The Epilogue: Eric Moves From LA

Woodland Hills, California

As most have you have probably already heard, my long search for a post-MBA job has finally come to an end.  It was a journey that essentially began when I first started at Anderson almost two full years ago, and that finally culminated in an offer in late July.  I'm just over one full week into the new job, and although I think it's a little too early to give a fair evaluation I think it'll be interesting and a good situation for me. The quick summary is that I will be working as a Financial Analyst for a real estate investment firm called Alliant Asset Management, working on financial models to evaluate their prospective investments.  It's a bit of a shift  from the stock market-focused jobs that I had mainly been recruiting for, but its still investment related, and with my rising interest in real estate over the past few months, I'm happy with my last minute industry change. Since I was out of town for the last couple weeks of July, I didn't officially accept the offer until early August, but my transition since that point has been very abrupt.  In just a span of a couple days, I changed my apartment, city, car, and employment status.

My new cube is in one of those buildings

Keeping consistent with my past efforts to minimize commute time (I walked to the office for much of my tenure at Cambridge), I decided to move from the consistently beautiful weather of West LA to the more desert-like life in the Valley. In the midst of a heat wave, the temperatures have been between 100-110 almost every day I've been in Woodland Hills so far.  However, aside from the summer heat, it seems to be a lovely place to live. The weather starting in the fall should be really nice, and I'm looking forward to exploring the many hiking trails in the nearby mountains. Despite being "in the Valley", it doesn't feel any less like a city than the sprawled out Los Angeles, and the building I work in would actually be among the tallest buildings in LA. All types of shopping needs are a short walk or drive away from my apartment and office, and most areas of LA itself can be reached in a 30-45 minute drive.

Living room of my new apartment

After visiting numerous properties, I ended up signing a lease at the Archstone Warner Center, about a mile and a half north of my office.  Needless to say, my new apartment is a major upgrade over my previous one. My old home was falling apart from age, was noisy, with painfully inadequate temperature control, and lots of Mexican neighbors. My new apartment was constructed only a couple years ago, is almost eerily quiet, with central air, and lots of Mexican neighbors. There is also an awesome pool area with a hot tub and fire pit, a well equipped gym, gated parking, plus my very own balcony and washer/drier/dishwasher.  And making it even better, my new rent is lower than the current rate of my old apartment.

The final major change this month was when I finally said goodbye to the 97 Civic that has served the Schaaf family so well for over 15 years.  Although it was a bittersweet moment, I am certainly happy with the exchange.  I decided to go with a 2011 Infiniti G37, and among its many features, my favorite is that the back bumper and right mirror are still attached.  (I have a few more pictures of the apartment, office, and car on my Picasa album)

The final picture ever taken of the car that helped Eric Move To LA

With so many sudden changes I briefly considered starting up a new website, eric-moves-to-woodland-hills.blogspot.com, to chronicle the start of this next chapter in my life, but quickly dismissed that as silly talk caused by heat exhaustion.  As I settle into a regular work schedule, with a long time to go before I accrue any serious vacation time, I know I won't have enough writing material to compare with my MBA journey or some of the more exotic trips I took over the past two years.  Although I'm excited about all these new changes, that does necessarily make for an overly interesting read.  I will probably still make an occasional update if something warrants it, but let's consider this the unofficial end to my blog. I would now like to take a minute to thank all five of my readers for their continued support, the heavy use of the comments section of my website, and the home cooked meals when I came back east to visit. I couldn't have done it without you all.  Hugs and kisses.

Business School Wrap-Up

Graduation Day with Mom and Dad

Although it's been official for several weeks, I'm proud that I can now say I have an MBA from UCLA Anderson.  I've been wanting to do a final wrap-up post of my reflection on the overall business school experience for awhile, but also have been putting it off because I'm still looking for a job, and think I can only grade my business school experience as "Incomplete" right now.

