III place in the finals!

I just got back from NY and our team finished III in the final round of the Shipley case competition. We had a wonderful time in New York and met a lot of interesting people who are driving change in ethical, environmental and sustainability aspects from the capital markets. We also had the opportunity to meet interesting participants from peer BSchools. Overall it was a very productive experience. More to come soon.
Cheers!

Hurray! R1 Winners @ Shipley case competition!

My team won the Darden round of the Walter Shipley case competition this week and I registered my first case competition victory (this is the first one I participated in!!). I wanted to write about what I learnt through this very interesting competition as well as through working with a team of accomplished individuals. First - the problem was related to monetizing sustainability (i.e. what is the value add in $$ terms, of going green, for a company and its investors). This problem coincided with 1 week of ethics classes where we discussed environmental sustainability. Grounded in Milton Friendman's views, I made a lot of comments in the class on how any green initiative has to reflect in economic value add, for it to sustain. The research we did for Walter-Shipley reinforced this idea and amazed me by taking it to the next level - I grew a wealth of knowledge by reading actual depositions and testimonies of people who argue in favour of going green. We now can't wait to hear if we would be called for final rounds (only 3 winning teams across BSchools would be called for final rounds).

I also got to work with an amazing bunch of individuals. This was almost a "consulting" like experience and we reflected quite a bit on whether or not we enjoy the ambiguity around real world (time bound) problem solving. I was also able to introspect on the process we followed in solving this problem viz-a-viz the consulting process we learn in the consulting process elective. As much as we were not as disciplined, we did use the hypothesis driven approach. But it would have been interesting to do a work flow.

Other than this, the weather has been great at Charlottesville. I went to the natural bridge over the weekend and played some tennis. I need to start looking for a place to live in Atlanta over the summer.

Cheers!

Q4 Musings

Life is great... Q4 is considerably more enjoyable than Q1,2,3 because I feel like I have a lot more time in my hand. My desire to be uncompromising on academics left me with little time for myself, given that we had to balance internship search, etc along with rigorous case work. Plus the learning team exercise took 2-3 hours of my evenings everyday. In Q4, since most of us have secured internships and since most learning team groups do not meet (differing elective courses based on individual choice) I am all of a sudden finding time to go the the gym everyday, take a nap (the pleasures of life...) and participate in case competitions. I worked with a wonderful team to submit a solution for the Walter Shipley case competition yesterday. The interesting thing was that the team of 5 had one person each, going to each of the top 5 consulting firms. My biggest takeaway was the sheer complexity in dealing with the ambiguous "real world" situations - helped me appreciate the critical role that partners play in the consulting process by scoping the problem, anchoring the hypothesis and providing initial direction. While on this topic, I should point out that Darden is doing a fantastic job by allowing us to take "internship-focused" electives in Q4. I am taking two courses "Consulting process" and "Data Analysis and optimization" to help me succeed during the summer. I am also studying a fascinating course called "Valuation", relevant to IBankers. This is my favourite course of the qtr because of the energetic & challenging Prof. To finish up in the same spirit as how I started this blog life is great... and I am going golfing tomorrow for the first time this season. (Gota clean those clubs).
Cheers!

A challenge for prospectives

Q3 was, for me , quite stressful, in that i had to balance recruiting with academics. The biggest complication in the middle of all this was when I fell sick for a week. At Darden, it is all about being continually in the game - class contribution and building your fundamentals case by case is key to academic success. After the 1 week break (and I had to miss a few more classes), I felt really behind on decision analysis. I went to the professor and told him that I am solving cases by myself (in the process of catching up) and asked him if he could help me, should I get stuck in some. I got the most amazing and unexpected response - My professor mentioned that I should swing by his office, sit with him, read the case right there and solve them from scratch. Nowhere else, would someone be so dedicated as to offer to spend 3-4 hrs of his/her time consistently for a week, helping one student catch up. In most other places, faculty are so busy with research/administrative work that they only have the time to answer questions. I did manage to successfully catch up and enjoyed my time working one-on-one with this professor. As you consider your choice of school, I challenge you to find another school where you have this level of support network. Afterall we go to B-School to learn and I challenge you to find a place where the learning element is emphasized better than at Darden.
Cheers!

Summer Plans!!

Dear All:

I am sitting at a Darden Blogging Club Meeting right now and it is fascinating to see different people's motivation to Blog. I wanted to share some of the progress I have been afforded in the summer internship front. I was looking to do startegy consulting for the summer and Darden has turned out to be a wonderful choice. I had opportunities to interview with most top firms and had opportunities to visit their offices/experience their cultures. In the end I have decided to join Bain & Co for the summer. I am kicked about the opportunities I got and it was good to be in a place to pick and choose where I wanted to go. There are three things that I enjoyed during the process:

1. The consulting case prep process. I worked hard at it & have learnt a world. It was awesome to attack different business problems, 20 mins each and challenenge your own thinking. I am going to love doing this for a career.

