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.

Summer Outlook

Santa Monica Beach

"Out the door just in time, head down the 405, gotta meet the new boss by 8 am... Well, I know what I've been told, you gotta work to feed the soul, but I can't do this all on my own, no I know, I'm no Superman." - Lazlo Bane, Superman (aka the theme song from Scrubs)

Yesterday was the first day of my summer internship and when I met the new boss at 8 am, he told me he would be out for the rest of the day.  He gave me a quick overview of some stocks he was thinking about and showed me some printouts, and then ushered me on to meet with HR and Compliance to go through fun administrative stuff.  Since Mark (the portfolio manager) and I are the only two that work on this specific fund at Dalton, there wasn't anyone else in the office to give me work to do, so needless to say it was a very easy going first day.  Day Two was probably a little more typical.  Mark and I share an office and he loves to talk about stocks, and his philosophies and strategies all day long.  He talks really fast and right now he seems to be way over my head and I find myself nodding and smiling a lot and trying my best not to sound like a clueless intern.  I'm sure eventually it'll click, but right now I'm just trying to keep up with the conversation, let alone do actual work.

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. Over the past few weeks, especially after I heard I'd be done with work for the day by 3ish, I've thought of a ton of other things that I want to get done. 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?).  I think just because free time was at such a premium the past 9 months during the school year, I seem to think that working 40-50 hour weeks is like a vacation.  I'll find out pretty quickly that isn't true, and I'm not going to be able to do a lot of those things I mentioned with any regularity.  But hopefully once I get my work routine down, I'll get to some of the fun stuff and have a relaxing, but still varied and fun summer.

So far its off to a good start, in my one week in between classes and the internship.  I went to our Section A rooftop party (a little too much fun), the beach, Universal Studios, a random Anderson party, the movies, Man Dinner at Spago (where Flava Flav was two tables away), Reich's new apartment, and had a really fun birthday celebration. (I also just recovered from a weekend of food poisoning, so I guess it hasn't all been perfect).

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.  That could end up being fun actually, and I'll probably try to see Reich a little bit more too.  As of now I don't have any huge summer travel/vacation plans, but I do have a confirmed visit from Evan at the end of July, a potential upcoming visit from Hal, and I will be heading to NY and PA for several days over 4th of July weekend to see family and celebrate Lindsay's wedding.  I'd also love to get up to San Francisco at some point this summer since I know a lot of people interning up there, I've never been, and it's on my To-Do list before I leave the west coast permanently.

Post-Finals Section A Rooftop Party

Following my mini-vacation between school and job last week, the start of the "real" part of the summer now reminds me a bit of the start of the school year last September.  It's a new beginning where I feel I have to make a good impression and prove myself again.  My social scene is going to be a little undefined.  I'm moving into a new apartment.  And I have a long list of things I want to get done, but not sure where I'm gonna fit it all in.  I think that makes it all pretty exciting, and right now I'm looking forward to the challenge and seeing what comes from the next three months.

Spring Quarter Recap

Section A Happy Hour at the Huntley Hotel Penthouse in Santa Monica

Just finished up my last two finals of the quarter today, which, aside from the group paper that I'll need to help finalize this weekend, signifies the end of the quarter and of my first full year as an MBA student.  I'll use this post to recap the spring quarter, and do a full-year reflection at a later time.

The classes again were a mixed bag.  8 am Strategy class was probably my least favorite of the year, but Organizational Behavior was definitely one of my favorite (entertaining professor, heavy on psychology, and a lot of in-class simulations and interactive activities).  I also took my first two electives: an excel modeling class (Decision Analysis) and Global Macroeconomics.

In the Student Investment Fund, we have moved from the research side to actually having the power to invest the $2 million portfolio how we see fit.  My role as one of the founding board members of the new school organization the Anderson Investment Association (AIA), which will be open for enrollment in the fall, has been pretty time intensive so far.  We're trying to coordinate some big, national events (a stock pitch competition and an investment conference, are our two biggest ideas).  To get it off the ground and make sure it's first year is a success a lot of planning has been necessary, and will continue into next year. 

As a quick follow-up to the Ghana Trip, in a previous post I had mentioned that we would be flying to Denver to meet with possible donors to pitch our business plan.  Supposedly we're still going to do this, but there has been difficulty with scheduling all the investors at once, so it's been postponed until the summer right now. 