There are a lot of great things that can be obtained from attending a full-time MBA program, but for everyone the main goal is career improvement.  Many students need the MBA to completely switch career tracks.  Others go to business school to help them build the network and skills to turn their business idea into a fully functioning start-up company.  For others (such as myself) it is a little subtler, and a way of jump-starting a stagnating career by making themselves more marketable and increasing their movement within their current industry.  So from a purely financial/career standpoint, I can't yet evaluate whether the MBA experience was worth it or not. If next week (or next month, or even sometime next winter) I land an awesome job that I really enjoy, that pays well, and that really increases my long-term career prospects, then it'll be easy to say business school, and specifically Anderson, was a great decision. On the other hand, it's very possible that I'll continue to contribute to the poor US employment numbers for a while longer, or end up taking a less than ideal job just to start working again.  In that case, it might be tougher to justify the two years of forgone salary, excessively high tuition and other student expenses, all of the time and energy spent, and the mounting levels of debt I was so willing to take on.

However, I tend to be an optimist by nature, so I'm pretty sure that in the grand scheme of things I'll look back on the whole Anderson decision as very positive and worthwhile.  Even if the initial job situation doesn't work out as ideally as I may have wanted, there are so many other intangible aspects to business school, and so many experiences that I wouldn't have had without it, that I think the positives will heavily outweigh the expenses, and the time and effort of getting the degree.  Since I'm in reflective mode, I wanted to highlight several of the ones that really stood out:

Cross Country Road Trip: Ah, this was where this whole blog and this whole business school adventure began way back in August 2010.  4,700 miles traveled through 15 states over 20 days.  Every now and then I look back at my old blog posts or pictures (I only saved my favorite 1,049 from this trip on my hard drive) and get very nostalgic. I still consider this one of my most personally rewarding trips.  As I wrote in a blog after the trip:  I think contributing to this is that I planned almost the entire thing myself, the activities and sites were so varied, there was a sense of accomplishment (the distance involved, the planning required, the strenuousness of the hikes, etc) and that it happened during a major transition point in my life.  I'd really love to do another large road trip some day.  So many places left to explore.

Spring Break in Ghana: The road trip may have been my most rewarding trip, but ten days in Ghana may always be the most memorable and unique trip of my life.  It really opened my eyes to a part of the world and life that I had never seen or realistically thought of before.  One-part MBA business project, and one-part sightseeing tour, it was thoroughly enjoyable and felt like we were doing something really productive.

Living in LA:  One thing that attracted me to choosing UCLA over Maryland or UNC (the other MBA programs I got into) was that I would get to live in LA and experience the west coast for the first time.  I had no idea if I would ever have that opportunity again, and it was a chance I didn't want to pass up.  I think now I can agree with a lot of people and say that I have a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles.  As an active, outdoorsy person, the year round beautiful weather and the proximity to both the beach and the mountains are huge pluses for me.  Surfing is fun.  I also think there is more of a laid-back attitude in SoCal that fits my personality better than on the east coast.  However, I also prefer to walk than to drive, and I hate wasting time sitting in traffic and looking for parking, but that's unavoidable out here.  My stance has been that I'd love to remain in LA a little bit longer, because I feel that I haven't fully experienced the city yet, and it would be nice to experience the city while also getting a paycheck every couple of weeks.

I met Warren Buffet:  That was cool.  And I have a picture to prove it.

Expanding Network:  I've often said that the student body at Anderson is easily the smartest, most successful, hardest working group of individuals I've ever been around before.  Although I may not have forged as many close relationships as I initially thought I may, the number of acquaintances and potential business contacts that I have has significantly multiplied in two years, spanning the entire globe.  I got to know a lot of great people here that I hope to keep in touch with for years to come.

Improving My Soft Skills: One thing I've recently learned is that personal improvements are a lot more subtle than expected.  For example, I seemed to think that attending business school with its nonstop emphasis on networking, leadership, group work, and class participation would transform me from an introvert to a A-type personality.  Two years later, when people meet me for the first time they still think "really shy" and when they get to know me they may only upgrade the description to "kinda quiet."  That's who I am, and I realize now that's never going to change, certainly not from a two-year masters program.  But that's not to say that I didn't improve in a lot of these "soft skill" areas.  I think my communication and presentation skills are much improved  I successfully led teams organizing numerous events and activities such as career nights, alumni banquets, and Anderson's first ever national stock pitch competition. Especially evident in leading my consulting team for six months as the main client contact, I learned that I can play those roles when I need to, and I'm a lot more comfortable in these situations than I had been in the past.

