The Night Before

40,000 people are the new addition to the Charlottesville population count. At least for this weekend - graduation weekend.

The historical ceremony on the lawn has been cancelled due to the weather. The Darden ceremony will not be outside and we will be moving to the basketball court in Northgrounds Gym.

This was the essence of the article on a Darden news website. The date was 5/23. It was published, however two days earlier. It caused quite a scare. I'm assuming it was the result of a quick finger on the publish button rather than the save button.

Only twice in the last twenty years was the ceremony performed in sever weather conditions.

The whole town is crossing its fingers for the announcement tomorrow morning. Tomorrow at 8:00 am we will have the final answer and know if we would be denied of the privilege of graduating on Thomas Jefferson's lawn and then at Darden under the sky.

From Military to Business

While it has been a while since I finished my military service and I had finished my transition to the business world a long time ago, some of my Darden friends will be taking their first steps in doing so in about a month.

Darden is one of a few schools, along with MIT and NYU that are exceptionally military friendly. The Darden Military Association (DMA) provides the support and experience required for a smooth transition to the private sector and civilian life. Part of the perks is getting to meet some of the more interesting people who have taken this track.

This week the DMA hosted a breakfast with Kevin Sharer - CEO of Amgen and had the opportunity to discuss the transition described above combined with Kevin's life story (he insists his name is Kevin and not Sir) and contrast it with some background reading.

I found Kevin to be an honest, straight to the point, what you see is what you get type of person. When asked about his transition and his life flow that led him to his current position, he replied that "this is usually the first question I get and what you meant is "this guy has a cool job. I want to be like him. If I find out what his formula was, maybe I can do the same"". He then continued and explained that if he told us his story, we'd conclude that he won the lottery. But if we hear other people at similar positions' stories, we'd conclude they wont the lottery as well.

The truth is that life just happens regardless of plans and what we may think they will look like for us. It was nice, however, to hear that he thought (not surprisingly) highly of our military experience that besides leadership traits, has provided us with a high tolerance for ambiguity and independent and adaptive thinking.

My Extended Family

People told me the full time MBA years will be the best of my life.

They are.

Some of my friends are anxious to get back out to the world, get in the game again and restart their lives. I remind them that never again in our lives, will we have so many friends all around us, all the time. Friends that rather than having to develop and maintain a career, develop and maintain relationships. It's just part of the syllabus of b-school. It's what we do.

This thanksgiving I celebrated with a group of my friends and some of our families. Though I missed thanksgiving with my family, I'm glad I had my extended family to celebrate with. This year I am thankful for the opportunity I have been given to experience these two years with a fantastic group of people.

Fakesgiving

Fakesgiving (noun) - is a Thanksgiving dinner on a day other than the fourth Thursday of November.

In recent years I've tended to have more than one Thanksgiving dinner during the week of Thanksgiving because my aunt prefers to do it on the weekend or because my parents are divorced and rather than having one Thanksgiving with the kids every other year, we just have two (on different days mind you). Last year we had a Darden Thanksgiving, where a large group of friends gathered at the beautiful apartment of one of our friends and on Thanksgiving day, my dad came to visit his two sons in the States, so we had another one in NYC and a third one at school. That's a lot of food.

This year, thankfully, we only had one Fakesgiving - th

e international Thanksgiving dinner that Darden sponsors every year. An event bringing together the international Darden community and embracing them with this wonderful custom of giving thanks (and eating delicious food).

Interestingly enough, the only speech this year was a short one by Marsh as opposed to last year's five or so speeches from international representatives.

Wacky B-School Traditions

Business Week reviewed some wacky b-school traditions and for some reason they've picked Darden's section B bird tradition as our "wacky" tradition. Most b-schools (including Darden) practice most of the reviewed traditions anyway in some form or another (unless they are completely lame).

Granted, the bird tradition is one that no other school has, but it's nothing compared to section D's traditions. Also, a mustache competition is clearly best practiced in a southern school.

A Warm Spring Evening

One warm spring evening as the school year was coming to an end the class of 2010 assembled in the fall sections to discuss job leads. It was an idea by some fellow students who thought we could help one another in what was an extremely tough year for recruiting.

I don't think any of us had any expectations from the meeting. I was a little skeptical myself and I had already accepted my offer at the time but I came to support my peers. It started off slow and then it got very emotional as people shared their frustration of trying to recruit for 9 months with no success.

