Winter Break 2011 - New York, New York (Dec 13-19)

Pre-Christmas dinner at the Schaafs

With the stress of meeting with corporate executives behind me, it was time for a full winter break of rest and relaxation (and a whole lot of airplane rides).  My winter break is basically cut into three segments: New York, Florida, and Taiwan, each portion lasting around a week.  The New York trip was intended to coincide with the UCLA DOJ trip mentioned in the previous post, and a chance to celebrate the holidays with family from the Northeast, and see some assorted friends in the area.  With Tara unable to travel for the holidays, the official Schaaf Christmas celebration became scheduled in the Sunshine State this year with the rest of the Floridian family.  And finally, vacation is always better with a little international travel, so the final leg of break brings me to Taiwan to experience Asia for the first time, and also *gulp* to meet the girlfriend's family for the first time.

Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree

Our winter break story picks up after the second company visit in NYC on Thursday the 14th. I opted to skip the 3rd visit and instead met up with Mom and Dad elsewhere in the city for a cultural evening that included the Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller Center, and Chipotle. I still don't enjoy modern art (nor the fact that the three of us were separately yelled at by museum security during our visit), but Christmas and burritos are still cool with me so it was a lovely evening.

Friday afternoon was the first "do nothing day" that I've had in months, and it was as glorious as I had hoped it would be. At night I caught up with the boys for some Dave and Busters and Cheesecake Factory action. As always it was just the right dose of good times and dope rhymes.

Saturday was Christmas festivities with the Muzykas and Quicks, and Dan even drove up from DC to join in on the fun. Sunday was featured by having some of the guys over to watch the Giants get trashed by the Redskins.  Monday was another mostly chill day, and Tuesday morning I was off to the airport again after a quick week in the Empire State.

Other highlights of the trip included five relaxing hot tub sessions, two winter jogs around Merrick Mountain with Hal, my mandatory stop for authentic New York pizza at La Piazza, plenty of tasty home cooked food, and experiencing the parents' new 3D TV.

New York City DOJ Trip

One of the offices we visited in Lower Manhattan

One of the biggest criticisms of Anderson and a factor in why it isn't ranked higher as a full-time MBA program is that such a large percentage of students end up accepting jobs on the west coast.  There is a combination of factors at play here.  Part of the reason is that students enjoy Southern California, and the west coast in general, and want to stay out there.  However, less students looking for jobs in other parts of the country, diminishes the number of companies from other parts of the country from recruiting on campus.  This limits the number of students from the east coast (who know they want to return there post-graduation from applying or enrolling), which could lower the overall level of student body.  A lower quality student body could further hurt the school reputation and impact companies from recruiting on campus.  Less companies recruiting on campus, means more students will end up accepting local jobs.  It's a sick cycle carousel.  This isn't a significant factor in many industries, but the one it does affect the most is in finance, where companies are most heavily concentrated in New York (and to a lower extent, Chicago, Boston, or Charlotte).

One of the goals of the career center to reverse these trends (and being spearheaded by the Anderson Investment Association) is to create stronger connections between Anderson and the investment community on the east coast.  So for the first time this year, Anderson had an Investment Management "Days on the Jobs" (DOJ) trip to New York.  DOJs have existed at Anderson in a variety of industries in a variety of cities, and involve a group of students visiting a number of firms in a day (or over a course of multiple days) to meet management and learn more about specific companies and industries.  It is supposed to be a more personal setting than when recruiters come to campus and go through a standard Power Point slide deck in one of our classrooms.  These aren't recruiting trips because the companies aren't necessarily hiring, but it is supposed to create relationships and increase students' education of the industry. 

Our trip was organized as a two day, six firm visit on the first Wednesday and Thursday of winter break (December 14th and 15th) and around 25 students signed up. I flew into JFK Airport late Tuesday night, and early Wednesday morning I hopped on the LIRR donning my best suit (not saying much) with business cards in hand.  On the first day we visited with Credit Suisse, Oaktree Capital, and Ares Capital.  The meetings were informative, but Credit Suisse was the only one who said they would be hiring over the next year.