It was Fun!  "Work hard, play hard" is such a cliche, but it really is true in this case. We all worked extremely hard during the duration of the MBA program, but when you put a group of 370 students, most of them in their mid to late 20s together, good times will be had.  Beach days, camping trips, bar crawls, sporting events, Casino Night, Halloween parties, Dis-O, turtle races, and tailgates are just a small sample of the organized Anderson events.  I spent much more time with Anderson students in non-Anderson events, usually just simple evenings hanging in friends' apartments or at bars, but also in bigger events such as the Sundance Festival trip, going skydiving, and driving race cars.  I can't imagine another time in the future  where I will know this large of a group of people to hang out with and do this many fun, varied activities again.

And, on a personal note: I've never been one to share much about deeply personal stuff, and certainly not on the internet, but a list of best aspects of my business school experience would be incomplete if I didn't at least mention it.  Obviously I met someone very special at Anderson and ultimately this alone could be reason to say going to b-school was worth every penny, no matter what happens with my job search. 
It's made the stress from school and recruiting over the last year much more manageable, and the times outside of school (such as my trip to Taiwan and our spring break California road trip) so much more special.

Like I said earlier, it's a little tough to fully evaluate the worth of the MBA experience, at least financially, until I get an offer and know where I'm heading next in life.  However, I still believe that the job search will sort itself out eventually, and after going through this list and thinking back on all the amazing adventures and other positive aspects of the last two years, its even tougher to think of it as being anything but a great experience.

Dis-O 2012

Strong Section A showing at Dis-O pool party

Saturday, June 9 - Monday, June 11

As mentioned in the last post, Dis-O (short for Dis-Orientation) is the annual final MBA party weekend before graduation day, and bookends Orientation, which started our MBA experience.  Most of the class of 370 graduating students had signed up for the package, which included two night stay at the Palms Resort and Casino, a club night at Haze, a Palms pool party, and a "white party" in a Fantasy Suite at the Palms.

Josephine Bruin made the trip to Vegas too

I was a little disappointed with our lodging, since the Palms is pretty far off the strip and isolated from the rest of Vegas.  The rooms and casino were nice, but they didn't seem to have any unique charm and were nothing special.  It was tough to get better accommodations, though, because the weekends was the same as the EDC festival (which brought in 200k attendees) and the Pacquiao-Bradley boxing match, hosted at MGM Resort on the strip.

Our first organized event actually was on the strip - a club night hosted by T-Paine at Haze in Aria.  I'm not a club person, but it also happened to be my birthday, so a constant supply of birthday drinks kept the evening entertaining.

If clubs are my least favorite aspect of Vegas, then my favorite has always been the pool parties, and this trip was no exception.  Our weekend package included entrance to the Palms Pool, multiple reserved cabanas, and unlimited beer, champagne, and juice.  With temperatures in the mid 90s and an ample supply of mimosas to sip on, this was my favorite part of the trip.  I spent about five hours relaxing in the sun, before it was time to head inside to eat and get ready for the last organized event of the trip.

White Party in the Sky Villa Fantasy Suite

For clarification, "The White Party" was not Anderson's attempt to end diversity after preaching its importance for two years straight.  Rather, it was an event where the only dress code was to wear all white. This Anderson-only event was hosted at the stunning Sky Villa Fantasy Suite in the Palms Resort, and amongst a long list of amenities included an outdoor jacuzzi pool overlooking the Strip, a glass elevator, and multiple open bars. The rent on that penthouse typically goes for $15,000-$20,000 a night. We had the penthouse booked through the whole night, and many people stayed until the sun came up over the strip.  With an early flight in the morning and being the old, 29-year old man that I am now, I was long in bed by that time.

This was my third Vegas trip since September, so I'm a little Vegas-ed out, but this was definitely a fun, memorable trip.  It was great to be able to spend time outside of LA with the majority of my graduating class before everyone goes their separate ways in a few weeks, and was a worthy final celebration after two intense years of school.