For some, it came as a surprise discovering they are not alone. Other's, who had received their offers pretty early in the process, got a first glimpse of another side they were not aware of, or not aware of the seriousness of it. "What are you looking to do" was one student's question. - "Anything" was the answer that shook people up as they realized how desperate some people have become. It was not only an international problem or a career switcher problem. It was all around.

Something amazing happened in the minutes that followed. One after another, my classmates came forward with leads, connections, friends from college. That night a lot of emails were sent out and phone numbers were exchanged. It was heart warming.

I've had a chance to compare with friends in other schools this year. I am proud to say that Darden class of 2010 did extremely well on their internships.

A lot of prospective reach out to me and during our conversations they ask about Darden's strength. The first thing that comes to mind is the strong alumni network. As a Darden alumni once told me when I was debating between schools: "your chances of getting an alum to return your call and bend over backward are highest at Darden". They are. It originates from the pressure cooker we're all part of during our first year.

I then tell them a story about one warm spring evening.

Mid Point Perspective

You were an ace at your company, promotions, money, fame and glory. Then you get into a top b-school, maybe even a few. You're about to embark in the journey of your life. You have so many o options for career paths. You may want to switch a career, or keep the one you had, you may even start your own company after school. Life is great, the world is your oyster.

Then an intense wave hits you and you try keeping your head above the water holding with one hand a 50 pound weight with "academics" printed on it and another with "recruiting" on the other hand, while your legs carry the ones with "socializing" on them.

Somehow along the year you may begin to lose the perception of what was it about you that was so special as you get beat down to a pulp made out of dried up silly putty. You'll get confused and may even lose sight of what it is that you really want to do as they tell you to expand your horizons and look at all the options. Then, just as you thought it will never happen, you get an offer for an internship, maybe even two and before you know it, the year's over.

You may think that you are not prepared, but you surprise even yourself when you see how well you are and how much you've learned this year. You feel good about yourself and even better if you came back with an offer.

Reporting from the mid point, these are just my two cents.

Discounted 9 months in order to adjust to a first year perspective, it comes out to around 1.3 cents.

My Summer

I've been given a nudge by a friend to get off my lazy behind and start writing again, so here I am. Thanks PH.

A Second Year tradition is for the whole class to rent some be

ach houses in the Outer Banks and hang out together before parting. A few of us first years decided to make it a first year tradition as well and spent a week in Nags Head once school was done with back in May. There were around 15 of us in a 10 bedroom, pool, two hot tubs, a game room, a theater room and a beach outside our back yard. We had so much fun in the house with each other that most of us stayed in for most of the week and didn't join the SY activities. It was the best week of the year.

After beach week, we flew to back to Israel to visit all the friends and family. We were running a hectic schedule of friends/family for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. It was a lot of fun and great to see everyone after almost a year of being gone, but a lot of work as well!

The next phase of my summer began slightly after coming back to the States: My Summer Internship. I am spending the summer in Bank of America's MBA Leadership Development Program in Charlotte, NC. I thought Virginia was the south. It's so not. When Tea means Sweetened Iced Tea and when you want hot tea, you must specify "hot", when "Thank you" is replaced by "Appreciate it" and "You're welcome" by "Ah huh", when you're greeted by "How y'all doin' today" and when you leave by "Y'all come back now" - you know you're in the south

. Don't get me wrong - I love it here. People are so nice and hospitable, strangers on the street say "hi" and people drive as if cutting people off is not one of the ten commandments and don't try to run over pedestrians and actually will give you the right of way even when you don't have it.

I have a nice place in a complex with all the amenities I could need for the summer, but I do miss Darden and my friends there. Working again has made me appreciate even more this past year at Darden. I actually wish the program was three years instead of two.

The class of 2009 has left us to restart their lives and we are now left to carry the torch as rising second years, guiding the incoming class of 2011 in their new journey.

Amazon Kindle @ Darden

Amazon Chooses Darden as First Business School to Use the Kindle was today's article title in businessweek. 

"You might have heard word yesterday that a select number of universities had been selected to participate in Amazon’s new Kindle school initiative. What you probably didn’t know is that one of those universities is a top business school." reads the article.

The new Kindle will be used as of next fall (lucky class of 2011) in and outside of class. 

This is a great initiative in terms of sustainability not to mention convenience. As an avid technologist, I've already been using the V1 Kindle since it first came out. It's been very helpful this year when Darden gave us a choice of using online PDFs rather than acres of cut forests. It's great and convenient on the treadmill and would be even better with the text to speech feature. The only disadvantage so far was that the conversion of PDFs was not up for the challenge of graphics. Hopefully now, with the native PDF support, that would not be an obstacle anymore.