The second day we met with SunAmerica in Jersey City and a small startup hedge fund, Loch Cliff.  I found these a lot more interesting than the previous day's visits.  SunAmerica had four people meet with us including the Chief Investment Officer, the head of trading, and two portfolio managers.  The hedge fund was the type of place I would most be interested in working at, and I enjoyed their talk the most because they were especially open and honest about their investment strategies.  Alas, neither of these companies are currently hiring.  There was a third visit with a fixed income shop scheduled, but I wasn't as interested so I didn't go there, and instead met up with my parents for a Christmasy fun evening in the city.

I left my resume with Credit Suisse, and have since contacted someone with SunAmerica, but I don't necessarily expect these visits to lead to my next job.  Still, it was an enjoyable trip.  The weather was good for a lot of walking around the city. I got to spend some time with some of the 2nd years that I don't normally hang out with, and it was nice meeting all the first years (they made up the majority of the group).  I'll probably be working with a lot of the 1st years on various AIA events and a bunch of them will be the new class of SIF, so its good to get to know them now.

Despite enjoying the trip, I was also relieved to be done with the visits, because in my mind that marked the unofficial start to my winter break vacation.

Life as a 2nd Year - Fall Quarter Recap

Tailgating for UCLA-Arizona State game in November

One interesting part of a program as short as the MBA Program is how different things change from the 1st Year to the 2nd Year.  As a 1st Year, everything seems new, you're just trying to keep up with everything being thrown at you, and soak in as much as possible.  As a 2nd Year, suddenly you're the "expert" on all things MBA and career-related, and are supposed to be a mentor for the new kiddies.  As early as this October I had freshly admitted 1st Year students sending me emails asking me if I could sit down with them for coffee and share my Anderson experiences and dish out career advice.  Of course, I find this funny because it was only a few short months earlier where I was still scrambling around wondering if I would ever find an internship.

There's a bigger range in how involved people are in their 2nd Year too, usually based on how soon they've locked down a full-time offer.  A lot of 2nd Years either start the quarter already with an offer from their summer employers in their pocket, or lock one down quickly during the busy fall recruiting period for the larger industries.  Once you get a full-time job, its easy to shift into relaxation mode for the rest of the program since grades don't really matter, professional clubs become less important, and time doesn't have to be spent on recruiting.  Unfortunately, I already knew my internship was not going to turn into an offer (the fund is too small), and there wouldn't be much on-campus recruiting in the fall. I had one interview a couple months ago, but that's the only company to come to campus that I was interested in this quarter. It's still early in the recruiting process for asset management so I'm not sweating it... yet.   Even without the recruiting efforts, my quarter was probably busier than most 2nd Years because I was still working part-time at Dalton Investments, to go along with my time-intensive roles with the Student Investment Fund, the new Anderson Investment Association, the AMR consulting project and a full-class load.
 

Photo booth at the Anderson Halloween Party

One of the more fun Anderson events of the quarter was the Halloween party.  It was fun, although it turned into a bit of a disaster for the school.  Some genius decided it would be a good idea to host a five-hour open bar event for 400 MBA students at the Petersen Automotive Museum.  We all knew something would go wrong eventually, and that proved correct as some 1st Year wanted to pose for a picture with a roped-off half million dollar motorcycle on display and knocked it over.  The Anderson School of Management is no longer welcome at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

The Kennedy crew in Milwaukee for Adam's wedding

The two highlights of the quarter (unrelated to anything MBA) were the two wedding weekends: Evan and Liz's in DC/Baltimore in October and Adam and Melissa's in Milwaukee in November.  I had a blast both weekends catching up with my college and high school friends, respectively, and getting to celebrate these momentous occasions with two of my best friends.  As part of the wedding party in each, I like to think that I really left my mark on both occasions.  As the first person to walk down the aisle at Evan's wedding, I lined up on the wrong side, and a month later I was one of the people who dropped Adam off his chair during Hava Nagila, causing him to split his lip open and bleed all over the dance floor.  Good times. 