Spring Quarter Recap (Part 2)

At The Happiest Place on Earth, in Anaheim

Yesterday was my last day of classes.  I still have a take home final to finish, and a diploma to grab, but the MBA experience feels more or less done.  I've been feeling more nostalgic this past week every time I thought I had reached another "last" (last Anderson Afternoons, last overpriced coffee from Il Tram Cafe, last class presentation, etc).  Tomorrow I leave for a two day Vegas trip along with 250 other 2nd year students for one last full MBA class party.  Before we get to that, a quick look back at some of the non-class related highlights from the past quarter:

AnderProm:  The name is lame and it's not my top choice for a social event, but Anderson's spring formal was still a lot more enjoyable than high school prom.  It was hosted at the stylish Millennium Biltmore Hotel, home of several past Academy Award Ceremonies for the Oscars, and featured an open bar, a buffet, plus lots of dancing and photo booth opportunities.  One of the rare times I get to put on a suit without sweating through an interview or having a friend say "I do."

Brunch with Allen and the Reich's at Taste on Melrose

Out of Town Visitors: I had visits from Tara, Kolko, and Mark during the quarter which were all a lot of fun.  While Tara was in town I pulled out all the stops: a Runyon Canyon hike, a walk through Hollywood, dinner at the douchiest bar in LA, a standup comedy show with Tim "The Toolman" Taylor (aka Tim Allen), Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, a self-led ghost hunt through Old Town San Diego, tours of UCLA/Westwood and the Santa Monica Pier/3rd Street Promenade, and of course, a meal at In N Out Burger.  Allen's visit was shorter but was highlighted by a day of brunch, a Reich Daydrinking Bar Crawl and a Clippers playoff game.  Mom and Dad also had a brief visit for one day last weekend, which featured a Father-Son Salmon Cookoff and a belated Mother's Day celebration. 

Tour de Strand: This annual Anderson bicycling bar crawl brought over 400 current and past students to a 16 mile stretch of beach towns near LA.  I had never used the beach bike path before (which I had always heard is a must-do LA activity, glad I finally got it in), and as you can imagine, it got more difficult for us with every bar we stopped at along the way. 

LA Racing Experience:  Shortly after going skydiving over the summer, I bought a LivingSocial deal to drive NASCAR quality race cars.  We didn't finally make our reservation until this quarter, but it was a really cool experience.  Four of us got to simultaneously race (and pass each other) around a half mile track getting up to speeds of 120 MPH. 

Other activities: UCLA Night at Dodgers Stadium (all you can eat food tickets!); a second Clippers playoff game; SIF Mixer/Roast; Cabaret Night; and a bunch of birthday celebrations

Spring Quarter Recap (Part 1)

This is what my school looks like

Time for an update!

We're already in Week 8 of the Spring Quarter, meaning there are only 2.5 weeks left of classes in my academic career.  The pace has been a lot better this quarter (meaning slower), since the AMR Consulting project is over and I'm only take three standard classes which seem to have minimal group work.  Extra time spent looking for jobs and preparing for interviews has been filling the void.

Recruiting: Ahh, if it wasn't for recruiting my life would be so stress free.  I had a few interviews between spring break and the first few weeks of the quarter, some of which seemed very encouraging.  Unfortunately nothing has turned into an offer, and opportunities through the school seemed to have died down.  Lately most of my job applications have been random resume drops on company websites, which, unfortunately, are much less likely to be looked at than through campus connections.  The spreadsheet I'm using to track what companies/positions I've applied for and their status tells me I completed my 50th application of the year this past week. So that's a nice little milestone.

It's really not the potential loss of income that's bothering me so much (although I guess that will become increasingly more important as student loans start coming due in the near future).   It's more the uncertainty of not knowing where I'll be living, when I'll be moving, or anything about my future that's so stressful.  There's also kinda a bad stigma in b-school about graduating without a job, but I don't let the embarrassment of being jobless bother me as much as I used to, and besides, it seems like a lot of classmates are still looking.  Either way, I try to stay as positive as I can.  Plus, I can look forward to all the extra beach time I will have this summer while all those suckers with new jobs are slaving away in the office. 

Classes: This has definitely my favorite quarter of classes at Anderson.  I decided to select highly rated professors and classes instead of enrolling in more boring finance classes that I felt obligated to take based on my career focus.  This quarter, I'm taking two real estate classes, both taught by professionals who have their own real estate development companies and actively work in the field.  Cases In Real Estate taught by Professor Sussman, a multiple award winning faculty member, is probably my favorite class I've taken at Anderson.  I'm also taking a Global Supply Chain class, which sounds like a boring title, but the professor is one of the most interesting I've had and the case discussions are interesting.  All three professors are hilarious and extremely knowledgeable in their fields, erasing any pain of  waking up for class before 7 am three times a week.