Hopefully, Amazon and Darden would take the extra step and provide it to current students as well as provide all of our cases in e-format so we could save more trees and make my room less of a mess.

If we calculate the printing expenses saved over 2 years and add the value of this CSR to sustainability, I'm pretty sure it's worthwhile to provide us all with Kindles.

EOY

It's the end of the year as we know it.

Amazing how quickly the year's gone by. 

Classes are over and I got 3 exams and one big @$$ paper to write and then it's over.

We got to take our elective's exams today already and they are waiting at home and hopefully are going to get done before the last moment.

There's a lot going on in Darden this weekend. 

The class of 2011 are here for Darden Days and there's plenty of community events planned for us all. It seems like the last Darden Days was just yesterday when I was here.

Packing Heat

Former president of Mexico - Vicente Fox - spoke today in front of the Darden students as part of the leadership speaker series that brings key leaders to Darden.

A major point that president Fox kept stressing is the importance of free trade and partnership the two neighboring countries should have and that walls never work. He actually brought it in as a funny anecdote after telling us about the walls of the world that did not work.

I found it very interesting that when asked which three leaders he admires, he responded immediately: "I have four" and then moved on to name leaders that have used non violence methods to lead to a social change. Even if this was a premeditated answer, hearing the names of Ghandi and Martin Luther King moves something inside.

I was surprised that they let us all in the auditorium with our bags and without checking them. I told myself that this is Virginia and not Israel and that there's almost no chance that a student would suddenly take out a gun.

I'm not sure if he was a Darden student because his face was covered, but one person stood up suddenly with his mouth covered by a black piece of cloth, a shirt with some writing about it and a sign that friends later translated from Spanish that said: "no police in the state".

The president calmly said something to him in Spanish and the student calmly left.

The translation, I was later told was: "We can talk later, please sit down" and then "see you in Mexico".

Overall, it was an interesting experience and former president Fox is a very interesting person.

Raising Second Years

I've just finished bidding on all of my courses for second year.
Last year, I've read a Darden blogger's post that told the tails of bidding for SY courses and mentioned that it may sound weird that we have to pick all of our 2nd year courses now, at the end of first year, but in fact it makes a lot of sense and he also mentioned we can change the choices we've made afterwards.

Well, I'm here now, and it doesn't seem weird at all. In fact it makes perfect sense. By now, we should all know (more or less) what we want to do after we graduate, so we know what we'd like to get out of next year to best prepare us for the job and life after school.

Perhaps next year, someone else would be writing about a post he read a year back about choosing SY courses.

We use a bidding system to get our course picks. We receive a number of points and use them after devising strategies and predictions using game theory, psychology and dark magic to predict what our peers would do, and try to get our ideal schedule. I have less points because the school deems it fit to put me at a disadvantage because I've gone on a GBE (Global Business Experience) to Sweden this year and that counts as a course credit for next year.

I can't believe how fast the year's gone by. In two weeks, we'll all be raising second years. Our second year friends, mentors, spirit guides will all be gone to their new lives post MBA. It's a little sad. I think I'll miss those guys.

Our professors have been working us really hard here the past few weeks. It kind of feels like Q1 again with all the presentations, deliveries, team projects, late nights and a high ratio of Pizza to healthy meals. They say that in a tough economy, the marketing department gets the first cuts. Well, in my time shortage case, the Gym, sadly,  got cut. I will have to find time for that somehow since immediately after our last exam, we're heading to Beach Week!

This weekend is full of events here at Darden. It's the reunion of a few classes of past. Friday evening is the Darden Follies!
And Saturday is the annual Foxfield Races!

Building Goodness in April

Building Goodness in April, or BGIA as it is known here is something that attracted my interest since before I came to Darden, when I was deciding between schools and was reading about it on the Dean's blog. It is an amazing thing when contractors, students and local shops all partner together with the Building Goodness Foundation and volunteer to renovate around 10 homes of low income and/or disabled families in the Charlottesville/Albemarle community. It is a genuine gesture of giving, and it is extremely rewarding.

A lot of planning is required in order to accomplish so much in just one day and it is student led.
It starts with the inspection of homes finding the best candidates for projects. It is followed by a fundraiser where we all auction all sorts of stuff from golf lessons and 5 course meals through hotel rooms or a cabin in Vermont to pole dancing lessons or a self affirming evening with two students accompanied by a keg.

