to extend a warm welcome to the recent additions to the Class of 2010 this summer (One-Year and Evening Students), as well as the Class of 2011 and Class of 2012.

We are looking forward to meeting you all and to a wonderful year ahead!

It has been a crazy month since GMSC presentation day, and the defined end of my first semester as an MBA student. That time, that stress has all washed away and given rise to a whole new (yet familiar) set of activities, known as the summer internship!

Let’s backtrack a bit, and fill you all in on the end of GMSC; after all, I was taking you through my journey, and so that is only fair. As classes ended, and the last finals were taken, the group of students in GMSC had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week keenly focused on achieving success on presentation day. Thanks to our awesome classmates, this task was fruitful, as we practiced our way to May 7^th. Not really knowing what to expect on presentation day, my team focused on ensuring our props were delivered to our room on time, and that we could get one practice run in before the big show. And a big show it was…we arrived to a room full of 50 judges, and other members of the GMSC family….enough to make you realize you would be speaking to a full, full house.

As the presentation began, our team felt the sense of accomplishment, and as the last question (of a 30 minute session) was finally answered, we realized we were done….really, really done. We ended the evening with a wonderful reception and dinner, where top performers and teams were recognized, and the coveted “Best Presentation” prize was taken by one of the teams. While we all felt like we had done our best, we were all very proud of the winning team….everyone was a part of the process together, and we all deserved a big pat on the back.

As GMSC ended, the time to relax was upon me…and it was a great time indeed. Spending a few weeks enjoying free time was wonderful, and I complimented it with some light reading on Organizational Design (business school really does get to you). When this blissful time was over, I packed myself up for a summer of work in a new city as a Human Resources Intern.

I, like many other MBA students, showed up at my internship on June 1^st, 2009, and spent 3+ days being oriented to the company, my office, my manager, and my projects….all 4 of them! This week was also my time to begin to kick-off my personal strategies for completing the work I was to accomplish over the following 10 weeks…a task which you cannot spend too much time on….after all, you have to deliver before you know it. The projects in my role, as a Labor Relations Intern, are challenging, enlightening, and unique for me. I am happy to admit that my previous experiences working in industry have given me a frame of reference for the landscape I am dealing with, and even happier that my curriculum at Goizueta has so far given me a glimpse of what I am set to deal with. In week one, I was excited to learn about a project which was related to a case I had read in my Marketing Management class, and I felt elated to realize that this baseline knowledge was really going to help me set the stage for the future of the project.

It sounds all too good to be true, and probably is, but for the first few weeks I am feeling back at home in the workplace, despite the 6am alarms, and am enjoying the experience I have had so far. I am sure there will be road blocks along the way, but I feel like I am somewhat prepared to address them….

When I look back at my first year at Goizueta, I have to smile…I entered the workplace again and I was ready….GBS has been a great compliment to my past experience, which is exactly as it should be in this new stage in my career. I can only wait and see what the future brings….

Stay tuned for more from the internship front, leadership activities over the summer (what!), and how to stay cool in business casual

The last one year has been the most exciting, and challenging for all of us. A class of 200+ students with different backgrounds, skill sets, aspirations and motivations came together to earn a well-deserved MBA from one of the top schools in US, and it feels like so different now that I realize that I’ve graduated. I’m sure all the other graduating students feel the same.

For me the time spent in school was all about learning from others, faculties, guests and staff, but most of all, from my fellow classmates. They have been a continual source of knowledge and wisdom, and I hope to keep learning no matter where I am. Now that we are newly minted MBAs, I feel that I am part of a new program, Master of Learning and Application; and it’s all about applying what you have learned, to gain more from that experience and learn more.

What makes this MBA special is not what we discuss in classrooms or breakout rooms or seminars. The learning was 24/7. It started at 1300 Clifton Rd, but it continued at WinShape, in China, Brazil, and Dubai, during GALA, at The Skydive Farm, in Omaha, and so many other places. For me, nothing can beat the experience of watching soccer in the commons with an overwhelming number of Manchester United supporters (most of whom I believe are band-wagoners), or meeting the Oracle of Omaha, Mr. Warren Buffett, himself, or even climbing the Great Wall of China. And none of these things are part of an MBA curriculum. All these things happen because someone wanted it to happen, and they led the way.

Given the current state of economy, this year has been very challenging for us. However, I truly believe that a sound investment in education can never ever go wrong. We’ll all reap the benefits of our hardships much sooner than later. Many of us don’t exactly know what we are going to do in the near future, and I, similar to what other people have said, feel this is a blessing in disguise. This is the time to discover those hidden skills that we have, to try out new things; because you never know what you can do, or what you would want to do in future. Eight years ago, when our family business was on the brink of bankruptcy, I chose not to pursue an MBA, and move into technology. A couple of years ago, I made the transition back from technology into business because I feel that is where my strengths lie. I hope to keep trying new things and gain more perspectives about everything.

So, what’s the moral of this rambling? What did I learn from my MBA? Always try new things, but know where your strengths lie. Business is personal, business is based on relationships, and that is where you should be investing in school.