Back in MBA-land, the end to the quarter was especially stressful.  Within a week, I was responsible for a 20 page real estate paper, an 8-essay question take-home behavioral finance final, a mid-point presentation for my AMR consulting project (30 minute group presentation followed by 30 mins Q&A), a full corporate valuation report (our group's report ended up being about 35 pages including exhibits), a 3-hour real estate final, and then finally the last day of my internship. 

Finishing all that work up was such a huge relief because of how busy the quarter had been and how much I was looking forward to winter break.  It's already been off to a good start with a Section A end of quarter party, a more routine exercise schedule, and trips to a West Hollywood comedy club, a UCLA Bruins basketball game, and a Sugarcult concert.  I'm even more excited  for the travel portion of my break starting up on Tuesday when I will be flying to New York for a week, spending a week in Florida, and then finishing the break up with a little over a week in Taiwan. 

Here's some more pictures of the Foo Fighters concert, Halloween party, a UCLA football tailgate and game, and the DC and Milwaukee weekends.   Fall 2012 pictures

The AMR Consulting Project

 

All University of California graduate programs have a final thesis-style requirement for graduation, and UCLA Anderson's version of this is AMR.  This Applied Management Research project is a two-quarter consulting assignment where teams of Anderson students match up with a specific client to help them overcome a real problem within their organization.  For the client it is a way to get cheap consulting help from business school students to help them with significant issues within their organization.  For the students, it is a way to utilize all of their business school skills in a real world situation with actual results.  In addition to full-time job recruiting, it is the most significant aspect of a student's 2nd year at Anderson.

We self-selected our teams back in the spring of last quarter.  I'm working in quite the diverse group of fellow classmates from Section A, two of whom I worked with on my original learning team last fall.  We have two students born in China, one in Korea, one in Sri Lanka, and one other asian from San Francisco.  As a big proponent of diversity, that leaves me as the only white boy.  One weakness of our team is that we're all on the more introverted side of Anderson students.  After several months as a team already, I've clearly the top 1 or 2 as far as team leader and outspokenness goes, which is something that I wouldn't be characterized in any of my previous Anderson team settings over the past year.  We've nicknamed ourselves Team Quietly Awesome.  Overall, it's a solid team and we all get along great.

We chose our client last spring, and since several of our team members were born and raised in developing countries, and since I had just returned from hanging out in African tribes over spring break, we decided to do our project with the Global Child Nutrition Foundation.  GCNF is a school feeding non-profit organization focused on fighting hunger in children in emerging market countries.  Despite having expertise in this area, and having set up school feeding programs in many countries throughout the globe, their problems are numerous, including poor relationships with their parent organization, an undefined marketing plan, and a severe lack of funding.  Our goal is that through our research of the industry and other similar organizations, to better identify their core competencies, identify potential partnerships, and create a strong marketing and communication plan to help increase fundraising, revenue generation and overall awareness (sorry for any business school jargon).

The project has been off to a bit of a slow start, however.  It took us months after we initially signed on for the project to realize this, but our main contact (Chip) who was initially setting up the project and funding it for us, didn't actually work for the client.  Chip was actually just a very passionate and significant donor in the child nutrition space who wanted us to help GCNF's cause.  This created problems, because when we started communicating with GCNF directly, they seemed unsure of who we were, what we were asking for, and did not want to send us any sensitive internal information.  Communication with the actual client was iffy at best, causing us to miss our first internal UCLA deadline to hand in a signed copy of our Letter of Understanding (basically a contract detailing what the client wants from us and what we plan to deliver) by a month and counting now.

