Monthly Archives: August 2009

Doing an MBA is like shopping in a grocery

Today Monday August 17th is the Day One of the whole Orientation Week to our Berkeley Haas MBA 2011 as new first-year MBA students.

Liz Rockett, the second year MBA student, and the President of Haas MBA Association (the student government organization for the full time MBA program) made a wonderful welcome speech.  She mentioned an interesting metaphor that “Doing an MBA is like shopping in a grocery”.

(Disclaimer:  below are not the exact words from Liz, but rather my own understanding, so it is open to correction).

Doing an MBA is like shopping in a grocery.

I just have a very general feeling that what I want to buy at the grocery.  For example, maybe some sweet fruits, but definitely not too sour, but I really have no idea that it should be apple or orange or something else.  So I just look around in the grocery, and maybe sample something that looks like tasteful.  And I am not alone, actually there are many friends who are shopping together with me.  Some of them have tried that kind of orange, and they told me it is actually nasty, oh my god, then I want to try something else…

Translated to MBA words:

I just have a very general feeling that what I want to do after MBA.  For example, maybe consulting, but definitely not that investment banking, but I really have no idea that it should be  the firm A or firm B or something else.  So I just look around in the business school, and maybe in the summer intern I try something that looks nice.  And I am not alone, actually there are many first and second year MBA students who are “exploring” together with me.  Some of them have tried that kind of job, and they told me it is actually nasty, oh my god, then I want to try something else…

At least for me, this is an interesting metaphor.  🙂

Update on Aug 24, 2009:

Liz, thank you so much for sharing that portion of your speech to me as a new post “Intentions & Conversations“.

[Photos] Alcatraz Island

As I said in last post, our super-supportive second year MBA students offered guided tour to the famous Alcatraz island on Saturday August 15th.

I knew the name of Alcatraz island even when I was in China, because of the 1996 action film The Rock (IMDB link and Wikipedia link) starring Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris, directed by Michael Bay (director of  Pearl Harbor and Transformers).  The Rock is one of the best and most well-known action films, and then was very popular in China.

The trip is great.  The most impressive thing is the tagline in the cell house:

Break the rules and you go to prison, break the prison rules and you go to Alcatraz.

This is so cool.

Alcatraz island on the Google Map:


View Larger Map

Photos…

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[Photos] San Francisco Farmers Market

Although the Orientation for our new MBA students will officially begin on Monday August 17, but our super-supportive second year students kindly offer guided tour to San Francisco’s Farmers Market and Alcatraz island on Saturday August 15th.

Here is my tour to the SF Farmers Market.   Thank you, Ari, Jacqueline, Akhil, Sagy and all other involved second year students!  I appreciate your efforts to make all this happen.

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[Thinking] Delegate vs. Get Your Hands Dirty

I am attending the Summer Workshop provided by the Haas School of Business of UC Berkeley for our new incoming MBA students.  The workshop is ongoing, and one of the components, the Quantitative Method camp helped us review the very basic quantitative concepts in a business setting.

An interesting point was that from Day One, the instructor talked about that the importance for us is to understand the fundamentals, and the rationale behind, but not the mathematics tricks, because it is very likely in the future we, supposed to be the future managers, will delegate the work to someone else.

I understand and agree with the instructor, but here in this post I would like to extend my thoughts to a question:

Delegate vs. Get your hands dirty (GYHD), which is better?

It depends, I would say.

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