This year we collected $45,000. Local businesses donate goods, cash and services as well.
We targeted 10 homes and built 2 playgrounds.
Each house is assigned 3 house captains (yours truely was one) that oversee the planning of the work to be done on the house, the interaction with the residents, coordination of the professional workers, purchasing and collecting the materials, driving 16-24 ft. trucks and organizing volunteers.

On build day, 165 Darden students and 100 contractors charge the houses and do their thing.

It's a reall challenge, but we've had some amazing accomplishments on build day. We have given back to the community that is hosting us for these two years and there is nothing that can compare to the feeling we got seeing the expression of our home's residents come back to their new home.








I have had the opportunity to work with great people this build day - the contractors and my classmates who did the most amazing job and accomplished incredible things.



TV news coverage: http://www.charlottesvillenewsplex.tv/home/headlines/42476527.html

Last year GMAC visited us during Build Day:
http://www.gmac.com/teammba/Misc/TeamMBAVideo.htm

Darden Cares 5K

Satruday morning. Woke up, got out of bed. Dressed up business attire... and running shoes.

Yes. Today was the Darden Cares 5K run for the UVa Children's hospital.

Everybody wins. The hospital gets our donations, we burn some calories and get an excuse not to go to the gym for a few days, we all have some fun and last, but not least, we get more points for the Darden cup.

My section (Section D!) won first place in both male and female categories (leftmost and rightmost in the photo below that would be remembered in generations to come).

There was a best dressed competition as well as the craziest dressed competition starring wonder woMAN and a runner (from my section) wearing a speedo, a bow tie and cuffs.

Staying Current

As we try to stay up-float while our leaders stabilize the global economy, a huge magnifier glass is pointed at Top B-Schools as can be seen in this NY times piece or this CNN one. The current crisis has been going on for some time and that has given us the time to take a breath and examine what we did wrong. Failed leadership is a theme that keeps coming up. Who can we blame for this? The business schools, of course as can be read from a FoxNews article pointing out the schools that wrecked the economy.

Everybody wants to see that b-schools make sure this situation would never happen again. A story I've heard from a professor at Darden tells of a company that came to visit Darden while they were considering their recruitment options. Once they saw the UVa honor code we have in every classroom, their mind was made up. Incidently, this was shortly after the corporate scandals in the begining of the century, although Darden's emphasis on ethics was established long before that.

I will be taking my first ethics class this week, so I'll be able to share a more personal view within a few weeks.

But Darden is definitely keeping up to date with updates to the program. I started a new course today: "Marketing Inteligence". The professor shared with us the updates to the curriculum, some of which, include some legal studies so that when we come up with creative ideas later in our jobs, we won't get "too creative".

It doesn't end there; We have had a number of "green" draft cases this year examining the current crisis from various perspectives. We have been asked to put ourselves in the various situations and decide what we would do instead of Bernanke or this company CEO or that new graduate consulting to one company or another.

We've also had speakers and panels talking about the current crisis and we've learned a lot from the wisdom of others.

Is this enough? Can the schools do more?
The NYTimes piece mentioned earlier mentions a study that claims that 56% of MBA students cheat. What can a B-School really do to change the values of a 28 year old that believes it is ok for her to cheat?

B-Schools provide a 1-2 year training program, equiping us with a kit of tools and experiences to help us make good judgements at jobs. The rest is on us.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” - Benjamin Franklin

The Darden learning experience is about learning real and relevant business cases through a class discussion, but it's also about taking the integrative business approach, constantly reminding one to look at the bigger picture.

And it really works.

I'm not sure if the professors have gotten better or if we did, but the discussions are just better.

Maybe it's the fact that people are now more concerned about finding a summer internship or perhaps people figured out that grades don't matter; at least not as much as they thought they did. There are almost no people, who are talking just for the sake of talking, thinking that it would increase their participation grade. And this makes for a focused, flowing class discussion.

I've had a few classes lately that had great discussions and the professor allowed the discussion to go in the wrong direction, but we've figured it out and corrected ourselves as happens a lot in the case method. Although it was an interesting discussion, we were seventy minutes into it and yet, no conclusion. I was starting to question what if at all have we learned during the class. We were summing up what information we've managed to discover using tools we've learned in this class and in the previous quarters and we've narrowed it all down to three courses of action the company can take. But which one will they take? 