The good news is that the communication issues seem to be behind us.  The executive committee of GCNF finally became aware of the entire situation and flew out this weekend from Baltimore to meet with our team.  It didn't make for a very relaxing Thanksgiving weekend, but it was a productive, two days of  meetings filled with lots of information sharing.  Following an all day meeting yesterday, we took them out to dinner last night, and had a follow up meeting this morning to finalize and have them finally sign our LOU.  We met with the three top executives in the organization, three people who had dedicated their entire lives to fighting hunger, which was inspirational and got me re-excited about the project.  We all wish this meeting had happened two months ago instead though, because the project deadline of late February is not very far off, and there is a lot of work left to be done with finals and winter break in the near future.  Hopefully we can build off this momentum from the weekend and start making some strong progress.


Mini-plug (since I'm trying to improve their marketing now).  Feel free to check out their website for more information and Like their page on Facebook!

http://www.gcnf.org/
http://www.facebook.com/GCNFoundation

The New Digs

Outside my new apartment, on busy Ohio Ave in West LA

It took awhile to fully settle into my new apartment, but I've been here for about a month and a half now so I thought I'd post a few pictures.  Since I was squatting in my friend's apartment over the summer, and living in furnished grad housing last year, it's nice having a place that is my own again, but it hasn't come without a handful of issues.  I like being in a different (although not as nice) neighborhood with new nearby restaurants to test out.  Overall, I've gotten used to the apartment and it's a fine place to live, but thought I'd share some of the negative and wacky aspects of this place, since those make for more interesting stories.

Living room

The biggest problem early on was with my landlord.  Albert is a sweet, old, foreign man with an endearing, raspy voice, but he also might be senile and he's not really good at running a property.  Communication is the biggest issue since he has no email address and rarely picks up his cell or office phones, and is very slow to return voice mail.  Before moving in, I was supposed to meet him to pick up my apartment keys and give him my security deposit.  I waited an hour for him, with him not answering his phone, before going home.  He later told me he was waiting for me at a different property that he thought I was renting.  I agreed to meet up with him again later that night, but when I got there, he said he didn't have the keys and we'd have to meet up the next day.  He also said we should draw up the lease and sign it, even though we had already done that a few days earlier. I've requested new screens on the door and windows b/c they were pretty ripped and also the mailbox is supposed to get a new key and lock.  But that was all 6 weeks ago, and the maintenance guy keeps saying he's very busy and will get to eventually.  I don't see that happening any time soon.

Haven't cooked as much as I'd like so far, but the kitchen has potential

Apparently the problems with the landlord go a lot further than lack of communication though.  A few weeks ago I was walking to my apartment when another tenant introduced herself to me and promptly said how sorry she was that I decided to live in the apartment.  This woman, who happened to have no teeth and later told me that she had brain damage in the past (seriously), went on to explain how she had an active lawsuit going against the landlord for charging too much rent for the amount of service he provides, and for being negligent.  She also said there are a lot of plumbing and other issues that I should prepare to see (I haven't had any major problems yet) and that I should sue him too.  So that was an encouraging conversation.

The master bedroom

In addition to the toothless woman, the other neighbors I met have been kinda interesting too.  There are approximately 15 Mexicans in the apartment next door (pretty sure their apartment is same size as mine), a couple shady people on the other side that are always taking their bikes out at all hours of the night, and then, of course, there is Crazy Carl downstairs (another old, possibly senile man).  Carl helped me move a couch when I came into the apartment, so I appreciate that, but then he wouldn't leave my apartment.  He was also especially proud to tell me that the landlord pays him $60 a month to organize the building garbage cans.  Also, every time I pass by his apartment there is a very strong odor that reminds me of a specific, illegal plant.  Possibly related to this, I see him wandering the alley behind our building and in other odd locations fairly often. 

The home office

And if meeting wacky people in my building wasn't enough, another effect of moving to this apartment has been to meet lots of even wackier people on the city buses.  Since I no longer am in walking distance to campus, and decided not to pony up the hundreds of dollars for a parking pass for the quarter, I take the bus to campus pretty often.  It's not too bad when I can find a seat b/c then I can do some reading before class.  However, if its during rush hour, then I'm usually standing between two people competing to see who has the most toxic levels of body odor. And that's a game where truly no one wins.