So overall the interviewing and recruiting process definitely stands out the most from the past few months, but looking back I realize that I did a decent amount during the spring quarter, and it's been a fun couple of months.  For one, I felt a little more connected to a default group of classmates who have become my normal hang-out crew this quarter.  I felt that was missing a little bit in my first several months in LA as my social schedule was a little more scattered.  Not that one way is necessarily better or worse, but throughout my life (whether it was in NY, college, or at Cambridge) I've always been used to having the smaller, closer group of friends, rather than a larger, but less strong circle of friends.  Some of the social highlights of the quarter:

- My first Dodgers game
- First golf experiences in LA (two trips to driving range, and one 8-man, 9 hole round in Huntington Beach)
- Bunch of outdoorsy stuff.  Went on two hikes (Sandstone Peak, and Pacific Palisades - link to pictures below) and hung out at Griffith Observatory (we saw Saturn through their mega-telescope) with one of my friends from the Ghana trip.
- Attended my first Passover Seder, emceed brilliantly by Mr. Adam Reich
- West Hollywood BBQ/party
- Trip to Arcadia for Taiwanese food and bowling
- Meeting up with former UMD roomie, Adam Storch for mini golf
- Bunch of Anderson events (fashion show, cabaret, IFA mixer, international food festival, Section A happy hour, etc)
- Trip to casino in downtown LA
- Trip to San Diego with SIF to visit companies
- SIF Annual Alumni Banquet
- Volunteered for A-Days (admitted students weekend) at the career fair and a couple of panel discussions about the finance program at Anderson and some of the new initiatives we're trying to start up with the AIA

One final big social event is on deck for this quarter, our quarterly Section A post-finals party.  It's especially significant this quarter because since we've completed all our core courses now, Section A as a group of classmates will be a thing of the past.  Also, with much of our classmates scattering for internships throughout the world over the summer, and then many people studying abroad in the fall quarter, this is the last time we will all be together for a long time.  Should be a fun celebration.

Sandstone Peak Hike
(I have pictures from the other hike too, but they're not posted yet)

The End to the Internship Search

This is what someone with a job looks like.

It took longer than I would have liked, but finally my internship search has come to an end.

They told us on the first day of our ACT Team meeting (our career sessions led by 2nd years who interned in our specific industries the previous summer) way back in September that if we wanted an internship in Investment Management that a good chunk of us would have to sweat the process out.  A lot of 2nd years hadn't gotten their summer jobs until May or June.  Many more bowed out earlier than that to find positions in industries that had more openings.  They told us very frankly that if we didn't have the stomach to wait things out that we could save ourselves plenty of time and stress if we looked elsewhere earlier.  Even now I'm not sure what combination of dedication, stubbornness and overconfidence it was that made me to decide to stick with it from Day 1, but the warnings of my ACT coaches proved true in our class as well.  Our ACT Team of 30+ people was down to single digits by the winter quarter, and even some of those students came out of interest but were looking at other types of jobs too.  Even half of the students who had found a place on the Student Investment Fund, the most prestigious investment management activity at Anderson, had eventually decided to take internships in other financial verticals. 

So by the time mid-May had rolled around I felt that I was no closer to an internship than when I started looking in the fall.  It's not that I hadn't found opportunities or put in effort.  My resume looks pretty good on paper which helped turn my 30+ applications into 10-15 1st round interviews, a decent conversion rate compared to what I heard from peers.  There were a couple trips to Orange County, multiple 7 am interviews,  countless stock pitch revisions, a timed real estate modeling case study, and lots of close calls (I was down to the final two with both Oaktree Capital and Green Street Advisors and was pretty convinced I had those jobs), but alas nothing had turned into an offer.  As other students continued to solidify their summer plans, I was really starting to feel stressed out more than I had in recent memory and was wondering where exactly I had gone wrong.  Should I have diversified my job search a bit more earlier on?  Should I have put in more legitimate networking efforts in the fall and winter rather than assuming job openings would just materialize?  Or maybe most simply I had just misjudged my skill-set and wasn't actually cut out for this industry.

But whatever the case may be, or whatever mistakes I may have made along the way, the bottom line is that I did finally lock down an internship.  Even during the process, I drew similarities to my job search senior year at Maryland.  I was convinced I wasn't going to find a job then and thought I'd have to move back to Long Island jobless and stay at my parents' home while looking for jobs post-grad.  I ended up getting a late offer at Cambridge, which turned out to be a truly great experience for me and the rest is history.  The point being, that at that time I was very stressed and really doubted myself but looking back I can barely remember it, and it all worked out.  People who I talked to regularly over the past couple months know how down I was about the whole search, but in the grand scheme of things it'll end up being a blip on the map, and hopefully will work out just as well.

My office building this summer

Anyways, enough looking back.  The quick summary on what I will be doing in the future is that I'll be working in a research analyst role for a sub-fund of Dalton Investments, a hedge fund just a couple miles from my apartment in Los Angeles.  The fund itself is a really small long-short domestic equity fund which will have two employees this summer (me and the portfolio manager), although the company/office have several others working on other funds.  I don't know all the details quite yet, but I'll probably be starting up shortly after finals in early or mid June and working around 40 hours a week (getting home by 3:30!) throughout the summer.  Working with just one other guy and sharing an office with him will be a big change of pace from my previous experience at Cambridge, but the portfolio manager seems super knowledgeable about investing and I think it'll be a really good learning experience.  We'll see how things go, but I'm definitely glad to have finally cleared this significant hurdle of my first year of business school.