2. Darden's support infrastructure for consulting was excellent. The Career development center (CDC) brought in a consultant to help us out with cases as well as professional advice and she was a great resource. In addition, the David Orhvall case session, Darden's CDC Consulting director/BD personnel and just my peers were all instrumental in the continued success we are all having at Darden.

3. Getting to know people from various firms and forming strong relationships with them. This, for a person like me who invests in "High Touch", turned out to be very valuable.

Otherwise, academics, as usual is very enjoyable and I am glad to have completed the summer internship search to get back into the academics game.
More to come later.

Cheers!

Looking back at Semester 1

One fourth of my Darden MBA is officially over. We finished our exams yesterday and have been chilling. And boy.. what a difference 4 months makes!! I feel like I've learnt more in these four months than I have learnt in 4 years at work. I wanted to reflect on some of my key experiences at Darden and highlight the happy moments.

• Among the happiest moments for a person like me is the opportunity to contribute in class. Darden thrives on knowledge sharing through class contribution. By the second quarter everyone in class knows what to expect from each other. It gives me immense gratification when I make a point in class and when someone comes up to me and says they found my insight useful. You build a reputation of some sort in class and people respect you for the quality of your comments.
• Exams are enjoyable, though very challenging at Darden. Professors truly test the level of depth to which one understand concepts. The honor code makes the process of writing exams very convenient (all exams are take home and in case format) and grading is very fair.
• Come end of the year, it is time to get to go full throttle on job search process. Companies started arriving on campus the moment the class of 2009 arrived (if they could attract talent any earlier, they would). First quarter was focused on doing self analysis type work to a great level of depth(I wasn't too fond of this), identifying one's career focus and then getting our resumes ready. All this happens while companies hold briefings and conduct office hours and we continue to prepare for 3 class cases per day. The learning team model at Darden really helps balancing academics and career search possible.
• I am blessed with a great learning team - some of use believe academics is one of the foremost reasons for us to come to Darden (yes, we all want jobs but want a great education too). Having worked with a team like this, I am hoping my future career path with allow me to work with such highly motivated people on challenging problems.
• The Career development center runs a parallel career search facilitation program in the I and II qtr (and beyond) and I have tremendously benefited from their initiatives. The CDC brought in an industry consultant to train people who are interested in consulting and it has turned out to be a great resource for students.
• Darden conducts a yearly Kaizen (process improvement) event in collaboration with Danaher, in one of its plants. I had the privilege of being picked by Darden faculty to participate in this one week program where I will get to work in a Danaher plant and solve a plant level manufacturing/operations/marketing problem using Lean/Six-sigma tools. I have had training in transactional process improvement at Seagate but the opportunity to work in a factory floor and make tangible improvements for one of the world's leading industrial companies is an opportunity I cannot pass up. The event is in January and I will write more about my experiences one I am back.
• Lastly, I am also organizing a little job trek to the DC area to visit a few consulting firms and experience what it is like to work in one. Over the break, while I wind down a little and recharge my batteries, we also need to prepare for the January recruiting season. Jan - Feb is peak recruiting time with interviews etc and it is going to be exciting.

Cheers!

First impressions at Darden

I was initiated into my new environment over the past 4 weeks and would like to give you a few highlights(prospective Dardenites might find this useful)
1. Academics: This is one of the primary reasons for me to pursue my current journey. Case method based learning, as much as I was well informed of it, had its share of surprises and revelations for me. What struck me most was the RELEVANCE to real life situations. Not only is the content relevant but what makes it more so is the class behavior that is fostered at Darden. Not only do I have to express my points but also be able to substantiate it in front of 60 smart people willing to counter it constructively. Communicating and convincing complicated ideas, as I figured in my recent operations class, is not an easy task. Being persuasive while thinking on one’s feet is a key skill Darden will help cultivate among all of us by the end of 2 years.
2. Community environment/collaboration: We’ve heard enough of this in every BSchool we have visited but I am starting to see the real meaning of this. There is a great sense of camaraderie among the Darden community. One incident comes to mind: We had a section norms discussions where we as students brainstorm ways to make the class environment more beneficial to everyone. Since grades are dependent on class contribution (not mere participation) one of the ideas tabled was to cede the opportunity to talk so that someone who hadn’t talked in class get the opportunity to do so. This impressed my marketing professor so much that he pointed out how he hadn’t seen such levels of collaboration in any other Bschool.
3. Faculty: They are simply top class. They are a special breed though – coz it takes a lot of skill to steer a class of 60 in one direction without doing a bulk of the talking themselves. More to come on this later.
4. Support structure: Lifelines at Darden truly make life smooth. Right from IT help desk to career services to registrar’s office to student affairs everyone ticks on the High Touch, High Tone, High Octane philosophy. This goes a long way in helping keep your mind on the cases, since you barely have time once the week starts going (with 3 cases per day and 2-3 hours of learning team).
More to come on specific learning and perspectives soon….
Cheers!