Student Investment Fund: We still have weekly meetings for the Student Investment Fund, but at this point we have now passed the portfolio management responsibilities to the new class of 1st years.  I'm pleased to announce that I was the top performing manager on our Growth Fund, and had the 2nd highest returns (out of 11 students) in the entire Fund.  I also selected the highest performing stock in the Growth Fund, none other than Madison Square Garden (MSG). Thank you Jeremy Lin. 

An update on all the fun happenings in my last quarter at Anderson in the next post. 

Spring Break - Day 6 (Death Valley)

Devil's Golf Course in Death Valley

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Wanting to get started on our longest hike earlier in the morning before the desert sun got too hot, we got up at 7:30.  After packing up the car and doing some last minute shopping at the Ranch General Store, we drove to the Golden Canyon trailhead. The first part of the hike was an easy, one mile trek through a canyon (a golden one, at that).  At the end of the trail it led to the Gower Gulch Loop trail, which I had read was much more interesting, although it would add another 3+ miles to our hike which were more strenuous than the first.  We had gotten through the Golden Canyon trail pretty quickly, so we decided to keep going.  The next trail was indeed a lot more interesting, with a steep climb up "Manly Beacon" which had great views of the area, lots of different colored canyon and mountain walls, and finally some rock scrambling near the end.  We finished everything up in around 2.5 hours, and besides the Manly Beacon climb, it really wasn't too strenuous.  It also helped that the weather was great in the morning, with a perfect hiking temperature and consistent refreshing breeze. 

Relaxing in between hikes on our patio at the Furnace Creek Ranch

We headed back to the Ranch for grub at around 11, but found out that the restaurants were done serving breakfast and wouldn't open until 11:30 for lunch.  Even though we were already checked out of our hotel room, we headed back to the porch behind what used to be our room, and played a game of backgammon (always a Schaaf-favorite).  By the time we had finished our game, the 49er Cafe was open so we headed there.  I found the one egg dish they had on the lunch menu and promptly ordered the omelet, unconcerned with what ingredients they had selected for it.  Service was a bit slow, but food was decent.  Probably better than anything we would have cooked up at our campsite, if our lodging plans hadn't gone astray last night.

Badwater Basin: There is no sand in this picture - everything is pure salt

After lunch we had a list of nearby attractions that we wanted to explore, which could all be reached by doing a loop of the nearby Badwater Road.  Devil's Golf Course was a 200 mile area of salt rocks.  Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America (282 feet below sea level), and is a seemingly endless field of pure table salt.  Natural Bridge was  pretty much what it sounded like -  a bridge-like structure naturally formed from the mountains.  Having been to Arches and some other national parks, Death Valley's version was a little underwhelming.  Finally, Artist Drive was a scenic drive through an area of multicolored mountains.

After one final quick stop at the Ranch we headed to Dante's View, which would be our last stop in Death Valley.  It was about 25 miles to the east, a small detour from the exit.  This spot is known for having the best and most ranging views of Death Valley.  Another fun fact: from this spot you can simultaneously view both the lowest (Badwater Basin) and the highest (Mt. Whitney) points in the United States.  We hung out here for a bit, but eventually it was time to make the last drive of our trip - back to LA.  The drive back went relatively smoothly, and we made it back to West LA around 9:30 pm.

Dante's View, overlooking Badwater Basin and the rest of the park.

At the onset of the trip, I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I had done almost all of the planning myself, but much of that had come in the last couple days before we left and a lot was still left unplanned when the trip started.  But overall, everything really exceeded my expectations and it was a really great vacation.  The only major problem we had was that our campsite was overbooked, but I think the upgraded lodging ended up making for a more pleasant experience.  We ate a lot of good food, stayed in some nice places, spent lots of time outdoors, got plenty of exercise, developed skiing skills, and really got to explore some great California spots.  PCH, Tahoe, and Death Valley had all been on my "California Bucket List" of places I wanted to experience before leaving the west coast, so I was happy I got to cross three off on this one trip.  [As a sidenote, I also crossed a 4th item off my list this spring break, by attending a live taping of Conan O'Brien show the very next day, which was very exciting for me].  Not to take away anything from my usual dude-only trips, but it was also memorable being me and Stephanie's first real vacation together.  If comparing it to past vacations, it might not have been the most unique trip I've ever been on (last year's spring break in Ghana may never be beat in that area), nor the most extravagant or wild, but it is definitely up there as one of the most overly enjoyable.