In a real business situation you'll need to come up with a recommendation. And you'll need to present it in a manner your audience will understand, justify it and defend it just like we do in class every day.

In order to make this decision we had to tap in to material and experiences we've learned in a Strategy class. Then we knew what the company would have chosen to do. But we did not agree. Some people thought the company should take one direction and others thought it should take another. However all agreed about the company's goal. We combined what we've learned in parallel and previous courses without even noticing we did it, took a step back and fell into the CEO's seat (thank god he wasn't sitting there at the time) and then we understood. It all came together. In Hebrew we have a saying: "The token has dropped" - an expression from the 80's that refers to the public telephones we used to have that required special tokens to operate. When the call would go through, the token would drop.

In the end of the day, what matters is that when you come to a business situtation and when you'll have to make a decision, you'll have all the tools you've learned, you'll have all the different companies' experience from the different cases and you'll remember the discussions you've had, the wrong turns you took. 

Most importantly, you'll be able to take the CEO perspective and understand and integrate all the different divisions of the business and until you actually become a CEO, you'll be able to explain and defend your decision.

A day in a life

I recently have talked to prospectives who have not visited Darden. In my opinion, telling about it will never match up to a visit here, but I do realize that it doesn't always work out.

So if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video would be worth thirty thousand words. If you have not yet watched Bill Gray's (- a second year at Darden) Day at Darden, I encourage you to do so.

The best professors in the world - Sing it with me

Yesterday I found out that there are still a few gems in C'Ville I haven't had the pleasure of drinking in as the Dardenite TNDC crowd crammed up the Bel-Rio - Bar, live music and more important: food after 22:00! Having Fridays as reading days this Q makes TNDC much more attractive when examining the go no-go decision tree. The jewel in the crown last night was the faculty band (featuring students as well). 

Check out the link to see my strategy professor can do more than talk. 

Accepted

Congratulations to our first round admitted students. It was a tough year and you have made it. All the time and investment have finally paid off. You will soon be proud members of the class of 2011.

So, celebrate - you deserve it.

Here's a very helpful tip I got last year: Decide were you are going to live and apply for an appartment early. Remember - early bird gets the worm (or a jetblade sometimes but that's really rare).

For those of you who didn't get in - it's not over! There's always next year. Think what you are missing in your resume and how can you get that in during this year and show improvement for next year's application. Most important: do not despair. 

If you were waitlisted - the game's still on. Last year schools I was considering were still giving offers a few weeks before school started. People always drop their application and decide to go to another school or give up b-school or defer. 

 Here are some suggestions I gave a prospective student who got on the waitlist:

1. Get another (exceptional) recommendation and send it to your account manager.
   
2. Start thinking about what you've done since you applied and find an accomplishment. Make an essay out of it and send it.
   
3. Look for something in your past that had not come up in the essays and write another "optional essay"
   
4. If you haven't been here - schedule a visit - this would show interest and dedication as well as help you make a better case about why you are interested in Darden and why you are fit for Darden.

I

* I am not an official representative of the school and these recommendations are only my personal opinion and you should use your own judgement before using them. They are not to be used if you are pregnant or in a high risk group and are not to be taken more than two every four hours.

Knee Deep

We have received the news of a possible day off last night due to extreme weather conditions with mixed feelings (Joy for the day off and fear that the university may claim Friday as a school day).  Warnings of procedures in case of heavy snow and ice were sent all around. We were excited about the possibility to finally see snow in Charlottesville, with the ice around the Jefferson fountain almost gone.

 

The white snow wanabee we saw this morning was really disappointing on so many levels. I admit, the road was a bit slippery to the point that I had actually considered holding the hand rail going down the stairs. I didn’t dare get my hands out of my pockets, since my gloves were in my backpack and was too lazy to take them out.

 

It was a school day alright. The Charlottesville community, however, decided that actions must be taken to protect itself from this white stuff (again, calling it snow would be like calling the UVa lawn a big sand dune). When I got to school, I was looking for chalk marking on the stairs due to the yellow tape surrounding the front stairs of Saunders hall, but they must have been washed off by the rain.

 

We couldn’t deposit our loan check (we’re rich again) since our bank decided to close early “because of the weather”. Lives were saved today as learning teams cancelled their meetings and avoided the slippery roads. Oh and I almost forgot about Interviews being cancelled.

 

So much excitement! With global warming, I just hope we’ll be prepared that well for the hot summer days.