Summer Recap

The second of two boards I bought this summer

With tomorrow's "Re-orienation" for 2nd year students, summer break has officially come to an end.  The basic sentiments from my last post still hold.  Happy with how the internship went, enjoyed the schedule and work/life balance, and I felt I had a fun and relaxing summer overall.

Minus5 Ice Bar in Las Vegas

One of the highlights was definitely Reich's bachelor party weekend in Vegas a couple weeks ago.  I helped plan the weekend for the 12 dudes making the trip, which was a bit of work, but everyone had a really good time.  We stayed at MGM, rented a cabana at the Wet Republic pool party, went to an ice bar, had a nice dinner at Olives, watched opening weekend of the NFL season at the Hilton Sportsbook, and had lots of other good, clean, Vegas-related fun. 

The living room of my new apartment

 The other big recent news was that I moved into my new apartment in early September which was a bigger hassle than I was anticipating.  It's a one bedroom, about a mile away from where I was living before, just west of the 405.  The big change was that its the first unfurnished place I've lived in since moving to LA, which means I had to do a lot of furniture shopping.  I scoured Craigslist and made multiple trips to Target, over the past couple weeks but I'm finally just about done furnishing and setting up the apartment (still need to find myself a dresser though).  It looks a lot better now that it's set up and the furniture I got (even the used ones) is pretty nice, but its still an old building, on a noisy street, owned by a very unresponsive landlord and maintenance dude.  My hope is that if the post-MBA job search goes well that this is the last crappy apartment I'll ever live in again.  But for student living, the place is certainly liveable, and I like having the place as my own.

I re-read my post that I wrote before the summer started to see what I was expecting out of and saw that I wrote the following: "Although my main goal for the summer is to do a really awesome job at the internship (dedicate myself, make a good impression, and learn a ton, blah blah blah), there's been a list of other things I want to do. . . Things like spending more time exercising, reading, hiking, exploring LA, going to the beach, playing guitar again, catching up on tv/movies, or even trying out some new hobbies (more surfing perhaps?)"

As these things usually are, it was a mixed bag of what actually happened compared to the goals I had set out.  I think I did a good job at the internship.  For most of the summer, I exercised almost every day after work.  I read less than one book.  I made a few (but less than I wanted to) hiking and beach trips.  I think I explored LA (tried a lot of new restaurants, went to various new attractions and events).  Saw a bunch of new movies, and caught up on one tv series (Breaking Bad).  Obviously didn't play guitar once, but did start a new hobby of surfing, which I've stuck to.

Santa Monica Pier with Allen during his visit in August

One other thing I wrote in that blog was: "One little curveball with some of my plans the rest of the way though is that almost all of my hangout crew from the past couple quarters have scattered throughout the country for internships, so I'll probably have to branch out who I spend my time with."  

This ended up being true but worked out well.  I certainly hung out with the few of my closer Anderson friends that were based in LA for the summer less frequently the past few months.  However, I started dating a girl from school early in the summer, which has more than filled what could have been a void in the social part of my summer schedule.  About 3.5 months later it's definitely been going well, and here's hoping that the busyness of the school year ahead doesn't provide too much of a distraction and that we can all find a good balance in our schedules between school, recruiting and the social side of things.

Anyways, I really do consider it a great summer overall.  If there is any regret it's that I didn't take more time off from work so that I could travel more, but otherwise I don't think there's much of anything I would have changed about the past few months.  I've been kinda sad about the summer ending and getting back in to the school grind, but school was pretty fun last year too, so I just need to get used to the more jampacked schedule again.

The Summer of Eric Continues

The first of two surfboards I've bought this summer

 
I'm currently over two months removed from finals, and seven weeks into my internship.  The time has been flying by and overall the summer has really enjoyable.