*** More complete photo gallery of the trip:  Spring Break 2012 ***

Spring Break - Day 5 (Leaving Lake Tahoe)

View of Lake Tahoe from the private beach behind our hotel

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Although today was mostly going to be a travel day, we wanted to keep a more strict schedule than we had earlier in the trip.  Our plan was to camp at Death Valley National Park this evening (almost a 7 hour drive away), but the problem was that none of their campsites took reservations.  Although I figured that a weekday wouldn't necessarily sellout, the earlier we got there the better, plus we wanted to be able to set up camp before the sun went down.

So we got up at 8:30 and spent some time packing and cleaning the townhouse.  Then we snapped some pictures of Lake Tahoe from the beach behind the resort before heading to breakfast.  Sprouts Cafe was the location of choice based on a recommendation from one of Steph's friends.  It was pretty tasty, somewhat healthy, brunch spot.  We made another stop for some more Lake Tahoe pictures from a higher elevation, before hitting the highway for our long trek to Death Valley.

My very own bakery in Bishop, CA

Around halfway through our drive we passed through the town of Bishop.  It logically seemed like a stopping point for lunch, but this became mandatory when I saw a billboard for Erick Schat's Bakkery.  Yes, I realize that there are quite a few spelling mistakes there, but that's the closest I've ever seen a restaurant named after me, so I found this very exciting and made it our lunch stop.  Erick Schat seemed to have trouble deciding what he wanted to sell, as the restaurant was a combo of a deli, a bakery, and a general store.  We each got ourselves a sandwich and a pastry, which were pretty good, so overall we thought it lived up to the strong name of Erick Schat.

The rest of the drive to Death Valley was pretty uneventful except for one key mistake with gas management.  With a little under half a tank left, I didn't fill up in the last town we passed through before getting to the park.  I realized later though that we weren't going to make it to the campsite  with what we had, and our GPS showed no stations before we got deep into the park.  Because of this I decided to backtrack almost 20  miles to go to the nearest gas station, which caused a 45 minute delay in total.  It's a good thing we got it when we did, though, because Death Valley is much larger than I anticipated.  It was around 100 miles of driving from the park entrance to the campsite, and when we got there, the gas station had the highest gas prices I had ever seen, at $5.90 a gallon for unleaded.

The poor gas decision notwithstanding, I had been thinking earlier in the day how everything had been going pretty perfectly throughout the trip.  No real mishaps or major curveballs.  Well that changed when I passed the sign that said that the campground we wanted to stay at was full.  This caused quite a scare because it was already getting late, and we had no idea where else we could stay.  There were some hotels in the park, but we made a couple calls and they were booked.  There were some other campgrounds, but we wouldn't know if they were full unless we drove to them, and they could be an hour or so away from our current location and from the attractions we wanted to see the next day.  This had the potential of derailing our Death Valley plans, and we started to wonder if we should just drive the five hours back to LA tonight.

Furnace Creek Ranch, our oasis in the desert

Even though the Furnace Creek Ranch (a hotel resort within the park, right near the campsite we were trying to stay at) had no vacancies for tonight when I was looking into lodging for the trip a week ago, we still gave them a call as a last resort.  And as luck would have it, they had a cancellation and now had one room available, for a fairly reasonable rate.  We booked it immediately, and were relieved that our Death Valley plans could be salvaged.  We had to spend a little more money than planned, and wouldn't have the camping experience we were looking for, but the Ranch was actually a pretty nice mini resort.  Several restaurants on site, a heated pool, outdoor games, and several other amenities which we didn't use.

Semi-sunset picture at Zabriskie Point

Before getting settled in the new room, we quickly headed to Zabriskie Point,which was a nearby lookout point known for having great views of sunrises and sunsets.  We ended up missing the sunset by several minutes, but it was still a cool view.  We finished off the night with dinner at the Corkscrew Saloon, and a few games in the room.