Career Management Conference

One of the reasons I was drawn to Haas is the fact that they provide incredible support for those of us who aren't sure what we want to do when we get out of b-school. Of course, we had to come up with some sort of a plausible plan in our application, but that doesn't mean that we will be sticking to that plan at all. Haas Career Services really encourages us to explore and learn about other possible opportunities that we may not know about yet. All of this culminates in the 2 day Career Management Conference between our Fall A and Fall B quarters.

Despite the fact that it was really difficult to wake up early to get to school on what is supposed to be our break, I've learned a ton of great things that will be very helpful in my summer internship search which kicksoff in full swing on Wednesday night with Multi-Firm Night. The first day of the conference was filled with a lot of great tips for getting your resume and Linked In profile up to snuff. We also talked a lot about how to go about informational interviewing and make the most of career fairs and conferences that we will attend. The best thing of the entire day was a small group interview where you and two other people interview for a pretend job with a second year Career Coach and then all give each other feedback. It was really great to learn what other people thought that I needed to work on and get to see my peers interview.

The second day of the conference was much more tactical than the first with more alumni panels and industry recruiting discussions. The best session of the day was the tech industry interview discussion. An alum from HP discussed precisely what he looks for when he goes through resumes and gave us valuable insight into the perspective of a recruiter. While it was frightening to learn that if your last name is after N that you get significantly less time than those earlier in the alphabet. We were all shocked at how little time we have to make a lasting impression on a recruiter, but better to know it now than figure it out when you don't get an interview invite.

All in all, it was a very worthwhile conference and it has reminded me exactly how much work I need to put in on my resume and cover letters in the next few weeks before recruiting open season starts full force.

Surviving Finals and >Play Conference

I literally just hit submit on my last final paper of Fall A!!! I'm so excited to be done with 1/8 of my entire b-school experience! Just insane. It has been a great quarter. I think I've done a good job of settling into school again and getting to know all of the great people in my class and cohort. Go Axe!

Unfortunately, we didn't get too much of a break between finals and classes starting again, especially because the Digital Media and Entertainment Club's student-led conference >Play was this past Saturday. I was very impressed with our abilities to get some really great speakers. We opened the morning with a quick intro from Dean Rich Lyons and then heard from John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla. He had some really great insights into how he sees the web-browser evolving and how that will transition into the mobile space. Then I headed off to a panel on creativity, which wasn't as captivating as I thought it was going to be. Next, I enjoyed a really interesting panel on the future of the mobile ecosystem. The panelists were a great mix of people who focused on applications and browsers. After a great lunch, I saw the founder of Guitar Hero and the President of EA Sports to discuss the future of video game distribution. They believe that distribution for video games will eventually become digital, but believe that this will take a while for people to become open to the lack of a physical game DVD. Finally, we closed out the day with playing in the expo and a talk from the VP of Product Management at Google. I have to say that I was kind of disappointed by his talk because he just reviewed Google's current products instead of discussing where he saw the future of Google's products. All in all, it was a great day!

>play Conference

I'm so excited for the >play conference at Haas next weekend! It's going to be an exciting day of digital media and entertainment. We're having speakers from Mozilla and Google. Also, there will be great workshops on the latest trends in digital media and internet technology like cloud computing, brands that matter, games on the move, and mobile ecosystems in motion.

If you're in the Bay Area next weekend, I highly recommend attending! Check out the agenda for the conference here!!!!

Finals Time!

It's less hard to believe that it's finals time already than it was when we hit midterms. I guess that means I'm settling into the crazy quarters schedule. I'm starting to realize more and more that it's really more important to hang out with classmates and be social than it is to really spend that extra couple of hours studying. Unfortunately, that plan kind of backfired on me last week when I ended up with a nasty cold. Oh well. It comes with the territory.

It has definitely taken the first couple of months for me to realize that I really am at school as my career. I guess I thought that I was just at a conference and would be back to the real world soon. Nope! Lucky for me, but I'm a student so I should truly take advantage of the lifestyle.

We definitely have a great 7/8ths of our B-school experience left, so I'll remember that and not spend too much time studying for finals next week, but be sure to socialize with classmates!

Fall A & Learning to Say No

Our first semester at Haas is actually more like two mini quarters that put together makes up the usual 15 week semester. After all of the fun and excitement of orientation, we've been settling into school work, the internship search (yes, I know we just got to school, but it's already time for the internship), and of course playing much much much to hard. It's very different from undergrad in the sense that you don't want to be at the top of the class, but you just want to be in the middle of that curve so you end up with a decent grade at the end. This is a bit counter-intuitive for me to not constantly aim to get the best grade. Now, I just need to do enough to pass. Luckily, that means that I have enough time to work on my internship search and play hard with the rest of my class.

Our class has enjoyed lots of good times together so far. We've had toga parties, 60s parties, checked out bars in SF, bars in Berkeley, barbecued, made bets on who's going to win American's Next Top Model, and enjoyed countless lunches and coffees together. With all of these fun things going on, it's sometimes difficult to make it to all of them, let alone make sure that enough time is spent on revising your resume and doing micro homework.

Thus, I've been learning how to say no. For some reason, it's always been very difficult for me to not do things. Here there really is no choice though when there are 2 career related events, 3 fun events, and a GSI's (Graduate Student Instructor) office hours. Since I haven't perfected the art of being in 6 places at once, I have to decide which is the most important and cannot be done at another time. There's something freeing about deciding to say no that somehow leads to more saying no. It's definitely good because there are so many opportunities to do so on a daily basis.

With three more weeks left until the end of our mini quarter, we're definitely heads down on our group projects! More opportunities to say no coming up!

S'mores Cheesecake

I happened to find a bit of time during my post-midterms weekend to bake this S'mores Cheesecake for a potluck. Sadly, my baking has become a by request only thing that happens once in a time. But, this recipe was great! It tasted just like a s'more!!

The recipe specifies that the cheesecake needs to be chilled for 8 hours before you put the marshmallow on top. You do really need to do that. I didn't and the marshmallow topping became a bit oozy and made a nice sticky mess. Also, you definitely HAVE to brown the marshmallow topping under the broiler or use a creme brule torch, if you have one. It was the best finishing touch and really added the essential s'mores flavor to the cheesecake. However, watch your cheesecake closely while it's under the broiler. I was amazing by just how quickly it started to smolder.

If you'd like to make your own S'mores Cheesecake, check out the recipe here.

Midterms Already?

I can't believe it! We've been in school for 3 weeks and we are already to midterms! It's so crazy. This whole experience is going to go by so fast. I will have to try to find some time next weekend and share more with you guys, but in the meantime, it's back to the stats and econ problems for me! I'll resurface again next week!