I've been pleased with the internship experience thus far.  For whatever reason 8 am classes were unbearable, but I've quickly adjusted to arriving at the office at 7 am everyday and have actually embraced the schedule because I am usually back on the road by 4 pm.  (This is in sharp contrast to many other MBA interns, particularly those in investment banking that routinely work 120 hour weeks.)  I like the portfolio manager (Mark) that I'm working with, as he's a genuinely good guy who really wants to teach and see me succeed.  I've definitely learned a lot so far between talking to Mark, overhearing him interact with analysts and clients, and from all the reading and research I'm doing every day.  His style is a little different than the more traditional investment managers, so not everything will be transferable when I start doing full-time recruiting, but I know I'll be in a much better place than I was a few months ago.

My new office building in Santa Monica.  Not too shabby.

I think the one negative aspect of the job is that I don't feel like there I'm not really creating much output and its tough to tell how I'm doing.  Mark will casually mention stocks he's interested in, I'll research them, compile notes and data and pass it along.  But two days later he may no longer be interested in that stock, so I'll be looking into a few different ones.  This keeps the work varied, but makes it tougher to become as knowledgeable in any particular area or company.  He always says I'm doing a good job, but knowing what actual impact I'm making is hard to tell.  I guess I'm just used to a more structured work environment at Cambridge where I created specific products and had an easier time evaluating my work.  Overall, it still has been a very positive experience so far, and Mark has asked me to stay on after classes start up in the fall and work part-time, which I plan on doing.

Outside of the work hours, I've managed to stay busy, but in a totally different way from the school year.  This has been the most stress-free I've felt in a really long time, and I've been filling the past few weeks with a bunch of fun activities.  Because of the favorable work schedule, I've been able to fit a regular exercise regiment in right after work, which still gets me home in time for dinner, just as my other classmates are getting off from their jobs.

Some of the summer highlights so far:

- Skydiving weekend: As part of my buddy's 30th birthday celebration, a bunch of us rented a cabin  in the mountains at Big Bear Lake (2 hrs east of LA).  The cabin was nice with a hot tub, pool table, grills, outdoor patio, and large living and sleeping arrangements.  We also rented a boat on the lake one day.  But the highlight was my first ever skydiving experience.  It was something that has always been on "my list" so I couldn't pass up the opportunity, and it was the nerve-wracking, awesome experience I was hoping for.  Here's the video: Skydive Video

Hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa in Pennsylvania

- 4th of July Weekend:  Went back to the east coast for an extended weekend to celebrate Lindsay's wedding, which was quite lovely.  The weekend served as a nice family reunion, highlighted by a very exciting surprise appearance by Grandma and Grandpa.  While in NY I got to see some of the old crew, eat some authentic NY pizza, go pitch and putting, hit up the LI nightlife, and attend a 4th of July BBQ.

- San Diego weekend: Last week Evan received the honor of being the first person to come out and visit me since I've settled in LA.  It was a pretty jammed packed few days as we made appearances at several local eateries, the San Diego zoo, Mission Brewery, a San Diego Padres game, hiking trails around Griffith Park, and the LA Rising concert (Rise Against, Muse, and Rage Against the Machine).  Good times.  Rock on. 

- Surfing:  I decided to make this my new hobby for the summer after attending a lesson by UCLA Recreation around a month ago.  I currently have purchased two surfboards on Craigslist (one was the wrong size, so I'm trying to resell it now), a wetsuit and various other accessories.  I've gone out twice since then, and am trying to make it at least a weekly routine the rest of the way.

Showing some Mets pride in Dodgers Stadium

- New Apartment: Nothing exciting to report except that it's a lot more spacious than my old one and has a balcony.  I'm subleasing it from a friend over the summer while he's on the east coast, so I need to find a new place for the fall quarter in the next month or so.

- Other fun events: MBA Entertainment Mixer; brunch parties; the Getty; lots of movies; free passes to Paramount lot to see Captain America premiere and tour of the sets; Mets-Dodgers game; dined at several new LA restaurants.

There are still another six weeks until fall classes start up, so I'm hoping the positive momentum from the summer continues until then.